The career of Gustavus was at once arrested, and he took shelter against the storm in an entrenched camp protected by three hundred cannon under the walls of Nuremberg--Nuremberg the eldest daughter of the German Reformation, the Florence of Germany in art, wealth and freedom, then the beautiful home of early commerce, now its romantic tomb. The desolation of her grass-grown streets dates from that terrible day. The Swedish lines were scarcely completed when Wallenstein appeared with all his power, and sweeping past, entrenched himself four miles from his enemy in a position the key of which were the wooded hill and old castle of the Altenberg. Those who chance to visit that spot may fancy there Wallenstein's camp as it is in Schiller, ringing with the boisterous revelry of its wild and motley bands. And they may fancy the sudden silence, the awe of men who knew no other awe, as in his well-known dress, the laced buff coat with crimson scarf, and the grey hat with crimson plume, Wallenstein rode by. Week after week and month after month these two heavy clouds of war hung close together, and Europe looked for the bursting of the storm. But famine was to do Wallenstein's work; and by famine and the pestilence, bred by the horrible state of the camp, at last his work was done. The utmost limit of deadly inaction for the Swedes arrived. Discipline and honour gave way, and could scarcely be restored by the passionate eloquence of Gustavus. Oxenstiern brought large reinforcements; and on the 24th August Wallenstein saw-- with grim pleasure he must have seen--Gustavus advancing to attack him in his lines. By five hundred at a time--there was room for no more in the narrow path of death--the Swedes scaled the flashing and thundering Altenberg. They scaled it again and again through a long summer's day. Once it was all but won. But at evening the Nurembergers saw their hero and protector retiring, for the first time defeated, from the field. Yet Gustavus had not lost the confidence of his soldiers. He had shared their danger and had spared their blood. In ten hours' hard fighting he had lost only 2,000 men. But Wallenstein might well shower upon his wounded soldiers the only balm for the wounds of men fighting without a country or a cause. He might well write to the emperor: "The King of Sweden has blunted his horns a good deal. Henceforth the title of Invincible belongs not to him, but to your Majesty." No doubt Ferdinand thought it did.