present moment, he unfolded to them the danger to which Europe was immediately and imminently exposed by the encroachments of France.  To add to the force of his words, he introduced ambassadors from the King of Naples, who informed the assembly of the conquests of the French, of their haughty bearing, and implored the aid of the diet to repel the invaders.  The Duke of Milan was then presented, and, as a member of the empire, he implored as a favor and claimed as a right, the armies of the empire for the salvation of his duchy.  And then the legate of the pope, in the robes of the Church, and speaking in the name of the Holy Father to his children, pathetically described the indignities to which the pope had been exposed, driven from his palace, bombarded in the fortress to which he had retreated, compelled to capitulate and leave his kingdom in the hands of the enemy; he expatiated upon the impiety of the French troops, the sacrilegious horrors of which they had been guilty, and in tones of eloquence hardly surpassed by Peter the Hermit, strove to rouse them to a crusade for the rescue of the pope and his sacred possessions.

Maximilian had now exhausted all his powers of persuasion.  He had done apparently enough to rouse every heart to intensest action.  But the diet listened coldly to all these appeals, and then in substance replied,

“We admit the necessity of checking the incursions of the Turks; we admit that it is important to check the progress of the French.  But our first duty is to secure peace in Germany.  The States of the empire are embroiled in incessant wars with each other.  All attempts to prevent these private wars between the States of the empire have hitherto failed.  Before we can vote money and men for any foreign enterprise whatever, we must secure internal tranquillity.  This can only be done by establishing a supreme tribunal, supported by a power which can enforce its decisions.”

These views were so manifestly judicious, that Maximilian assented to them, and, anxious to lose no time in raising troops to expel the French from Italy, he set immediately about the organization of an imperial tribunal to regulate the internal affairs of the empire.  A court was created called the Imperial Chamber.  It was composed of a president and sixteen judges, half of whom were taken from the army, and half from the class of scholars.  To secure impartiality, the judges held their office for life.  A majority of suffrages decided a question and in case of a tie, the president gave a casting vote.  The emperor reserved the right of deciding certain questions himself.  This court gradually became one of the most important and salutary institutions of the German empire.