Assassination Is the Quickest Way 237emperor that Wallenstein had burned six hundred documents in Eger
on the day before he died. The source of this report was not stated,
but the chancery superintendent, eager enough to cooperate in other
respects, knew nothing of it.^28 That Wallenstein should have burned
papers when he thought that he was safe and about to join up with
the Saxons seems unlikely, even more unlikely that he could have done
so personally and secretly, given his state of health, but such a claim
offered a convenient explanation for the failure to find incriminating
documents in his records. None were in fact found; had they been,
they would certainly have been published at once. An alternative had
to be produced, leading to the idea that Piccolomini, the source of the
key information, should write a detailed, signed account for official
publication.
Piccolomini arrived in Vienna around 8 March, and he was taken
aback by the attitude to the killings which he encountered. Some people,
he complained to Gallas in a letter a week later, seemed to doubt whether
Wallenstein’s guilt had been established, and they even hinted at a con-
spiracy against him by the Italians and the Spanish. To clarify the mat-
ter fully, and on the emperor’s orders, he was writing his own account,
and he suggested that Gallas should add what he had personally heard
from Wallenstein regarding his planned treachery, a proposal which
Gallas did not take up. After his return to Pilsen Piccolomini found simi-
lar doubts in the army, and he wrote to Ferdinand and Trauttmansdorff
complaining that hostile elements were using suspicions of conspiracy
against Wallenstein as an excuse not to obey the Italians.^29
Having written the draft of his account by mid-March Piccolomini
became surprisingly hesitant, and by the end of the month Ferdinand
was repeatedly enquiring of Fabio Diodati, Piccolomini’s secretary in
this matter, whether the signed text had yet arrived in Vienna. In early
April Marquis Caretto di Grana, a member of the Imperial war council,
pointed out to Diodati on the emperor’s behalf that the first draft
omitted many relevant items from the earlier reports, including some
which were central to incriminating Wallenstein, such as his alleged
correspondence with Bernhard of Weimar and contacts with the French
aimed at displacing the House of Habsburg from the Imperial throne.
A revised draft added some but not all of these points, leaving out the
most important, and moreover Piccolomini still did not sign.^30 Some
months went by, and eventually the plan to publish his statement had
to be abandoned, although much of it found its way without direct
attribution into a wider account published on behalf of the court in the
autumn.