All went off: Schoppe, out into the country; Wehrfritz, to church with the procession; Albano, into a spectator's-box in the allegiance-hall; for he would not in any wise be stuck into the train of the Prince, not even as embroidery. Soon the noisy stream of pomp came sounding back into the hall. The chivalry, the spirituality, and the cities mounted the stage, where the oath was to be taken. In the court-yard of the castle one foot stood upon another, and a needle might, to be sure, have reached the ground, but no one could do so, to pick it up; everybody looked up at the balcony, and cursed before he _swore_. The Prince, too, stayed not away; the throne, that graduated and paraphrased princely seat, stood open, and Fraischdörfer had decorated it with beautiful mythological and heraldic shoulder-pieces and appendages. Opposite the Count bloomed the court-dames, and below them a rose and a lily, Julienne and Liana. As one lifts his eye from the stiff frosty landscape of winter to the blue breathing heavens which looked down upon our spring evenings, and wherein the light summer clouds floated and the rainbow stood, so did he glance over the shining snow-light of the court at the lovely Grace of spring, around whom remembrances hung, like flowers, and who now stood so far aloof, so cut off, so imprisoned in the heavy finery of the court! Only through her friend, who sits beside her, was she gently melted and harmonized with the dazzling present. Now began fine official speeches, the longest being made by the old Minister, the shortest by Wehrfritz: the Prince let the warm eulogies glide over his December-visage without thawing it down,--a mistaken indifference! For the praise of the Minister, as well as of other court-servants, may yet help him with posterity, since, according to Bacon, no praise is of more consequence than that which servants give, because they surely know their master best. Then the Upper-Secretary, Heiderscheid, read Luigi's genealogical table, and illuminated the hollow family-tree, together with its dryness, and the last pale green twig; with sunken eyes Julienne heard this amid the _vivat_ of the people, and Albano, never subdued by _one_ thought alone, saw her eyes, and could not, however intently the Regent listened, avoid the funeral picture, how, one day, and that very soon, this extinguished man would bear down after him the name of his whole race into the vault; he saw them carving the inverted arms and hanging the shield upside down, and heard the shovels strike against the helmet and fling the earth after the coffin. Gloomy idea! the tender sister would certainly have wept, had she only been alone!