other scion of the house of Luxemburg--a mature old
gentleman of sixty; full of plans, plausibilities, pretensions--Jobst is
their man. Jobst and Sigismund were of one mind as to Wenzel's going; at
least Sigismund voted clearly so, and Jobst said nothing counter: but
the Kurfuersts did not think of Jobst for successor. After some
stumbling, they fixed upon Rupert Kur-Pfalz (Elector Palatine, Ruprecht
von der Pfalz) as Kaiser.

Rupert of the Pfalz proved a highly respectable Kaiser; lasted for ten
years (1400-10), with honor to himself and the Reich. A strong heart,
strong head, but short of means. He chastised petty mutiny with vigor,
could not bring down the Milanese Visconti, who had perched themselves
so high on money paid to Wenzel; could not heal the schism of the
Church (double or triple Pope, Rome-Avignon affair), or awaken the
Reich to a sense of its old dignity and present loose condition. In the
late loose times, as antiquaries remark, most members of the Empire,
petty princes even and imperial towns, had been struggling to set up for
themselves; and were now concerned chiefly to become sovereign in their
own territories. And Schilter informs us it was about this period that
most of them attained such rather unblessed consummation; Rupert of
himself not able to help it, with all his willingness. The people called
him "Rupert Klemm (Rupert Smith's-vise)," from his resolute ways; which
nickname--given him not in hatred, but partly in satirical good-will--is
itself a kind of history. From historians of the Reich he deserves
honorable regretful mention.

He had for Empress a sister of Burggraf Friedrich's; which high lady,
unknown to us otherwise, except by her tomb at Heidelberg, we remember
for her brother's sake. Kaiser Rupert--great-grandson of that Kur-Pfalz
who was Kaiser Ludwig's elder brother--is the culminating point of the
Electors Palatine; the highest that Heidelberg produced. Ancestor of
those famed Protestant "Palatines"; of all the Palatines or Pfalzes that
reign in these late centuries. Ancestor of the present Bavarian Majesty;
Kaiser Ludwig's race having died out. Ancestor of the unfortunate
Winterkoenig, Friedrich, King of Bohemia, who is too well known in
English history--ancestor also of Charles XII of Sweden, a highly
creditable fact of the kind to him. Fact indisputable: a cadet of
Pfalz-Zweibrueck (Deux-Ponts), direct from Rupert, went to serve in
Sweden in his soldier business; distinguish