deavoured to force him into a confederation with the
Bohemians. One of them, seizing him by the button of his doublet,
demanded, in a tone of menace, "Ferdinand, wilt thou sign it?"

Who would not be pardoned had he wavered in this frightful situation?
Yet Ferdinand still remembered the dignity of a Roman emperor. No
alternative seemed left to him but an immediate flight or submission;
laymen urged him to the one, priests to the other. If he abandoned the
city, it would fall into the enemy's hands; with Vienna, Austria was
lost; with Austria, the imperial throne. Ferdinand abandoned not his
capital, and as little would he hear of conditions.

The Archduke is still engaged in altercation with the deputed barons,
when all at once a sound of trumpets is heard in the palace square.
Terror and astonishment take possession of all present; a fearful report
pervades the palace; one deputy after another disappears. Many of the
nobility and the citizens hastily take refuge in the camp of Thurn.
This sudden change is effected by a regiment of Dampierre's cuirassiers,
who at that moment marched into the city to defend the Archduke. A body
of infantry soon followed; reassured by their appearance, several of the
Roman Catholic citizens, and even the students themselves, take up arms.
A report which arrived just at the same time from Bohemia made his
deliverance complete. The Flemish general, Bucquoi, had totally
defeated Count Mansfeld at Budweiss, and was marching upon Prague. The
Bohemians hastily broke up their camp before Vienna to protect their own
capital.

And now also the passes were free which the enemy had taken possession
of, in order to obstruct Ferdinand's progress to his coronation at
Frankfort. If the accession to the imperial throne was important for
the plans of the King of Hungary, it was of still greater consequence at
the present moment, when his nomination as Emperor would afford the most
unsuspicious and decisive proof of the dignity of his person, and of the
justice of his cause, while, at the same time, it would give him a hope
of support from the Empire. But the same cabal which opposed him in his
hereditary dominions, laboured also to counteract him in his canvass for
the imperial dignity. No Austrian prince, they maintained, ought to
ascend the throne; least of all Ferdinand, the bigoted persecutor of
their religion, the slave of Spain and of the Jesuits. To prevent this,
the crown had been offered, even