Leuchtmar resumed: “And while Montecuculi and his officers were carousing, the people whom they had robbed went begging from house to house and from place to place. There was dreadful consternation in all the villages. The fiends themselves could not have invented more ingenious tortures to force the villagers to disclose where they had hidden their last pfenning. In some places people were killed after they had given up all they had, then their houses were fired, and thus whole districts were desolated.” The Prince said nothing, but tears streamed down his red cheeks. “This is enough for to-day,” said the Preceptor; “I will defer what I have to say until to-morrow.” Leuchtmar agreed to this, and then related to the Prince the tale of Perseus by Ovid, his favorite story-teller. It made little impression upon him, however, so deeply had he been affected by the evening’s talk. Chapter XIV The Restitutions Edict “My Prince,” the Preceptor began, “there was a brief time of peace in Germany. The Count von Mansfeld and Duke Christian of Brunswick were dead; your uncle, Prince of the Palatinate, and both the Dukes of Mecklenburg were driven out of the country, and the Danish King had been compelled to make peace. It was confidently expected that the Army of the League, led by Tilly, would be withdrawn to Bavaria and that of Wallenstein into the imperial dominions, and then there would be peace everywhere in Germany, which was bleeding from a thousand wounds and needed peace for its own recuperation. But the Emperor Ferdinand prevented it. The Jesuits told him, ‘Now or never is the time to crush out the Reformation. Use it.’