But Brutus Says He Was Ambitious 243the former’s death and until shortly before his own death respectively.
Much has been said of his enemies at court, but he also had a loyal circle
of friends there, among whom these and Questenberg were the most
prominent. With Arnim too he established a long-lasting and fateful
friendship, to the extent that the Saxon general needed to defend him-
self on that account to the Swedes in 1632: ‘It is, I hear, held against me
that the duke of Friedland has been heard to say that I am as dear to him
as his own soul. That was already the case four or five years ago.’^5
Perhaps the most authentic account of Wallenstein’s personality and
manner is that given by his first biographer, Count Galleazzo Gualdo
Priorato, who served under him as a young man before going on to
become a colonel, diplomat and notable historian. Although only a jun-
ior officer at the time, his social rank will have ensured that he knew the
general personally, and his book contains details which suggest direct
observation. Thus he notes that it was Wallenstein’s custom to thank
individually those who had acquitted themselves well in action, and
he describes how he would lay his hand on a man’s shoulder while
praising him publicly, a practice which Priorato says he never forgot
however high he himself rose.^6 And, he continues, ‘just as Wallenstein
always had an open heart and a ready word for the soldiers, so also he
allowed free access to his table to each comrade and officer, and he took
pleasure in eating in the company of those who had given generously
of their labours and wanted the opportunity to quench their thirsts. He
often said that nothing was more able to strengthen ties than the offer-
ing of wine, which was the real love potion which altered the inclina-
tion of the heart. The company and the conversation which took place
at the table were the most natural means by which friends were won
and esprit de corps was developed.’ Priorato indicates Wallenstein’s easy
familiarity with his officers, while his dry sense of humour is appar-
ent in the ironic postscripts which he sometimes added to his letters.
Other sources report him employing personal charm to good effect
in dealing with diplomatic contacts, and Wallenstein himself wrote
in 1626 that ‘today I got drunk with the envoy’ sent by the elector of
Brandenburg.^7
It is entirely possible that Wallenstein’s manner changed in the later
years of his life, the period from which most accounts stem, and that
the causes were illness, the burdens of a reluctantly resumed command,
and the anxieties and frustrations of the fruitless search for peace. The
ill get little enough sympathy in their lifetimes, and from posterity they
commonly get even less, so that Wallenstein’s constant pain tends to be
overlooked in assessing his behaviour and actions, in addition to which