The sudden
approach of Count Thurn had amazed and discomfited him, and he knew not
in what direction to look for aid. Cooped up in his capital, he could
hold no communication with foreign powers, and his own subjects
manifested no disposition to come to his rescue. The evidences of
popular discontent, even in the city, were every hour becoming more
manifest, and the unhappy sovereign was in hourly expectation of an
insurrection in the streets.
The surrender of Vienna involved the loss of Austria. With the loss of
Austria vanished all hopes of the imperial crown. Bohemia, Austria, and
the German scepter gone, Hungary would soon follow; and then, his own
Styrian territories, sustained and aided by their successful neighbors,
would speedily discard his sway. Ferdinand saw it all clearly, and was
in an agony of despair. He has confided to his confessor the emotions
which, in those terrible hours, agitated his soul. It is affecting to
read the declaration, indicative as it is that the most cruel and
perfidious man may be sincere and even conscientious in his cruelty and
crime. To his Jesuitical confessor, Bartholomew Valerius, he said,
"I have reflected on the dangers which threaten me and my family, both
at home and abroad.
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