ose of France that they cannot be wholly separated,
each in some measure forming the complement of the other. The
command-in-chief of the German army was given to Maurice of Saxony--an
able general, full of resource, daring and dauntless in the field,
crafty and cautious in the cabinet as Charles himself. Throughout the
winter he secretly assembled troops, preparing to take the field early
in the spring, yet adroitly concealing his projects, and lulling into
security "the most artful monarch in Europe."

The Emperor had left Augsburg for Innspruck that he might at the same
time watch over the council and the affairs of Germany and Italy. He was
suffering from asthma, gout, and other maladies, chiefly brought on by
his excesses at table, and rendered incurable by his inability to put
any restraint on his immoderate appetite.

In his retreat some rumors had reached him that the movements of Maurice
of Saxony were suspicious, and that he was raising troops in
Transylvania. But he gave little heed to this, or to warnings pressed on
him by some of his partisans. For Maurice, to serve his own ambitious
views, had in fact, though professing the reformed faith, aided Charles
to acquire that power and ascendency, that almost unlimited despotism in
Germany he now proposed to overthrow. For his services he had obtained
the larger part of the electoral dominions of his unfortunate relative,
John Frederick of Saxony, whose release, as also that of the Landgrave,
now formed part of his programme for delivering Germany from her fetters
ere the imperial despot could--as Maurice saw he was prepared to
do--rivet them on her. To renew the Protestant league, to place himself
at its head and defy the despot, was more congenial to Maurice's
restless, aspiring mind than to play the part of his lieutenant.

The winter passed away without any serious suspicions on Charles' part.
To throw him off his guard Maurice had undertaken to subdue the
Magdeburgers. The leniency of his conduct toward "those rebels" with
whom he was secretly in league did at last excite a doubt in Charles'
mind. Maurice was summoned to Innspruck, ostensibly to confer with him
respecting the liberation of his father-in-law, the Landgrave of Hesse.
But Maurice was far too wary to put himself in his power, and readily
found some plausible excuse to delay his journey from time to time. But
when, early in March, at the head of twenty-five thousand men,
thoroughly equipped, he