ugh still possessing the martial and frank character of
their ancestors--who subdued the Roman Empire--had retained withal
no slight tinge of their barbarism. The practices and principles of
chivalry were not carried to such a nice pitch amongst them as amongst
the French and English knights, nor were they strict observers of the
prescribed rules of society, which among those nations were supposed
to express the height of civilization. Sitting at the table of the
Archduke, Conrade was at once stunned and amused with the clang of
Teutonic sounds assaulting his ears on all sides, notwithstanding the
solemnity of a princely banquet. Their dress seemed equally fantastic to
him, many of the Austrian nobles retaining their long beards, and
almost all of them wearing short jerkins of various colours, cut, and
flourished, and fringed in a manner not common in Western Europe.

Numbers of dependants, old and young, attended in the pavilion, mingled
at times in the conversation, received from their masters the relics of
the entertainment, and devoured them as they stood behind the backs
of the company. Jesters, dwarfs, and minstrels were there in unusual
numbers, and more noisy and intrusive than they were permitted to be in
better regulated society. As they were allowed to share freely in the
wine, which flowed round in large quantities, their licensed tumult was
the more excessive.

All this while, and in the midst of a clamour and confusion which would
better have become a German tavern during a fair than the tent of a
sovereign prince, the Archduke was waited upon with a minuteness of form
and observance which showed how anxious he was to maintain rigidly the
state and character to which his elevation had entitled him. He was
served on the knee, and only by pages of noble blood, fed upon plate of
silver, and drank his Tokay and Rhenish wines from a cup of gold. His
ducal mantle was splendidly adorned with ermine, his coronet might have
equalled in value a royal crown, and his feet, cased in velvet shoes
(the length of which, peaks included, might be two feet), rested upon
a footstool of solid silver. But it served partly to intimate the
character of the man, that, although desirous to show attention to the
Marquis of Montserrat, whom he had courteously placed at his right hand,
he gave much more of his attention to his SPRUCH-SPRECHER--that is, his
man of conversation, or SAYER-OF-SAYINGS--who stood behind the Duke's
right sh