amended
resolution, that the milder means are to be tried before the more
desperate are resorted to.

"To-morrow," he said, "I sit at the board of the Archduke of Austria. We
will see what can be done to advance our purpose before prosecuting the
dark suggestions of this Templar."

CHAPTER XI.

One thing is certain in our Northern land--
Allow that birth or valour, wealth or wit,
Give each precedence to their possessor,
Envy, that follows on such eminence,
As comes the lyme-hound on the roebuck's trace,
Shall pull them down each one.
SIR DAVID LINDSAY.

Leopold, Grand Duke of Austria, was the first possessor of that noble
country to whom the princely rank belonged. He had been raised to the
ducal sway in the German Empire on account of his near relationship to
the Emperor, Henry the Stern, and held under his government the finest
provinces which are watered by the Danube. His character has been
stained in history on account of one action of violence and perfidy,
which arose out of these very transactions in the Holy Land; and yet
the shame of having made Richard a prisoner when he returned through
his dominions; unattended and in disguise, was not one which flowed from
Leopold's natural disposition. He was rather a weak and a vain than
an ambitious or tyrannical prince. His mental powers resembled the
qualities of his person. He was tall, strong, and handsome, with a
complexion in which red and white were strongly contrasted, and had long
flowing locks of fair hair. But there was an awkwardness in his gait
which seemed as if his size was not animated by energy sufficient to
put in motion such a mass; and in the same manner, wearing the richest
dresses, it always seemed as if they became him not. As a prince, he
appeared too little familiar with his own dignity; and being often at
a loss how to assert his authority when the occasion demanded it, he
frequently thought himself obliged to recover, by acts and expressions
of ill-timed violence, the ground which might have been easily and
gracefully maintained by a little more presence of mind in the beginning
of the controversy.

Not only were these deficiencies visible to others, but the Archduke
himself could not but sometimes entertain a painful consciousness that
he was not altogether fit to maintain and assert the high rank which he
had acquired; and to this was joined the strong, and sometimes the just,
suspicion