PREPARES THE GROUND.
Father Lamormain had sent for Nigel. This in itself was a relief from the daily dispiriting round. Nothing could have been duller than the court of Vienna six weeks or more after Breitenfeld. The news which, despite a disunited Germany in arms, came with frequency to Father Lamormain through his far-reaching Jesuit agencies as well as by the military messengers, was to the effect that Gustavus was besieging Würzburg, and that the Elector of Saxony, John George, having recovered Leipzig, was now clearing his province of Lusatia of the Imperial troops, sent there under Rudolf von Tiefbach, before he set out to the conquest of Bohemia.
Nigel himself was fretting. For by this time Tilly had gathered an army and had reached the Rhine. Nigel would fain have been with him. He found employment in Vienna helping to enrol and drill the troops that were being enlisted with a view to resisting the threatened invasion of Bohemia by the Saxon Elector, but men came in slowly. And over every one and every action brooded a spirit of depression. The outlook since the crushing defeat of Breitenfeld was not a pleasant one. There was a vague belief that Tilly on the Rhine, Pappenheim, who had managed to reach Westphalia and raise men there, the Spaniards in Lorraine and the Rhenish Palatinate, and Maximilian in Bavaria, would in some way or other be too much for Gustavus. But there was no good news.
"How goes the recruiting, colonel?"
"Slowly! There is no spring in it, Father!"
"Ah! How many men do you think we shall have to meet John George?"
"That depends on Bohemia!"
"And Bohemia means?"
"Wallenstein!"
"I notice," said Father Lamormain, "that you do not pronounce the name in the same tone of admiration you once used to?"