CHAPTER XIX.

FERDINAND II., FERDINAND III.  AND LEOPOLD I

From 1632 to 1662.

Character of Gustavus Adolphus.—­Exultation of the Imperialists.—­
Disgrace of Wallenstein.—­He Offers to Surrender to the Swedish
General.—­His Assassination.—­Ferdinand’s Son Elected as his
Successor.—­Death of Ferdinand.—­Close of the War.—­Abdication of
Christina.—­Charles Gustavus.—­Preparations for War.—­Death Of Ferdinand
III.—­Leopold Elected Emperor.—­Hostilities Renewed.—­Death of Charles
Gustavus.—­Diet Convened.—­Invasion of the Turks.

The battle of Lutzen was fought on the 16th of November, 1632.  It is generally estimated that the imperial troops were forty thousand, while there were but twenty-seven thousand in the Swedish army.  Gustavus was then thirty-eight years of age.  A plain stone still marks the spot where he fell.  A few poplars surround it, and it has become a shrine visited by strangers from all parts of the world.  Traces of his blood are still shown in the town-house of Lutzen, where his body was transported from the fatal field.  The buff waistcoat he wore in the engagement, pierced by the bullet which took his life, is preserved as a trophy in the arsenal at Vienna.

Both as a monarch and a man, this illustrious sovereign stands in the highest ranks.  He possessed the peculiar power of winning the ardent attachment of all who approached him.  Every soldier in the army was devoted to him, for he shared all their toils and perils.  “Cities,” he said, “are not taken by keeping in tents; as scholars, in the absence of the master, shut their books, so my troops, without my presence, would slacken their blows.”

In very many traits of character he resembled Napoleon, combining in his genius the highest attributes of the statesman and the soldier.  Like Napoleon he was a predestinarian, believing himself the child of Providence, raised for the accomplishment of great purposes, and that the decrees of his destiny no foresight could thwart.  When urged to spare his person in the peril of battle, he replied,

“My hour is written in heaven, and can not be reversed.”

Frederic, the unhappy Elector of the Palatine, and King of Bohemia, who had been driven from his realms by Ferdinand, and who, for some years, had been wandering from court to court in Europe, seeking an asylum, was waiting at Mentz, trusting that the success of the armies of Gustavus would soon restore him to his throne.  The death of the king shattered all his hopes.  Disappointment and chagrin threw him into a fever of which he died, in the thirty-ninth year of his age.  The death of Gustavus was considered by the Catholics such a singular interposition of Providence in their behalf, that, regardless of the disaster of Lutzen, they surrendered themselves to the most enthusiastic joy.  Even in Spain bells were rung, and the streets