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.