The jesters to small potentates rivalled the _Narrs_ of the Imperial Court in their boldness. It would seem that at grave ecclesiastical discussions, where a common man would not dare to make a remark, nor a courtier to venture on a comment, the fool spoke and acted without restraint. Eck has left an account of the great controversy on Articles of Faith which he held against Luther at Leipsic in 1519. “The citadel,” he says, “was prepared as our battle-field; the place was guarded by seventy-six soldiers, to protect us, in case of need, from the insults of the people of Wittemberg.” Against the wit or anger, however, of the fool of George, Duke of Saxony, who was present with his master, no precaution was thought necessary. To the jester, some of the courtiers whispered that Luther and Eck were disputing about his marriage, the former being for and the latter against it. The ducal fool had but one eye, but that was fired with indignation against the supposed opponent of his marriage. Eck bore his angry looks for a time with some patience. At length, annoyed at and not comprehending them, the grave churchman took to mimicking the infirmity of the fool, by screwing up one eye closely, and rolling the other at him in a sort of comical defiance. This drove the Saxon joker out of all bounds of moderation. He started up, pummelled old Eck with hard words, called him rogue, liar, and thief, and after overwhelming him with a torrent of similar amenities, took an indignant hop, skip, and jump out of the hall, amid the universal laughter of the delighted audience. At a later period, Augustus II., of Saxony, had his own official fool in the person of Joseph Frohlich, for whom he had ninety-nine different suits made, and who in his full dress was often seen in the streets of Dresden. He was not the only fool at this court, for we learn that when the Prussian “joker” von Gundling died, the court fools of Dresden went into mourning for their colleague, wearing crape bands twenty ells in length, and mourning cloaks so long that they or others were always tumbling over them.