The scenes we are about to portray are of a Hungarian court, but the royal family and the narrator are German. It is the court of Queen Elizabeth, daughter of the Emperor Sigismund, widow of Albrecht of Austria, king of Hungary, who died in the year 1439. The German Imperial race of Luxemburg was, after Charles IV., the least worthy of renown of all who have ruled over central Europe, and the Emperor Sigismund was one of the worst of his race. His daughter Elizabeth suffered under the curse of her house: it was her fate to throw Hungary into confusion and weakness; but as she must be judged from history, it appears she was somewhat better than her father or her reprobate mother: she had a feeling of her own dignity, and was, unlike her parents, a person of distinguished manners. This did not hinder her committing, for political purposes, unworthy actions, which every age has stigmatized as mean; but she attached people to her by that fascination of manner which often takes the place of better qualities. It was thus that one of her attendants, Helen Kottenner, was devoted to her with the most unshaken fidelity; she was bed-chamberwoman and governess to the young princess, a child of four years old, and at the same time she was confidante and counsellor of her mistress. Her ardent loyalty and motherly love for the little king Ladislaus made her the most zealous partisan of his family. She secretly stole for her sovereign the Hungarian crown, and she carried the little Ladislaus through the swamps of Hungary and the rebellious magnates to his coronation, and became his instructress when fate separated him from his mother. It was remarkable that this woman, in a stirring time, when writing was troublesome and difficult even to men, recorded the important events of her life and her share in politics in the shape of a memoir. Our surprise at so unusual a circumstance increases, when we examine closely the fragment of her memoirs which is preserved to us. Her narrative is strikingly detailed, clear, and graphic. There is no doubt that the fragment is genuine: it was published at Leipzig, 1846, with some explanatory remarks by Stephen Endlisher, from the manuscript still preserved in the Imperial Library at Vienna (No. 2920), under the title, 'From the Memoirs of Helen Kottenner, 1439, 1440.' The principal event recorded is the theft of the Hungarian crown, by which the coronation of the child Ladislaus was effected.