Wallenstein had been roused from his first sleep, by the report of a
musket which had accidentally gone off, and had sprung to the window to
call the guard.  At the same moment, he heard, from the adjoining
building, the shrieks of the Countesses Terzky and Kinsky, who had just
learnt the violent fate of their husbands.  Ere he had time to reflect
on these terrible events, Deveroux, with the other murderers, was in his
chamber.  The Duke was in his shirt, as he had leaped out of bed, and
leaning on a table near the window.  "Art thou the villain," cried
Deveroux to him, "who intends to deliver up the Emperor's troops to the
enemy, and to tear the crown from the head of his Majesty? Now thou must
die!"  He paused for a few moments, as if expecting an answer; but scorn
and astonishment kept Wallenstein silent.  Throwing his arms wide open,
he received in his breast, the deadly blow of the halberds, and without
uttering a groan, fell weltering in his blood.

The next day, an express arrived from the Duke of Lauenburg, announcing
his approach.  The messenger was secured, and another in Wallenstein's
livery despatched to the Duke, to decoy him into Egra.  The stratagem
succeeded, and Francis Albert fell into the hands of the enemy.  Duke
Bernard of Weimar, who was on his march towards Egra, was nearly sharing
the same fate.  Fortunately, he heard of Wallenstein's death in time to
save himself by a retreat.  Ferdinand shed a tear over the fate of his
general, and ordered three thousand masses to be said for his soul at
Vienna; but, at the same time, he did not forget to reward his assassins
with gold chains, chamberlains' keys, dignities, and estates.

Thus did Wallenstein, at the age of fifty, terminate his active and
extraordinary life.  To ambition, he owed both his greatness and his
ruin; with all his failings, he possessed great and admirable qualities,
and had he kept himself within due bounds, he would have lived and died
without an equal.  The virtues of the ruler and of the hero, prudence,
justice, firmness, and courage, are strikingly prominent features in his
character; but he wanted the gentler virtues of the man, which adorn the
hero, and make the ruler beloved.  Terror was the talisman with which he
worked; extreme in his punishments as in his rewards, he knew how to
keep alive the zeal of his followers, while no general of ancient or
modern times could boast of being obeyed with equal alacrity.
Submission to his will was more prized by him than bravery; for, if the
soldiers work by the latter, it is on the former that the general
depends.  He continually kept up the obedience of his troops by
capricious orders, and profusely rewarded the readiness to obey even in
trifles; because he looked rather to the act itself, than its object.
He once issued a decree, with the penalty of death on disobedience, that
none but red sashes should be worn in the army.  A captain of horse no
sooner heard the order, than pulling off his gold-embroidered sash, he
trampled it under foot; Wallenstein, on being informed of the
circumstance, promoted him on the spot to the rank of Colonel.  His
comprehensive glance was always directed to the whole, and in all his
apparent caprice, he steadily kept in view some general scope or
bearing.  The robberies committed by the soldiers in a friendly country,
had led to the severest orders against marauders; and all who should be
caught thieving, were threatened with the halter.  Wallenstein himself
having met a straggler in the open country upon the field, commanded him
to be seized without trial, as a transgressor of the law, and in his
usual voice of thunder, exclaimed, "Hang the fellow," against which no
opposition ever availed.  The soldier pleaded and proved his innocence,
but the irrevocable sentence had gone forth.  "Hang then innocent,"
cried the inexorable Wallenstein, "the guilty will have then more reason
to tremble."  Preparations were already making to execute the sentence,
when the soldier, who gave himself up for lost, formed the desperate
resolution of not dying without revenge.  He fell furiously upon his
judge, but was overpowered by numbers, and disarmed before he could
fulfil his design.  "Now let him go," said the Duke, "it will excite
sufficient terror."

His munificence was supported by an immense income, which was estimated
at three millions of florins yearly, without reckoning the enormous sums
which he raised under the name of contributions.  His liberality and
clearness of understanding, raised him above the religious prejudices of
his age; and the Jesuits never forgave him for having seen through their
system, and for regarding the pope as nothing more than a bishop of
Rome.

But as no one ever yet came to a fortunate end who quarrelled with the
Church, Wallenstein also must augment the number of its victims.
Through the intrigues of monks, he lost at Ratisbon the command of the
army, and at Egra his life; by the same arts, perhaps, he lost what was
of more consequence, his honourable name and good repute with posterity.

For in justice it must be admitted, that the pens which have traced the
history of this extraordinary man are not untinged with partiality, and
that the treachery of the duke, and his designs upon the throne of
Bohemia, rest not so much upon proven facts, as upon probable
conjecture.  No documents have yet been brought to light, which disclose
with historical certainty the secret motives of his conduct; and among
all his public and well attested actions, there is, perhaps, not one
which could not have had an innocent end.  Many of his most obnoxious
measures proved nothing but the earnest wish he entertained for peace;
most of the others are explained and justified by the well-founded
distrust he entertained of the Emperor, and the excusable wish of
maintaining his own importance.  It is true, that his conduct towards
the Elector of Bavaria looks too like an unworthy revenge, and the
dictates of an implacable spirit; but still, none of his actions perhaps
warrant us in holding his treason to be proved.  If necessity and
despair at last forced him to deserve the sentence which had been
pronounced against him while innocent, still this, if true, will not
justify that sentence.  Thus Wallenstein fell, not because he was a
rebel, but he became a rebel because he fell.  Unfortunate in life that
he made a victorious party his enemy, and still more unfortunate in
death, that the same party survived him and wrote his history.