“The Emperor Charles the Fifth[147] sate in sore straits, in the Tyrol, encompassed by his enemies.  All his knights and courtiers had forsaken him; not one came to his help.  I know not if he had at that time the cheese face with which Holbein has painted him for us.  But I am sure that under lip of his, with its contempt for mankind, stuck out even more than it does in his portraits.  How could he but contemn the tribe which in the sunshine of his prosperity had fawned on him so devotedly, and now, in his dark distress, left him all alone?  Then suddenly his door opened, and there came in a man in disguise, and, as he threw back his cloak, the Kaiser recognized in him his faithful Conrad von der Rosen, the court jester.  This man brought him comfort and counsel, and he was the court jester!

“’O German fatherland! dear German people!  I am thy Conrad von der Rosen.  The man whose proper business was to amuse thee, and who in good times should have catered only for thy mirth, makes his way into thy prison in time of need; here, under my cloak, I bring thee thy sceptre and crown; dost thou not recognize me, my Kaiser?  If I cannot free thee, I will at least comfort thee, and thou shalt at least have one with thee who will prattle with thee about thy sorest affliction, and whisper courage to thee, and love thee, and whose best joke and best blood shall be at thy service.  For thou, my people, art the true Kaiser, the true lord of the land; thy will is sovereign, and more legitimate far than that purple Tel est notre plaisir, which invokes a divine right with no better warrant than the anointings of shaven and shorn jugglers; thy will, my people, is the sole rightful source of power.  Though now thou liest down in thy bonds, yet in the end will thy rightful cause prevail; the day of deliverance is at hand, a new time is beginning.  My Kaiser, the night is over, and out there glows the ruddy dawn.’

“’Conrad von der Rosen, my fool, thou art mistaken; perhaps thou takest a headsman’s gleaming axe for the sun, and the red of dawn is only blood.’

“’No, my Kaiser, it is the sun, though it is rising in the west; these six thousand years it has always risen in the east; it is high time there should come a change.’

“’Conrad von der Rosen, my fool, thou hast lost the bells out of thy red cap, and it has now such an odd look, that red cap of thine!’

“’Ah, my Kaiser, thy distress has made me shake my head so hard and fierce, that the fool’s bells have dropped off my cap; the cap is none the worse for that.’

“’Conrad von der Rosen, my fool, what is that noise of breaking and cracking outside there?’

“’Hush! that is the saw and the carpenter’s axe, and soon the doors of thy prison will be burst open, and thou wilt be free, my Kaiser!’

“’Am I then really Kaiser?  Ah, I forgot, it is the fool who tells me so!’

“’Oh, sigh not, my dear master, the air of thy prison makes thee so desponding! when once thou hast got thy rights again, thou wilt feel once more the bold imperial blood in thy veins, and thou wilt be proud like a Kaiser, and violent, and gracious, and unjust, and smiling, and ungrateful, as princes are.’