"You cry out much about the Spanish monarchy. I have no fears of it. Give me one of the best chemists who is sufficiently scientific to know how to mingle earth and ores, so that they will hold together firm and infrangible, and then let us see whether we have to fear the Spanish monarchy. But I am afraid that France will be to us Germans, the broken reed of Egypt, which will pierce the hand of whoever leans on it. All empires have their fixed time appointed by God, and a boundary across which they cannot pass. First they arise, then grow like boys; some improve as youths, remain for a time at a standstill in their manhood, then decline, become old, languish and at last die; nay, are so utterly annihilated, that one scarcely knows that they have existed. This course of things cannot be prevented by any human wisdom. The wise man sees this, and prepares himself beforehand; the fool does not believe it, and is ruined, like the surviving Generals of Alexander the Great, who so long divided his conquests, till the Romans became their masters. And truly the Empire has great need to rid herself at last of foreign physicians. "I have been severe, but a steel axe is necessary to sever such a hard knot, one cannot cut with a fur coat. "It is asked what will be the issue? It rests with God. Have you had too little bloodshed? Let God be the judge, and fly ye from his wrath. Although the Church still suffers, it is not yet dead. You cannot complain that you have gained nothing for the money you have spent and the dangers you have undergone. You have brought copper out of your country, but carried silver and gold back to it. Sweden, before this war, was of wood thatched with straw, now it is of stone, and splendidly adorned, and that you have obtained from the abducted vessels of Egypt. This no one would grudge you if you would only thank God yourselves for it. The Germans have indeed been excited to rise against their Emperor, but they will take no one who is not of their race and language. If the house of Austria has done evil, God will truly search it out. As concerns the French, I know well that God will, through them, punish Germany; for we have daily imitated in manners, ceremonies, demeanour, and entertainments, in language and clothing, together with music, this nation of apish behaviour and dress, and frivolous manners. How can we expect better than to fall into their hands? But the Frenchman will not therefore become our Emperor. To him belongs the Lily, the Eagle to the Germans, the East to the Turks, and the West to the Spaniards. None among them can reach higher.