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His avarice prevented him from making any division of his booty with those gentlemen who constituted the military courts, thus neglecting what was customary at Vienna: and in this originated the prosecution to which he fell a victim. Scarcely had he entered Austria with his troops before he found an opportunity of reaping laurels. The French army was defeated at Lintz.
By this time the emperor's son Joseph was by the electoral college chosen king of the Romans; but his interest sustained a rude shock in the death of the gallant duke of Lorraine, who was suddenly seized with a quin-sey at a small village near Lintz, and expired, not without suspicion of having fallen a sacrifice to the fears of the French king, against whom he had formerly declared war as a sovereign prince unjustly expelled from his territories.
In July, the elector of Bavaria being joined by the French forces tinder mareschal Broglio, surprised the Imperial city of Passau, upon the Danube; and entering Upper Austria at the head of seventy thousand men, took possession of Lintz, where he received the homage of the states of that country.
At the head of his Swedes, bidding defiance to the severity of the weather, he reached the mouth of the Iser, which he passed in the presence of the Bavarian General Werth, who was encamped on that river. Passau and Lintz trembled for their fate; the terrified Emperor redoubled his entreaties and commands to Wallenstein, to hasten with all speed to the relief of the hard-pressed Bavarians.
But he could only repeat what the sergeant had already told me; adding, there were several men slightly wounded in the squadrons, for they had been engaged twice within the week. The gates closed! and we were on the highroad. As day was breaking, we came up with a strong detachment of the cavalry of the Guard proceeding to join Bessiere's division at Lintz.
Count Segur, besieged in Lintz, was obliged to capitulate on the 26th of January, and the day after the Elector of Bavaria had received the imperial crown at Frankfurt, February 12, 1742 the Austrians, under the orders of General Khevenhuller, obtained possession of Munich, which was given up to pillage.
The example which had been set at Lintz, was universally followed; imprecations were showered on the traitor, and he was forsaken by all the armies. At last, when even Piccolomini returned no more, the mist fell from Wallenstein's eyes, and in consternation he awoke from his dream. Yet his faith in the truth of astrology, and in the fidelity of the army was unshaken.
Two great Russian and Prussian armies, 220,000 men strong, of whom 35,000 were cavalry, were in Silesia between Schweidnitz and the Oder; 40,000 Austrians were stationed at Lintz, and the main Austrian army of about 140,000 men was concentrated in Prague; finally, a short distance behind this front line of 560,000 combatants, an enormous body of reserves was ready to march.
I have just spoken of a general's promotion, and will close with the story of a simple drummer, but a drummer renowned throughout the army as a perfect buffoon, in fact, the famous Rata, to whom General Gros, as we shall see; was deeply attached. The army marched on Lintz during the campaign of 1809.
Surrendering the administration of affairs, both in Austria and over the estates of the empire, to Maximilian, he retired, with his wife and three young daughters, to Lintz, where he devoted himself, at the close of his long and turbulent reign, to the peaceful pursuits of rural life. A cancerous affection of the leg rendered it necessary for him to submit to the amputation of the limb.
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