CHAPTER X.

PRAGUE AND THE TCHÈQUES-WINDISCHGRATZ.

It is difficult for a foreigner in Prague to think, at first, of anything save Waldstein and the Thirty Years' War. The whole of this wonderful man's life was so wonderful, his plans so gigantic and so original, the services rendered by him so immense, that one is almost inclined to regard his falling off from his allegiance less as an act of rebellion, than as the indomitable yearning of a great spirit toward greatness. The native element of Waldstein was rule-command over his fellow-men, just as it was Napoleon's; and I have met but too few people who render to themselves a just account of the Duke of Friedland's greatness. To him, a comparatively obscure Bohemian nobleman, of exceedingly ancient

race and considerable fortune, but not otherwise distinguished, Austria owes her first step towards supremacy, towards that preponderance, which later caused the idea of empire, long before it was so in words, to be in fact embodied in the House of Hapsburg.

Until Waldstein enters upon the scene, the Emperor has no army serving exclusively under his orders, but he is dependant upon the Elector of Bavaria, and upon the combined forces of the German Catholic League; and Tilly, to whom Ferdinand owes so much, is a Bavarian. Austria may resist, may repress, but she cannot conquer; she is dependant, and acts only in the name of the Empire; she does not stand alone.

But Waldstein comes, and offers to take charge, between himself and his friends, of the maintenance of an independent army, provided the Emperor will authorize him to extend its numbers to fifty thousand men! The plan was called chimerical; but the permission was granted, and unlimited powers accorded to its inventor; and in a very few months, twenty thousand men were assembled, at the head of which force Waldstein crossed the Austrian frontier. he reappeared with thirty thousand in Lower Saxony; and so the army grew and grew, till its numbers were far above a hundred thousand men. And now the Emperor had an army of his own, an army that

Soon

could defy the best; and Austria was no longer forced to accede to all the desires of the Elector of Bavaria.

Reigning Princes even now flocked round the Duke of Friedland's banner, and brought regiments to swell the force to which the Emperor gave only his name. The restless Condottier, Mansfeldt, and his romantic companion, Christian of Brunswick, were both defeated. Waldstein pursued Mansfeldt into Hungary, where, though he could not prevent his junction with the Transylvanian, Bethlen Gabor, his presence so impressed the latter, that a peace was concluded with the Emperor, and the eternal wanderer, Mansfeldt, was sent once more upon the "warpath," and told to address himself to the Venetian Republic. On his road thither he died, and his grave is in Dalmatia, the land whose love of war and of adventure defies to the last the inroads of the spirit of modern times.

Step by step uprose the Austrian name towards supremacy, and the eagle of Hapsburg spread its pinions as though to overshadow all around it and beneath; and that was Waldstein's plan. The greatness, the preponderance of Austria over the rest; the almost omnipotence of the Emperor, the Cæsar, the successor of Charlemagne. All the great minds of Germany have been pre-occupied by this idea, at different periods of history; but the giant who is to

realize this thought of ages is not yet there. Waldstein's plan was too great for his master's conception, and those who hated and feared had but too well comprehended him.

Ferdinand II. sighed for the nomination of his son, the King of Hungary, as his successor; and he, who would have bent all Germany to his throne's foot, was sacrificed!

Then came rebellion; anger, rage, the lawless overflowings of an ambition, whose lawful vent was hemmed; disloyalty, contempt of right; and the dark death by traitor's hand, making punisher and punished equal.

It must have been a strange and stirring day, that day when at Regensburg, Friedland came unbidden to the Diet held by his worst enemies.

Just two hundred years later, another Emperor a Ferdinand, too, like his ancestor was surrounded by the foes of his best servant; but from the walls of Innsbruck, Jellacic, who would not be a Waldstein, came triumphant.

What might have been Friedland's end, if he too had vanquished his enemies? Who shall say? But resentment at ingratitude, and the unquenchable thirst for power, made of him a rebel; and in the splendour wherewith he decked disgrace were born the first thoughts of treason.

Treason-it is such an ugly word to link to such

a fame! Heaven be praised, that he was treacherously murdered! for I cannot help admiring Waldstein, and would not have him altogether isolated in his guilt.

Here in Prague, beneath the shadow of the Hradschin, where later the last crowned descendant of Saint Lewis relinquished life, was laid the scene of the Duke of Friedland's protestation by magnificence, against those who had attempted to undo him. More than a king's splendour surrounded him in disgrace. Six archways led into the palace court, to gain which space, a hundred dwellings had been pulled down; gentlemen of the noblest race struggled for the honour of serving him, and there were chamberlains of the Imperial household who sent back the golden key to the sovereign, in order to accept a similar office from the Duke of Friedland. Sixty pages were attached to him; in his ante-chambers watched constantly fifty men of his body guard ; his head steward was a personage of the highest rank, and at his table covers for a hundred guests were daily laid. A hundred carriages, drawn each by four or six horses, followed him, with fifty more for the saddle, whenever he undertook a journey. Six barons and six knights were ever in attendance on his person, in order that no wish should remain one second unfulfilled; and around this vast centre of human