After the unlucky ball at Ehrenbreitstein the crook and sceptre of Cologne passed from the Bavarian family which had so long held them into the hands of Maximilian Friedrich of the Suabian line Königsegg- (or Königseck-) Rothenfels. For a century or more this house had enjoyed fat livings in the church at Cologne, in which city the new elector was born on May 13, 1708. He was the fourth of his race who had held the important office of Dean of the Cathedral, from which post he was elevated to the electorship on April 6, 1761, and to the ecclesiastical principality of Münster the next year; with which two sees he was fain to be content. He was by nature an easy, good-tempered, indolent, friendly man, of no great force of character--qualities which in the incumbent of a rich sinecure just completing his fifty-third year, would be too fully confirmed and developed by habit to change with any change of circumstances; and which, says Stramberg, made him unusually popular throughout the land despite the familiar little verse: Bei Clemens August trug man blau und weiss, Da lebte man wie im Paradeis; Bei Max Friedrich trug man sich schwarz und roth, Da litt man Hunger wie die schwere Noth. The condition of the finances had become such through the extravagant expenditures of Clemens August that very energetic measures were necessary, and to the effects of these, during the first few years of Max Friedrich’s rule, in throwing many persons out of employment, these doggerel lines doubtless owe their origin. MAX FRIEDRICH AND HIS MINISTER