Such a peace would doubtless have been highly disagreeable to adventurers like Bernhard of Weimar, but it would have given the Protestants of Germany all that they could reasonably expect to gain, and would have given the House of Austria one last chance of taking up the championship of national interests against foreign aggression.
§ 2. Opposition to Wallenstein.
Such last chances, in real life, are seldom taken hold of for any useful purpose. If Ferdinand had had it in him to rise up in the position of a national ruler, he would have been in that position long before. His confessor, Father Lamormain, declared against the concessions which Wallenstein advised, and the word of Father Lamormain had always great weight with Ferdinand.
§ 3. General disapprobation of his proceedings.
Even if Wallenstein had been single-minded he would have had difficulty in meeting such opposition. But Wallenstein was not single-minded. He proposed to meet the difficulties which were made to the restitution of the Palatinate by giving the Palatinate, largely increased by neighbouring territories, to himself. He would thus have a fair recompense for the loss of Mecklenburg, which he could no longer hope to regain. He fancied that the solution would satisfy everybody. In fact, it displeased everybody. Even the Spaniards, who had been on his side in 1632 were alienated by it. They were especially jealous of the rise of any strong power near the line of march between Italy and the Spanish Netherlands.
§ 4. Wallenstein and the Swedes.
The greater the difficulties in Wallenstein's way the more determined he was to overcome them. Regarding himself, with some justification, as a power in Germany, he fancied himself able to act at the head of his army as if he were himself the ruler of an independent state. If the Emperor listened to Spain and his confessor in 1633 as he had listened to Maximilian and his confessor in 1630, Wallenstein might step forward and force upon him a wiser policy. Before the end of August he had opened a communication with Oxenstjerna, asking for his assistance in effecting a reasonable compromise, whether the Emperor liked it or not. But he had forgotten that such a proposal as this can only be accepted where there is confidence in him who makes it. In Wallenstein—the man of many schemes and many intrigues—no man had any confidence whatever. Oxenstjerna cautiously replied that if Wallenstein meant to join him against the Emperor he had better be the first to begin the attack.
§ 5. Was he in earnest?
Whether Wallenstein seriously meant at this time to move against the emperor it is impossible to say. He loved to enter upon plots in every direction without binding himself to any; but he was plainly in a dangerous position. How could he impose peace upon all parties when no single party trusted him?