undred thousand in whole--and take the Electorate of Brandenburg to
yourself, Land, Titles, Sovereign, Electorship and all, and make me rid
of it!" That was the settlement adopted, in Sigismund's apartment at
Constance, on April 30, 1415; signed, sealed, and ratified--and the
money paid. A very notable event in World-History; virtually completed
on the day we mention.

The ceremony of investiture did not take place till two years afterward,
when the Spanish journey had proved fruitless, when much else of
fruitless had come and gone and Kaiser and council were probably more at
leisure for such a thing. Done at length it was by Kaiser Sigismund in
almost gala, with the Grandees of the Empire assisting, and august
members of the council and world in general looking on; in the big
square or market-place of Constance, April 17, 1417; is to be found
described in Rentsch, from Nauclerus and the old news-mongers of the
times. Very grand indeed: much processioning on horseback, under
powerful trumpet-peals and flourishes; much stately kneeling, stately
rising, stepping backward (done well, _zierlich_, on the Kurfuerst's
part); liberal expenditure of cloth and pomp; in short, "above one
hundred thousand people looking on from roofs and windows," and Kaiser
Sigismund in all his glory. He was on a high platform in the
market-place, with stairs to it; the illustrious Kaiser--red as a
flamingo, "with scarlet mantle and crown of gold,"--a treat to the eyes
of simple mankind.

What sum of modern money, in real purchasing power, this "four hundred
thousand Hungarian Gold Gulden" is, I have inquired in the likely
quarters without result; and it is probable no man exactly knows. The
latest existing representative of the ancient gold gulden is the ducat,
worth generally a half-sovereign in English. Taking the sum at that
latest rate, it amounts to two hundred thousand pounds; and the reader
can use that as a note of memory for the sale-price of Brandenburg with
all its lands and honors--multiplying it perhaps by four or six to bring
out its effective amount in current coin. Dog cheap, it must be owned,
for size and capability; but in the most waste condition, full of
mutiny, injustice, anarchy, and highway robbery; a purchase that might
have proved dear enough to another man than Burggraf Friedrich.

But so, at any rate, moribund Brandenburg has got its Hohenzollern
Kurfuerst, and started on a new career it little dreamt of; and we can