No sooner did he raise his standard, than it was resorted to by the unprincipled, the rapacious, and the needy from all parts of the empire. But Wallenstein now resolved to pursue, exclusively, his own selfish interests, and directed all his aims to independent sovereignty. When his forces were united with those of Maximilian, he found himself at the head of sixty thousand men. Then really commenced the severity of the contest, for Wallenstein was now stronger than Gustavus. Nevertheless, the heroic Swede offered to give his rival battle at Nuremburg, which was declined. He then attacked his camp, but was repulsed with loss. At last, the two generals met on the plains of Lutzen, in Saxony, 1632. During the whole course of the war, two such generals had not been pitted against each other, nor had so much been staked on the chance of a battle. Victory declared for the troops of Gustavus, but the heroic leader himself was killed, in the fulness of his glory. It was his fortune to die with an untarnished fame. "By an untimely death," says Schiller, "his protecting genius rescued him from the inevitable fate of man--that of forgetting moderation in the intoxication of success, and justice in the plenitude of power. It may be doubted whether, had he lived longer, he would still have deserved the tears which Germany shed over his grave, or maintained his title to the admiration with which posterity regards him,--as the first and only just conqueror that the world has produced. But it was no longer the benefactor of Germany who fell at Lutzen; the beneficent part of his career Gustavus Adolphus had already terminated; and now the greatest service which he could render to the liberties of Germany was--to die. The all-engrossing power of an individual was at an end; the equivocal assistance of an over-powerful protector gave place to a more noble self-exertion on the part of the estates; and those who formerly were the mere instruments of his aggrandizement, now began to work for themselves. The ambition of the Swedish monarch aspired, unquestionably, to establish a power within Germany inconsistent with the liberties of the estates. His aim was the imperial crown; and this dignity, supported by his power, would be liable to more abuse than had ever been feared from the house of Austria. His sudden disappearance secured the liberties of Germany, and saved his own reputation, while it probably spared him the mortification of seeing his own allies in arms against him, and all the fruits of his victories torn from him by a disadvantageous peace."