Bernard of Weimar took up the command. On the other side Pappenheim, having received orders to return, hurried back from Halle. But he brought only his cavalry with him. It would be many hours before his foot could retrace their weary steps. The Swedes, when they heard that their beloved king had fallen, burnt with ardour to revenge him. A terrible struggle ensued. Hour after hour the battle swayed backwards and forwards. In one of the Swedish regiments only one man out of six left the fight unhurt. Pappenheim, the dashing and the brave, whose word was ever for fight, the Blücher of the seventeenth century, was struck down. At the battle of the White Hill he had lain long upon the field senseless from his wounds, and had told those who were around him when he awakened that he had come back from Purgatory. This time there was no awakening for him. The infantry which in his lifetime he had commanded so gallantly, came up as the winter sun was setting. But they came too late to retrieve the fight. Wallenstein, defeated at last, gave orders for retreat. [Sidenote: § 7. The loss of Gustavus irreparable.] The hand which alone could gather the results of victory was lying powerless. The work of destruction was practically complete. The Edict of Restitution was dead, and the Protestant administrators were again ruling in the northern bishoprics. The Empire was practically dead, and the princes and people of Germany, if they were looking for order at all, must seek it under other forms than those which had been imposed upon them in consequence of the victories of Tilly and Wallenstein. It is in vain to speculate whether Gustavus could have done anything towards the work of reconstruction. Like Cromwell, to whom, in many respects, he bore a close resemblance, he had begun to discover that it was harder to build than to destroy, and that it was easier to keep sheep than to govern men. Perhaps even to him the difficulties would have been insuperable. The centrifugal force was too strong amongst the German princes to make it easy to bind them together. He had experienced this in Saxony. He had experienced it at Nüremberg. To build up a _Corpus Evangelicorum_ was like weaving ropes of sand. [Sidenote: § 8. What were his purposes?]