So, as the Emperor resided at Vienna, he was very sure to exercise his authority and demand aids for his own army from the others in sufficient time to present a stout front to the Ottoman power, though on more than one occasion he was rather late in doing so. But if the Emperor, who alone could call out the quotas of men from all the states, had happened to have lived, say, at Mainz, half of the German lands might have been overrun before his army was collected. So on the whole the Habsburgs, having begun to perform and got used to the exalted functions of the Emperor of Rome, might, so the Electoral Princes seemed to think at election after election, just as well continue to exercise them, and to be the outer wall against the Paynim hosts.
Ferdinand was a good son of Rome. Brought up at the Jesuit seminary of Ingolstadt he had grown up strong in the faith, and had wasted no time, on coming to man's estate and the enjoyment of dominion as an elector, in purging his chief town of Gratz, and all the Habsburger land committed to his charge, of all pastors, Lutheran or Calvinist. He went to the root of the matter, and in all things deferred to his advisers, the Jesuits, who went further than the root, and to Maximilian of Bavaria, who had also imbibed the milk of the learning of Ingolstadt, and was if anything of a deeper shade of Jesuitry, if that were possible, than the Jesuits.
But as Ferdinand was a good son of Rome, that meant in his case son of the General of the Jesuits, the mysterious personality that even the Holy Father might bless or ban as he would, but never reduce to that exact degree of submission to his authority which is implied in any rank of the hierarchy below that of Pontiff.
Like a good father, the General of the Jesuits had no notion of allowing so intelligent and obedient a son to run wild after his own conceits. So he had wisely installed at the Court of Vienna Father Lamormain, one of the order, to keep a watchful eye upon the steps of Ferdinand.
Father Lamormain had that perfect confidence in Ferdinand which is built upon a perfect understanding of character, with this reservation, that he preferred to know everything that had happened at least a little while, even if it were but a day, an hour, or even less, before his august pupil, so that whereas the Emperor came to the subject ready to be actuated by surprise, alarm, soreness, vindictiveness, or any other human quality, Father Lamormain, who, if he ever felt these undesirable emotions, had got over them, and already bent his brilliant intellect to what was at issue, could at once gently and firmly insinuate a counsel carefully considered, a counsel which Ferdinand would presently make his own.