ourt of the Archbishop of Mainz. At this time a cousin,
Hans Hutten, a young man of great courage and promise, was a knight in
the service of Ulrich, Duke of Wurtemberg. He was a favorite of the
Duke, and he and his young wife were the life of the Wuertemburg court.
And Duke Ulrich once came to Hans and threw himself at his feet,
begging that this wife, whom he loved, should be given over wholly to
him. Hans Hutten answered the Duke like a man, and the Duke arose with
murder in his heart. Afterward, when they were hunting in a wood, he
stabbed Hans Hutten in the back with his sword.

All this came to the ear of Ulrich Hutten in Mainz. Love for his
cousin, love for his name and family, love for freedom and truth, all
urged him to avenge the murdered Hans. The wrongs the boy had suffered
from the coarse-hearted Professor Loetz became as nothing beside this
great crime against the Huttens and against manhood.

In all the history of invective, I know of nothing so fierce as
Hutten's appeal against Duke Ulrich In five different pamphlets his
crime was described to the German people, and all good men, from the
Emperor down, were called on to help him in his struggle against the
Duke of Wuertemberg.

"I envy you your fame, you murderer," he wrote. "A year will be named
for you, and there shall be a day set off for you. Future generations
shall read, for those who are born this year, that they were born in
the year stained by the ineffaceable shame of Germany. You will come
into the calendar, scoundrel. You will enrich history. Your deed is
immortal, and you will be remembered in all future time. You have had
your ambition, and you shall never be forgotten."

This struggle lasted long. Finally, after many appeals, the German
nobles rose in arms and besieged Stuttgart, and Duke Ulrich was driven
from the land he had disgraced.

[Illustration: Ulrich von Hutten.]

Again Hutten visited Italy, this time by a partial reconciliation with
his father, who would overlook his failure to become a priest if he
would study law at Rome. At about this time Luther visited Rome. He
came, at first, in a spirit of reverence; but, at last, he wrote:
"_Wenn es gibt eine Hoelle, Roma ist darauf gebant_." ("If there is a
hell, Rome is built on it.")

The impression on Hutten was scarcely less vivid. Little by little he
began to see in the Pope of Rome a criminal greater that Professor
Loetz, greater than Duke Ulrich, one who