ienna failed not to encourage him by high-sounding promises. While
Sigismund lost one place after another in Livonia, Courland, and
Prussia, he saw his ally in Germany advancing from conquest after
conquest to unlimited power. No wonder then if his aversion to peace
kept pace with his losses. The vehemence with which he nourished his
chimerical hopes blinded him to the artful policy of his confederates,
who at his expense were keeping the Swedish hero employed, in order to
overturn, without opposition, the liberties of Germany, and then to
seize on the exhausted North as an easy conquest. One circumstance
which had not been calculated on--the magnanimity of Gustavus--
overthrew this deceitful policy. An eight years' war in Poland, so far
from exhausting the power of Sweden, had only served to mature the
military genius of Gustavus, to inure the Swedish army to warfare, and
insensibly to perfect that system of tactics by which they were
afterwards to perform such wonders in Germany.

After this necessary digression on the existing circumstances of Europe,
I now resume the thread of my history.

Ferdinand had regained his dominions, but had not indemnified himself
for the expenses of recovering them. A sum of forty millions of
florins, which the confiscations in Bohemia and Moravia had produced,
would have sufficed to reimburse both himself and his allies; but the
Jesuits and his favourites soon squandered this sum, large as it was.
Maximilian, Duke of Bavaria, to whose victorious arm, principally, the
Emperor owed the recovery of his dominions; who, in the service of
religion and the Emperor, had sacrificed his near relation, had the
strongest claims on his gratitude; and moreover, in a treaty which,
before the war, the duke had concluded with the Emperor, he had
expressly stipulated for the reimbursement of all expenses. Ferdinand
felt the full weight of the obligation imposed upon him by this treaty
and by these services, but he was not disposed to discharge it at his
own cost. His purpose was to bestow a brilliant reward upon the duke,
but without detriment to himself. How could this be done better than at
the expense of the unfortunate prince who, by his revolt, had given the
Emperor a right to punish him, and whose offences might be painted in
colours strong enough to justify the most violent measures under the
appearance of law. That, then, Maximilian may be rewarded, Frederick
must be further persecuted and total