buffoons, and courtezans—Christ sold daily for it—the palace full of cardinals and prelates, grey-haired debauchees and filthy mockers, to a man—accounting chastity a scandal, and the soul’s immortality and coming judgment an old wife’s fable;—yea, simony, adultery, murder, incest, so frequent and unashamed, that the Frenchmen themselves do say the Pope’s coming hath corrupted them. I asked him if these were the hands to take up God’s instruments of wrath to bruise with them his creatures? But all in vain. There is an awfulness in the very name of Pope which blinds reason and strikes manhood down, in him, as in thousands more. * * * * * A.D. 1332. _Fourth week after Easter._—But now awaked from the first sleep I have had for the last three days and nights. I set down in a word or two what hath happened, then out to action again. Last Wednesday, at the great festival, the nobles, knights, and senators, with a brave show of fair ladies, banqueted at the grand house in the Brandgasse.[101] Within, far into the night, minstrelsy and dancing; without, the street blocked up with a crowd of serving men and grooms with horses, torch-bearers, and lookers-on of all sorts—when, suddenly, the music stopped—they heard shouts and the clash of swords and shrill screams. There had been a quarrel between a Zorn and a Müllenheim—they drew—Von Hunefeld was killed on the spot, another of the Zorns avenged him by cutting down Wasselenheim; the conflict became general, in hall, in the antechambers, down the great staircase, out on the steps, the retainers took part on either side, and the fray ended in the flight of the Zorns, who left six slain in the house and in the street. Two were killed on the side of the Müllenheims. All who fell were of high rank, and several of either faction are severely wounded. They draw off to their quarters, each breathing vengeance, preparing for another conflict at daybreak. All the rest of the night the Landvogt and Gotzo von Grosstein were riding to and fro to pacify them—to no purpose. Each party declared they would send for the knights and gentry of their side from the country round about. I was with Burckard Zwinger when we heard this. ‘Now,’ said I, ‘or all is lost. Off, and harangue the people. I will get the best of the burghers together.’ We parted. All the city was astir. As I made my way from house to house, I sent the people I met off to the market place to hear Zwinger. I could hear their shouts, summons enough now, without any other. When I got back to the Roland’s pillar, I found that his plain, home-thrust speech had wrought the multitude to what we would, and no more. Snatches of it flew from mouth to mouth, like sparks of fire,—he had struck well while the iron was hot. ‘To the Stadtmeister!’ was the cry.