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The Thirty Years War — Volume 05 by Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller
page 57 of 64 (89%)
hostilities. Maximilian detested the Spaniards, and could never forgive
their having opposed his application for the Palatine Electorate. Could
it then be supposed that, in order to gratify this hated power, he would
see his people sacrificed, his country laid waste, and himself ruined,
when, by a cessation of hostilities, he could at once emancipate himself
from all these distresses, procure for his people the repose of which
they stood so much in need, and perhaps accelerate the arrival of a
general peace? All doubts disappeared; and, convinced of the necessity
of this step, he thought he should sufficiently discharge his
obligations to the Emperor, if he invited him also to share in the
benefit of the truce.

The deputies of the three crowns, and of Bavaria, met at Ulm, to adjust
the conditions. But it was soon evident, from the instructions of the
Austrian ambassadors that it was not the intention of the Emperor to
second the conclusion of a truce, but if possible to prevent it. It was
obviously necessary to make the terms acceptable to the Swedes, who had
the advantage, and had more to hope than to fear from the continuance of
the war. They were the conquerors; and yet the Emperor presumed to
dictate to them. In the first transports of their indignation, the
Swedish ambassadors were on the point of leaving the congress, and the
French were obliged to have recourse to threats in order to detain them.

The good intentions of the Elector of Bavaria, to include the Emperor in
the benefit of the truce, having been thus rendered unavailing, he felt
himself justified in providing for his own safety. However hard were
the conditions on which the truce was to be purchased, he did not
hesitate to accept it on any terms. He agreed to the Swedes extending
their quarters in Suabia and Franconia, and to his own being restricted
to Bavaria and the Palatinate. The conquests which he had made in
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