ia, Croatia, and Jaegerndorf, Burgrave of
Nuremberg, Prince of Rugen, Count of Markberg and Ravensberg, Baron of
Ravenstein.'"

"Enough!" cried the Elector. "You have now read the outlines of my
Herculean task, you now know who I am. A Prince of long titles, not one of
which has its foundation in truth and reality. And this is my Herculean
task, to make these titles real, and to give a good kernel to these empty
nut shells. Look, Leuchtmar, there is a map. Let us examine it and compare
it with my titles, for it is a map corresponding finely with these titles,
and on which all the counties and provinces pertaining to them are
designated. Marquis of Brandenburg, that is my first title, and you would
naturally suppose that this, at least, was veritable, for the Mark is the
oldest possession of our house, and my ancestor, the Burgrave Frederick
von Nuremberg, was invested with it by the Emperor. But what do I obtain
from the Mark? Friend and foe have quartered there, until they have
changed it into a desert; famine and pestilence hold sway there, and the
despairing inhabitants have left their fields untilled and wander about
shelterless and hungry. The only prosperous man there, possessed of power
and consideration, is the Stadtholder in the Mark, Count Adam von
Schwarzenberg. The Mark suffers and groans, but he is of glad heart, and
the distress of the people touches him not. What cares he for land or
people, save in so far as they conduce to the furtherance of his own ends,
and do you know what those ends are?"

"He is an Imperialist and a strict Catholic," said Leuchtmar, "and it must
be confessed that he would rather see the whole Mark go to destruction
than behold it Protestant and independent."

"Yes, he has let the Mark Brandenburg go to destruction!" cried the
Elector, with flashing eyes. "Catholic and Imperialist he would have it.
And I can not reach him, he knows very well that I must spare him, and
that _he_, the powerful, opposes _me_, the powerless. To him have the
commandants of the fortresses and the soldiers sworn allegiance; the
Emperor protects him, and would esteem it an act of rebellion against
imperial majesty itself if I were to depose Schwarzenberg from office. It
would be a departure from the course pursued by the Mark for twenty years
past, for, since Schwarzenberg has nourished as Stadtholder, the Emperor
has been the real lord of the Mark, and not an order nor rescript ever
issued from my father