Two of the leading assassins hastened to Vienna to inform the emperor of the deed they had perpetrated.  It was welcome intelligence to Ferdinand, and he finished the work they had thus commenced by hanging and beheading the adherents of Wallenstein without mercy.  The assassins were abundantly rewarded.  The emperor still prosecuted the war with perseverance, which no disasters could check.  Gradually the imperial arms gained the ascendency.  The Protestant princes became divided and jealous of each other.  The emperor succeeded in detaching from the alliance, and negotiating a separate peace with the powerful Electors of Saxony and Brandenburg.  He then assembled a diet at Ratisbon on the 15th of September, 1639, and without much difficulty secured the election of his son Ferdinand to succeed him on the imperial throne.  The emperor presided at this diet in person.  He was overjoyed in the attainment of this great object of his ambition.  He was now fifty-nine years of age, in very feeble health, and quite worn out by a life of incessant anxiety and toil.  He returned to Vienna, and in four months, on the 15th of February, 1637, breathed his last.

For eighteen years Germany had now been distracted by war.  The contending parties were so exasperated against each other, that no human wisdom could, at once, allay the strife.  The new king and emperor, Ferdinand III., wished for peace, but he could not obtain it on terms which he thought honorable to the memory of his father.  The Swedish army was still in Germany, aided by the Protestant princes of the empire, and especially by the armies and the treasury of France.  The thunders of battle were daily heard, and the paths of these hostile bands were ever marked by smoldering ruins and blood.  Vials of woe were emptied, unsurpassed in apocalyptic vision.  In the siege of Brisac, the wretched inhabitants were reduced to such a condition of starvation, that a guard was stationed at the burying ground to prevent them from devouring the putrid carcasses of the dead.

For eleven years history gives us nothing but a dismal record of weary marches, sieges, battles, bombardments, conflagrations, and all the unimaginable brutalities and miseries of war.  The war had now raged for thirty years.  Hundreds of thousands of lives had been lost.  Millions of property had been destroyed, and other millions squandered in the arts of destruction.  Nearly all Europe had been drawn into this vortex of fury and misery.  All parties were now weary.  And yet seven years of negotiation had been employed before they could consent to meet to consult upon a general peace.  At length congresses of the belligerent powers were assembled in two important towns of Westphalia, Osnabruck and Munster.  Ridiculous disputes upon etiquette rendered this division of the congress necessary.  The ministers of electors enjoyed the title of excellency.  The ministers of princes claimed the same title.  Months were employed in settling that question.  Then a difficulty arose as to the seats at table, who were entitled to the positions of honor.  After long debate, this point was settled by having a large round table made, to which there could be no head and no foot.