Negotiations for peace were spoken of from time to time, and preparations were at last made for a great meeting of diplomatists. In order to prevent the usual quarrel about precedency it was decided that some of the ambassadors should hold their sittings at Osnabrück and others at Münster, an arrangement which was not likely to conduce to a speedy settlement. [Sidenote: 1644, 1645.] The Emperor proved his sincerity by sending his representative early enough to arrive at Münster in July, 1643, whilst the Swedish and French ambassadors only made their appearance in the March and April of the following year, and it was only in June, 1645, that the first formal proposition was handed in. [Sidenote: § 3. Reluctance of the Emperor to give up all that is asked.] All who were concerned were in fact ready to make peace, but they all wished it made on their own terms. Ferdinand III. was not bound by his father's antecedents. The Edict of Restitution had been no work of his. Long before this he had been ready to give all reasonable satisfaction to the Protestants. He had declared his readiness to include Calvinists as well as Lutherans in the religious peace. He had offered to restore the Lower Palatinate to Frederick's son, and he actually issued a general amnesty to all who were still in arms; but he shrank from the demand that these arrangements of the Empire should be treated of, not in the constitutional assemblies of the Empire, but in a congress of European powers. To do so would be to tear the last veil from the sad truth that the Empire was a mere shadow, and that the states of which it was composed had become practically independent sovereignties. And behind this degradation lay another degradation, hardly less bitter to Ferdinand. The proudest title of the great emperors of old had been that of Increaser of the Empire. Was he to go down to posterity with the title of Diminisher of the Empire? And yet it was beyond his power to loosen the hold of France upon Alsace, or of Sweden upon Pomerania. [Sidenote: § 4. Especially the Breisgau.] Nor was it only as Emperor that Ferdinand would feel the loss of Alsace deeply. Together with the Breisgau it formed one of territories of the House of Austria, but it was not his own. It was the inheritance of the children of his uncle Leopold, and he was loth to purchase peace for himself by agreeing to the spoliation of his orphan nephews. [Sidenote: § 5. Aims of the Elector of Bavaria.]