“After an interval of two days, when the soldiers were fatigued, if not sated, with devastation and slaughter, and when the flames had begun to subside, Tilly entered the town in triumph.  To make room for his passage the streets were cleared and six thousand carcasses thrown into the Elbe.  He ordered the pillage to cease, pardoned the scanty remnant of the inhabitants, who had taken refuge in the cathedral, and, surrounded by flames and carnage, had remained three days without food or refreshment, under all the terrors of impending fate.  After hearing a Te Deum in the midst of military pomp, he paraded the streets; and even though his unfeeling heart seemed touched with the horrors of the scene, he could not refrain from the savage exultation of boasting to the emperor, and comparing the assault of Magdeburg to the sack of Troy and of Jerusalem.”

This terrible display of vengeance struck the Protestants with consternation.  The extreme Catholic party were exultant, and their chiefs met in a general assembly and passed resolutions approving the course of the emperor and pledging him their support.  Ferdinand was much encouraged by this change in his favor, and declared his intention of silencing all Protestant voices.  He recalled an army of twenty-four thousand men from Italy.  They crossed the Alps, and, as they marched through the frontier States of the empire, they spread devastation and ruin through all the Protestant territories, exacting enormous contributions, compelling the Protestant princes, on oath, to renounce the Protestant league, and to unite with the Catholic confederacy against the King of Sweden.

In the meantime, Gustavus pressed forward into the duchy of Mecklenburg, driving the imperial troops before him.  Tilly retired into the territory of the Elector of Saxony, robbing, burning and destroying everywhere.  Uniting his force with the army from Italy he ravaged the country, resistlessly advancing even to Leipsic, and capturing the city.  The elector, quite unable to cope with so powerful a foe, retired with his troops to the Swedish camp, where he entered into an offensive and defensive alliance with Gustavus.  The Swedish army, thus reinforced, hastened to the relief of Leipsic, and arrived before its walls the very day on which the city surrendered.

Tilly, with the pride of a conqueror, advanced to meet them.  The two armies, about equal in numbers, and commanded by their renowned captains, met but a few miles from the city.  Neither of the commanders had ever before suffered a defeat.  It was a duel, in which one or the other must fall.  Every soldier in the ranks felt the sublimity of the hour.  For some time there was marching and countermarching—­the planting of batteries, and the gathering of squadrons and solid columns, each one hesitating to strike the first blow.  At last the signal was given by the discharge of three pieces of cannon from one of the batteries of Tilly.  Instantly a thunder peal