At that moment however the castle deacon with his chaplains and canons intoned a Gloria. All those present joined in the singing and the pictures on the walls, the painted images set in precious stones of all the stars of heaven in the lofty vault, the nobles of the Empire swayed in the flaming red light that the evening sun threw through the gaudy windows. Everything swayed around me and never did the noise of the greatest battle ever amaze me as much as this moment did. I said the prayer for my friend and for the love of him before the imperial crown itself. Tolle! Lege! Listen to the cries of the people from the churchyard of Saint Sebaldus. The whole of the rest of the town is as silent as the grave. All of Nuremberg's sins and vanities have gathered together and fled to one spot. Listen how thousands are addressed about their misery! That monk there in the pulpit is really going deep into their hearts! They might well cry out, they might well beat their breasts as the grim Franciscan calls them to penitence, but what are the words he is shrieking in comparison to the sweet, soft voice that spoke to me? Of what importance is what the monk says in comparison with the warning I received in the days of my youth? The scribes in towns and monasteries have outlined the story of the German people's collective grief such as they must have experienced it subsequent to the disgrace perpetrated in Constance, have put it down on parchment and paper outstandingly year by year, day by day so that in future happier generations will be able to leaf through the blood-spattered pages. Everyone knows how things were then in the Empire, how a place for human happiness and peace of mind was nowhere to be found other than behind the highest walls of the most fortified towns, and even there only under the gravestones in churches or the grass of churchyards. Everyone knows how the Hussites victoriously and ever more victoriously came and went and how the fiery glow that had risen from Lake Constance was not for many long and dreadful years extinguished among the people of Germany. And as it was for the citizens of the Empire, so also was it for the imperial crown that found no resting place anywhere on its native earth. The sword of Charlemagne had lost its power, the lance of Saint Maurice no longer moved in its sheath to defend the splendour of the Holy Germanic Roman Empire. Emperor Sigismund now had to spirit away the crown jewels to Blindenburg in Hungary, to hide them among the Huns. It was to Hungary then that my dear friend and brother, the good knight Michael Groland of Laufenholz, was obliged to escort them on behalf of the town of Nuremberg and he could not refuse to render this service, even though, before the altar in the Church of the Cross at the heart of the Luxemburger's Bohemian citadel, he had just dedicated himself, in the joy of victory, to the service of seeking another crown for himself.