"The King: 'Not to the Elector, but certainly to the city of Dantzic, for it was to my advantage.'
"After this he returned again to the subject of the Duke of Pomerania, saying that the good prince had been well content with him. He would have restored him Stralsund, Rügen, Usedom, Wollin, and all the rest. The Duke had desired that his Majesty should be his father. 'But I,' said his Majesty, 'answered, I would rather be his son, as he has no children.'
"Thereupon I answered: 'Yes, Kingly Majesty, that might very well be, if his Electoral Highness could only maintain the law of primogeniture in Pomerania.'
"The King: 'Yes, that may be very easily maintained by my loving cousin; but he must defend it, and not, like Esau, sell it for a mess of pottage.'"
Thus far goes the narrative.
When the great King, the lord of half Germany, sank into the dust in battle, the wail of lamentation broke forth in all the Protestant territories. Funeral services were performed in the towns and country, endless elegies poured forth; even the enemy concealed their joy under a manly sympathy, which at that time was seldom accorded to opponents.
His death was considered as a national misfortune; the deliverer and the saviour of the people was lost: we also, whether Catholic or Protestant, should not only regard with heartfelt sympathy that pure hero life, which in the prime of its strength was so suddenly extinguished, but we should also contemplate with the deepest gratitude the influence of the King upon the German war; for he had, in a time of desperation, defended that which Luther had attained for the whole nation,--freedom of soul, and capacity for the development of national strength against the most fearful enemy of the German national existence, against a crushing despotism in Church and State. But we must also observe concerning him, that the fate which he met strikes us as more peculiarly tragical because he drew it upon himself. History makes us acquainted with some characters which, after mighty deeds, are suddenly struck down at the height of their fame by a rapid change of fate in the midst of powerful but unaccomplished conception. Such heroes have a popular mixture of qualities of soul, which make them the privileged favourites both of posterity and art. Such was the case with the almost fabulous hero, the great Alexander; and thus it was, in a more limited sphere, with smaller means, with the Swedish King Gustavus Adolphus: but however accidental the fever or the bullet which carried them off may appear to us, their destruction arose from their own greatness. The conqueror of Asia had become an Asiatic despot before he died; the deliverer of Germany was shot by an Imperial mercenary when he was rushing through the dust of the battle-field, not like a General of the seventeenth century, but like a "Viking" of the olden time, who fought their battles in wild excitement under the protection of the battle-maidens of Odin. Often already had the incautious heroism of the King led him into rash daring and useless danger, and long had his faithful adherents feared that he would at some time meet his end thus. It was a wise policy which led him to establish himself on the German coast, in order to secure to his Sweden the dominion of the Baltic, also to draw the sea-ports to his interests, and to desire firm points of support on the Oder, Elbe, and Weser. But what duty did he owe to the German Empire, whose own Emperor wished to suppress the national life and popular development by Roman money, and calling thither hordes of soldiers from half Europe? When Gustavus Adolphus conceived the idea of making himself lord paramount over the German Princes, when he proceeded to form an hereditary power for himself in Germany, he was no longer the great cotemporary of Richelieu, but again the descendant of an old Norman chieftain. It is possible that the power of the man, during a longer life and after many victories, might have brought under his sway, with or without an Imperial throne, the greater part of Germany; but that Sweden, the foundation of his power, was not in a position to exercise a lasting supremacy over Germany, a small distant country over a larger, must have been obvious even then to the weakest politician. The King might still for some years longer have sacrificed the peasant sons of Sweden on the German battle-fields, and corrupted the Swedish nobility by German plunder; but he could not build up an enduring dynasty for both people, whatever his genius might have accomplished for a time. Men of ordinary powers would soon have restored things to their natural condition. We are therefore of opinion, that he died just when his lofty desires were beginning to contend against a fundamental law of the new state life, and we may assume that even a longer life of success would not have made much alteration in our position. When he died, his natural heir in Germany was already twelve years of age: this heir was Frederic William, the great Elector of Brandenburg. Gustavus Adolphus was the last but one of the northern princes to whom the old Scandinavian expedition to the south proved fatal. Charles XII., dying before Friedrichshall, was the last.
As the funeral lament died away in Germany, there began a reaction in public opinion against the foreigners. The Catholic faction had, during the whole war, the doubtful advantage that their quarrels and private dissensions were not brought to light by the press, but their Protestant opponents were broken into parties. It was more especially after Saxony, in 1635, had endeavoured, at Prague, to make an inglorious reconciliation with the Emperor by a separate peace, that there arose both in the north and south an Imperial and a Swedish party, and much weak dissension besides. The French endeavoured, but without success, to gain by means of the press, adherents on the Rhine. Bernhard von Weimar found warm admirers, who foresaw in him the successor of Gustavus Adolphus. He possessed great talents as a General, and some of the winning qualities of the great King; but he was only in one respect his successor, that he carried on in the most dangerous way the too great political daring of his instructor. He wished to make use of, and at the same time deceive, a foreign power which was greater and stronger than himself: it was an unequal struggle, and he, as the weaker party, was soon put aside by France, and these foreigners possessed themselves of his political legacy, his fortress and his army.
While love and hate were thus divided in this gloomy period, there arose among the better portion of the nation a characteristic patriotism, which the German people, in the midst of their great need and sufferings, opposed to the egotistic interests of the rulers who helped to destroy each other. There no longer existed any party to which a wise man could from his heart wish success. Differences of faith had diminished, and the soldiers complained, without scruple, of confession. Then began for the first time a new political system, called a constitution founded on reason, in opposition to the reckless selfishness of the rulers. But even this constitutional principle, the basis of which was the advantage of the whole, as it was then understood, was still without greatness of conception or any deep moral purport; and there was no repugnance to the employment of the worst means in carrying it out. Still it was an advance. Even the peaceful citizen, after eighteen years of troubles, was obliged to take an interest in this political system. The character of the ruling powers and their interests became everywhere a subject of deliberation. Every one was terrified out of his provincial narrowness of mind, and had urgent reasons for interesting themselves in the fate of foreign countries. Thousands of fugitives, the most powerful members of the community, had scattered themselves over distant provinces, the same misfortunes had befallen them also. Thus, amidst the horrors of war, was developed in Germany a feeling of distrust of their rulers, a longing for a better national condition. It was a great but dearly bought advance of public opinion; it may be discerned more particularly in the political literature after the peace of Prague. A specimen of this tendency is here introduced from a small flying-sheet, which appeared in 1636 under the title of 'The German Brutus: that is, a letter thrown before the public.'
"You Swedes complain that Germany is ungrateful, that it drives you away with violence, that the good deeds, done with God's power by Joshua, are forgotten, the alliance no longer thought of, in short, that you are less valued, like an old worn-out horse, or decrepit hound, both of which, when no longer useful, get such thanks as the world gives. Thus you are treated with great injustice before God and the world.