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If Vienna is, then, one of the centres of human knowledge and refinement, and if there are a thousand wonderful things to behold within its walls, yet it contains nothing more remarkable than the old Emperor.
"Are you," exclaimed one of the conspirators, "the traitor who is going to deliver the imperial troops to the enemy, and tear the crown from the head of the emperor?" Wallenstein was perfectly helpless. He looked around, and deigned no reply. "You must die," continued the conspirator, advancing with his halberd. Wallenstein, in silence, opened his arms to receive the blow.
He was confided to the care of the wise Doctor Esquirol, who, in spite of his great skill, could not effect a cure. I went to see him often. He had no more violent attacks; but his brain was diseased, and though he heard and understood perfectly, his replies were those of a real madman. He never lost his devotion to the Emperor, spoke of him incessantly, and imagined himself on duty near him.
Martin Nunez, "Caballero de Toledo," was sent on a special embassy to the Pope to acquaint the Pontiff at first hand of all that happened, and the success which had attended the arms of the Emperor, and also to thank his Holiness for the assistance which he had rendered by sending the Papal galleys.
All these arrangements, however, only increased the general discontent. The people saw that the preparations which the emperor was making were wholly inadequate to the crisis, and that no efficient military operations could ever come from them.
But in spite of this, Don Quixote did not leave off discharging a continuous rain of cuts, slashes, downstrokes, and backstrokes, and at length, in less than the space of two credos, he brought the whole show to the ground, with all its fittings and figures shivered and knocked to pieces, King Marsilio badly wounded, and the Emperor Charlemagne with his crown and head split in two.
About four o'clock in the afternoon, when the two armies were pressing each other on every side, and thousands of cannon caused the earth to tremble, the Emperor exclaimed, "If this continues two hours longer, the French army will be left standing on the plain alone."
At the end of three hours of boding suspense, they came back and said the Emperor would receive us at noon the next day would send carriages for us would hear the address in person. The Grand Duke Michael had sent to invite us to his palace also.
Then the delighted soldiers would say to each other, "You see the Emperor knows us all; he knows our families; he knows where we have served." What a stimulus was this to soldiers, whom he succeeded in persuading that they would all some time or other become Marshals of the Empire!
His Majesty remained but a short while in that town, as the information that he there received set his mind at rest as to the result of the campaign. The grand duchess received the Emperor with a grace which enchanted him, and their conversation lasted nearly half an hour. On leaving, his Majesty said to the Prince de Neuchatel, "That is an astonishing woman; she has the intellect of a great man."
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