Page:History of the Thirty Years' War - Gindely - Volume 1.djvu/22

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viii
THE AUTHOR’S PREFACE

White Mountain, I have repeated, but donot support it by the authorities which I then used. The full credibility of this statement was indeed justly questioned, because it did not originate with eye-witnesses. I now, however, authenticate it by the report which Dr. Angelini, one of the attendants of Father Dominicus, has made in his account of the campaign in Bohemia. According to his report, this father, by his words of exhortation, moved Count Buquoi and several of the army officers to relinquish their original opposition to hazarding a battle. Angelini must have received this information either from Father Dominicus himself, or from one who was actually present at the council. Only the report of Angelini was known to me when this volume was completed. It was not until a few days later that a second and still higher testimony came to my knowledge, to which I now refer: it is that of the Duke of Bavaria. Immediately after the death of Father Dominicus, when facts were being collected looking to his canonization, and the Emperor Ferdinand and his wife, as also Duke Maximilian, were called upon to state what they knew of his acts and sayings, Maximilian made his statement in the following words: ‘“When the armies of the League and the Emperor had united for the purpose of attacking, with all possible force, the enemy, and the latter had arrived before the walls of Prague, some of the highest officers were averse to the hazard of a battle. . . . When the Father observed this, he came up and humbly and modestly requested that it might be permitted him to say a few words, although he had not been called to the council. When permission was given him, he exhorted the leaders with a fiery zeal that they put their trust in God and the righteousness of their cause; they should firmly trust