If at the end of the table where the Burgomaster presided, dividing the wedding guests on his right and left, there reigned a certain degree of solemnity, it was made up for at the lower end, round the long board prepared for the workmen, where the most noisy and expansive gaiety prevailed. That patriarchal custom which required that the head of the family, after having tasted of a dish, should join in a prayer with all the guests, that custom, at the time of which we speak, had even in the richest families fallen into disuse, only when, as on the present occasion, a dignitary happened to be at table, a special gravity was observed, and a great decorum maintained. “Noblesse oblige,” says the proverb, so we must not be surprised if the Burgomaster, instead of taking part in the joyous hilarity of his relatives, and especially of his workmen, looked around him with anxious and pensive eyes. The cares of government clouded his countenance, and occasionally wrinkled his fine lofty brow. In truth, alarming days were hovering over the good city of Maïence. Two crosiers were clashing rudely for precedence, both being competitors for the Archi-episcopal throne; and, as generally happens in such conflicts, the blows fell less heavily, and in less number, on the backs of the actual combatants than on those of the victims who were the objects of contest. A year previously the Archbishop Dietrich d’Isembourg had been deprived of his see for failing in proper respect towards his spiritual pastor, and Adolfe of Nassau, appointed Archbishop in his room, was preparing seriously, arms in hand, to expel a predecessor who seemed far from disposed to yield his post with a good grace. All the Rhine country, the Palatinate, Bavaria, Würtemberg, and even Brandenberg itself, had taken part in the quarrel, for one side or the other; in the city of Maïence Dietrich d’Isembourg reckoned partisans who were still holding office side by side with those who secretly favoured the new order of things, and rivals and enemies met together full of an animosity which they took but little pains to dissimulate. To this cause of dissension was added the quarrel between the citizens and the nobles--a quarrel which dated forty years back, and was even now far from being quelled; descendants of the emigrant families ran about the town exciting the malcontents, they themselves only awaiting an opportunity to regain, in the general confusion, the privileges which they had lost.