Karl; Deed solemnly granting to Albert, junior of Sachsen, and
to his heirs, the reversion of those same Duchies, should the Male Line
happen to fail, as it was then likely to do. How could Kaiser Max
revoke his Father's deed, or Kaiser Karl his Great-grandfather's? Little
Albert, the Albert of the PRINZENRAUB, he who grew big, and fought
lion-like for his Kaiser in the Netherlands and Western Countries; he
and his have clearly the heirship of Cleve by right; and we, now grown
Electors, and Seniors of Saxony, demand it of a grateful House of
Hapsburg,--and will study to make ourselves convenient in return."--

"Nay, if that is your rule, that old Laws and Deeds are to come in bar
of new, we," cry a multitude of persons,--French Dukes of Nevers, and
all manner of remote, exotic figures among them,--"we are the real
heirs! Ravensburg, Mark, Berg, Ravenstein, this patch and the other of
that large Duchy of yours, were they not from primeval time expressly
limited to heirs-male? Heirs-male; and we now are the nearest heirs-male
of said patches and portions; and will prove it!"--In short, there never
was such a Lawsuit,--so fat an affair for the attorney species, if that
had been the way of managing it,--as this of Cleve was likely to prove.

THE KAISER'S THOUGHTS ABOUT IT, AND THE WORLD'S.

What greatly complicated the affair, too, was the interest the Kaiser
took in it. The Kaiser could not well brook a powerful Protestant in
that country; still less could his Cousin the Spaniard. Spaniards, worn
to the ground, coercing that world-famous Dutch Revolt, and astonished
to find that they could not coerce it at all, had resolved at this time
to take breath before trying farther. Spaniards and Dutch, after Fifty
years of such fighting as we know, have made a Twelve-years' Truce
(1609): but the battled Spaniard, panting, pale in his futile rage and
sweat, has not given up the matter; he is only taking breath, and will
try it again. Now Cleve is his road into Holland, in such adventure;
no success possible if Cleve be not in good hands. Brandenburg is
Protestant, powerful; Brandenburg will not do for a neighbor there.

Nor will Pfalz-Neuburg. A Protestant of Protestants, this Palatine
Neuburg too,--junior branch, possible heir in time coming, of KUR-PFALZ
(Elector Palatine) himself, in the Rhine Countries; of Kur-Pfalz, who is
acknowledged Chief Protestant: official "President" of the
"Evangelical Union" they have lately m