yal banquet, the hereditary great officers,
the seven electors, who in rank and title were equal to kings, performed
their solemn and domestic service of the palace. The seals of the triple
kingdom were borne in state by the archbishops of Mentz, Cologne, and
Treves, the perpetual arch-chancellors of Germany, Italy, and Arles.
The great marshal, on horseback, exercised his function with a silver
measure of oats, which he emptied on the ground, and immediately
dismounted to regulate the order of the guests The great steward, the
count palatine of the Rhine, place the dishes on the table. The great
chamberlain, the margrave of Brandenburgh, presented, after the repast,
the golden ewer and basin, to wash. The king of Bohemia, as great
cup-bearer, was represented by the emperor's brother, the duke of
Luxemburgh and Brabant; and the procession was closed by the great
huntsmen, who introduced a boar and a stag, with a loud chorus of horns
and hounds. [152] Nor was the supremacy of the emperor confined
to Germany alone: the hereditary monarchs of Europe confessed the
preeminence of his rank and dignity: he was the first of the Christian
princes, the temporal head of the great republic of the West: [153] to
his person the title of majesty was long appropriated; and he disputed
with the pope the sublime prerogative of creating kings and assembling
councils. The oracle of the civil law, the learned Bartolus, was a
pensioner of Charles the Fourth; and his school resounded with the
doctrine, that the Roman emperor was the rightful sovereign of the
earth, from the rising to the setting sun. The contrary opinion was
condemned, not as an error, but as a heresy, since even the gospel had
pronounced, "And there went forth a decree from Caesar Augustus, that
all the world should be taxed." [154]

[Footnote 152: See the whole ceremony in Struvius, p. 629]

[Footnote 153: The republic of Europe, with the pope and emperor at its
head, was never represented with more dignity than in the council of
Constance. See Lenfant's History of that assembly.]

[Footnote 154: Gravina, Origines Juris Civilis, p. 108.]

If we annihilate the interval of time and space between Augustus and
Charles, strong and striking will be the contrast between the two
Caesars; the Bohemian who concealed his weakness under the mask of
ostentation, and the Roman, who disguised his strength under the
semblance of modesty. At the head of his victorious legions, in his
re