Every thing being matured, early in April, 1552, Maurice
suddenly appeared before the gates of Augsburg with an army of
twenty-five thousand men. At the same time he issued a declaration that
he had taken up arms to prevent the destruction of the Protestant
religion, to defend the liberties of Germany which the emperor had
infringed, and to rescue his relatives from their long and unjust
imprisonment. The King of France and other princes issued similar
declarations. The smothered disaffection with the emperor instantly
blazed forth all over the German empire. The cause of Maurice was
extremely popular. The Protestants in a mass, and many others, flocked
to his standard. As by magic and in a day, all was changed. The imperial
towns Augsburg, Nuremberg and others, threw open their gates joyfully to
Maurice. Whole provinces rushed to his standard. He was everywhere
received as the guardian of civil and religious liberty. The ejected
Protestant rulers and magistrates were reinstated, the Protestant
churches opened, the Protestant preachers restored. In one month the
Protestant party was predominant in the German empire, and the Catholic
party either neutral or secretly favoring one who was humbling that
haughty emperor whom even the Catholics had begun to fear.
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