"It was in those same years," says Carlyle,[4] "that a stout young fellow, Conrad by name, far off in the Southern part of Germany set out from the old Castle of Hohenzollern (the southern summit of that same huge old Hercynian wood, which is still called the Schwarzwald or Black Forest though now comparatively bare of trees) where he was but a junior and had small outlooks, upon a very great errand in the world.... His purpose was to find Barbarossa and seek fortune under him. To this Frederick Redbeard--a magnificent, magnanimous man, holding the reins of the world, not quite in the imaginary sense; scourging anarchy down and urging noble effort up, really on a grand scale--Conrad addressed himself; and he did it with success; which may be taken as a kind of testimonial to the worth of the young man. Details we have absolutely none; but there is no doubt that Conrad recommended himself to Kaiser Redbeard, nor any that the Kaiser was a judge of men.... One thing further is known, significant for his successes: Conrad found favour with 'the Heiress of the Vohburg Family,' desirable young heiress, and got her to wife. The Vohburg family, now much forgotten everywhere, and never heard of in England before, had long been of supreme importance, of immense possessions, and opulent in territories, and, we need not add, in honours and offices, in those Franconian Nürnberg regions; and was now gone to this one girl. I know not that she had much inheritance after all: the vast Vohburg properties lapsing all to the Kaiser, when the male heirs were out. But she had pretensions, tacit claims: in particular the Vohburgs had long been habitual or in effect hereditary Burggrafs of Nürnberg; and if Conrad had the talent for that office, he now in preference to others might have a chance for it. Sure enough, he got it; took root in it, he and his; and, in the course of centuries, branched up from it, high and wide, over the adjoining countries; waxing towards still higher destinies. That is the epitome of Conrad's history; history now become very great, but then no bigger than its neighbours and very meagrely recorded; of which the reflective reader is to make what he can....