ulse which, at that time, owing to the example and
teachings of St. Francis in Italy, had taken possession of so many minds,
also left its impress on his young soul, already agitated by sympathy
with many an extravagant idea, many an opinion condemned by the Church.
But ere he had taken even the first decisive step he was summoned home.
His father had resolved to obtain on the sacred soil of Palestine the
mercy of Heaven which was denied to the excommunicated Emperor, and
desired his oldest son, Rudolph, to represent him at home.

Before his departure he confided to his noble son his aspirations for the
grandeur and enlargement of his house, and the youth of twenty-one did
not venture to tell the dignified, far-sighted man, whom his subjects
rightly surnamed "the Wise," his ardent desire to live henceforth solely
for the salvation of his endangered soul.

The sense of duty inherited from father and mother, which both had
imprinted deeply upon his soul, and also the ambition that had been
sedulously fostered at the court of the Emperor Frederick, had given him
courage to repress forever the wish with which he had left the
Hohenstaufen court. The sacrifice was hard, but he made it willingly as
soon as it became apparent to his reflective mind that not only his
earthly but his heavenly Father had appointed the task of devoting the
full wealth of his talents and the power of his will to the elevation of
the house of Hapsburg.

The very next year he stood in the place of his father who fell at
Ascalon, deeply lamented.

The arduous labour imposed by the management of his own great
possessions, and the ceaseless endeavour to enlarge them, in accordance
with the dead man's wishes, gave him no time to cherish the longing for
the peace of the cloister.

After his election as King of Germany, which had long been neglected
under the government of sham emperors, increased the burden of his duties
the more seriously he took them, and the more difficult the Bohemian king
Ottocar, especially, rendered it for him to maintain the crown he had
won, the more eagerly he strove, particularly after the victory of
Marchfield had secured his sovereignty, to increase the power of his
house.

A binding duty, a difficult task, must also withhold Heinz Schorlin from
the wish for whose fulfilment his fiery young soul now fervently longed,
and which he knew was receiving powerful sustenance from a worthy and
eloquent Minorite.

Rudolph's ow