The soldiery of Tilly were already let loose on electoral Saxony; the elector, constrained by necessity, intrusted his soldiers to Gustavus Adolphus, who had just received re-enforcements from Sweden, and the king marched against Tilly, still encamped before Leipzig, which he had forced to capitulate.
The Saxons gave way at the first shock of the imperial troops, but the King of Sweden had dashed forward, and nothing could withstand him; Tilly himself, hitherto proof against lead and steel, fell wounded in three places; five thousand dead were left on the field of battle; and Gustavus Adolphus dragged at his heels seven thousand prisoners.

"Never did the grace of God pull me out of so bad a scrape," said the conqueror.

He halted some time at Mayence, which had just opened its gates to him.
Axel Oxenstiern, his most faithful servant and oldest friend, whose intimacy with his royal master reminds one of that between Henry IV.

and Sully, came to join him in Germany; he had hitherto been commissioned to hold the government of the conquests won from the Poles.

He did not approve of the tactics of Gustavus Adolphus, who was attacking the Catholic League, and meanwhile leaving to the Elector of Saxony the charge of carrying the war into the hereditary dominions of Austria.
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