But Marshal Schomberg was fighting against Spain; he did not allow himself to be stopped by a treaty concluded with the emperor, and speedily found himself in front of Casale. The two armies were already face to face, when there was seen coming out of the intrenchments an officer in the pope’s service, who waved a white handkerchief; he came up to Marshal Schomberg, and was recognized as Captain Giulio Mazarini, often employed on the nuncio’s affairs; he brought word that the Spaniards would consent to leave the city, if, at the same time, the French would evacuate the citadel. Spinola was no longer there to make a good stand before the place; he had died a month previously, complaining loudly that his honor had been filched from him; and, determined not to yield up his last breath in a town which would have to be abandoned, he had caused himself to be removed out of Casale, to go and die in a neighboring castle. Casale evacuated, the cardinal broke out violently against the negotiators of Ratisbonne, saying that they had exceeded their powers, and declaring that the king regarded the treaty as null and void; there was accordingly a recommencement of negotiations with the emperor as well as the Spaniards. It was only in the month of September, 1631, that the states of Savoy and Mantua were finally evacuated by the hostile troops. Pignerol had been given up to the new Duke of Savoy, but a secret agreement had been entered into between that prince and France: French soldiers remained concealed in Pignerol; and they retook possession of the place in the name of the king, who had purchased the town and its territory, to secure himself a passage into Italy. The Spaniards, when they bad news of it, made so much the more uproar as they had the less foreseen it, and as it cut the thread of all the enterprises they were meditating against Christendom. The affairs of the emperor in Germany were in too bad a state for him to rekindle war, and France kept Pignerol. The house of Austria, in fact, was threatened mortally. For two years Cardinal Richelieu had been laboring to carry war into its very heart. Ferdinand II. had displeased many electors of the empire, who began to be disquieted at the advances made by his power. “It is, no doubt, a great affliction for the Christian commonwealth,” said the cardinal to the German princes, “that none but the Protestants should dare to oppose such pernicious designs; they must not be aided in their enterprises against religion, but they must be made use of in order to maintain Germany in the enjoyment of her liberties.” The Catholic league in Germany, habitually allied as it was with the house of Austria, did not offer any leader to take the field against her. The King of Denmark, after a long period of hostilities, had just made peace with the emperor; and, “in their need, all these offended and despoiled princes looked, as sailors look to the north,” towards the King of Sweden, Gustavus Adolphus.