mprisonment, but, at the expiration
of that time, by embracing the Roman Catholic faith, obtained at once
his freedom and a command in the Imperial army in Silesia. In the battle
of Sweidnitz, May 30, 1642, he was wounded and taken prisoner.
Torstenson rescued him with difficulty from the vengeance of the Swedish
soldiers; and the next day he died of his wounds.

The story that he had murdered the King had at one time taken such a
hold upon the Swedes that no historian of that nation could venture to
treat it as a fable. But a full examination of the facts by Forster
shows upon how slight a foundation the charge has rested. The motive of
personal animosity arising out of a blow given by the King to the Duke
is destroyed by the fact that the quarrel in which the insult is
supposed to have been given was not with Duke Francis, but with his
brother. The corroboration of his guilt, that he wore the device of
Wallenstein's officers in the field, a green scarf, is annihilated by
the answer that Wallenstein's officers did not wear green scarfs, but
crimson. And the only direct evidence of his crime falls to pieces
against counter-evidence of still greater weight. Even the Swedes
themselves, if they still retain the convictions of their forefathers,
have grown tolerant of opposite convictions; and Geijer has not scrupled
to intimate, with tolerable plainness, that he considers the charge
against the Duke of Saxe Lauenburg unproved.

Gustavus' body was brought on a powder-wagon to the hamlet of Meuchen,
where it was placed for the night in the church, before the altar. The
next day it was carried to the schoolmaster's house, until he, being
joiner of the village also, constructed the simple shell in which it was
conveyed to Weissenfels. There the body was embalmed by the King's
apothecary, Caspar, who counted in it nine wounds. The heart, which was
uncommonly large, was preserved by the Queen in a golden casket. A
trooper, who had been wounded at the King's side, who remained at
Meuchen until his wound was healed, assisted by some peasants, rolled a
large stone toward the spot where he fell. They were unable, however, to
bring the stone, now called the "Swede's Stone," to the exact spot, from
which it stands some thirty or forty paces distant.

The death of Gustavus Adolphus cast a gloom over the whole of Europe.
Even foes could lament the fall of so noble an enemy. To his subjects,
to his allies, to the bondmen who looked to