The war languished for a few months, the Imperialists were defeated after a hard fought cavalry battle by Turenne and the Swedes, and the country was overrun by the latter, whose horsemen raided almost up to Innsbruck.  But all parties were growing weary of the conflict, which had now lasted thirty years.  It had inflicted incredible suffering upon all who were concerned in it, and had produced no important results whatever, except that it had prevented the entire crushing out of Protestantism in Germany, and the peace conference for the first time began to work in earnest.

At last, after Bavaria had been wasted from end to end, and the duke driven into exile, peace was concluded, the emperor yielding every point demanded by France, as he saw plainly enough that unless he did so Turenne’s army would be at the gates of Vienna at the commencement of the next campaign, and in October, 1648, hostilities ceased.  Turenne went to Munster and acted as the French negotiator in arranging the peace, to which his genius, steadfast determination, and the expenditure of his own means, by which he had kept the army on foot, had so largely contributed.

CHAPTER XX:  AN OLD SCORE

Hector was not present with the army during the last three campaigns of the war.  He had joined Turenne in April, 1646, and shared in the general disappointment when the order was received that the army was not to cross the Rhine, because Bavaria had promised to remain neutral if it did not do so.

“I cannot think,” the marshal said to him a day or two after he received the order —­ for he had always maintained the same pleasant relations with Hector that had subsisted between them in Italy, and placed the most entire confidence in the discretion of the young colonel —­ “how Mazarin can allow Bavaria to hoodwink him.  Indeed, I cannot believe that he is really deceived; he must know that that crafty old fox the duke is not to be relied upon in any way, and that he is merely trying to save time.  ’Tis hard indeed to see us powerless to move, now that the season for campaigning is just opening, and when by advancing we could cut the Bavarians off from Austria.  As to besieging Luxembourg, it would be but a waste of time, for before we could open a trench we should hear that the duke has again declared against us, and we should have to hurry back with all speed.”

It was, indeed, but a fortnight later that the news came that the Bavarians were on the move to join the Imperialists, and a fortnight later it was known that the two armies had effected their junction.  Turenne at once collected his troops from the towns and villages where they were placed, and marched to Mayence.