When Heinz, after the Emperor Rudolph had mentioned the latter name, earnestly entreated him to prevent Wolff’s persecution, the sovereign promised to fulfil the wish as soon as the proper time came.  He himself desired to be gracious to the brave champion of Marchfield, who under great irritation had drawn his sword.  But when Heinz also asked the Emperor to send his friend Count Gleichen with him, the request was refused.  He must have the entire responsibility of the expedition which he commanded; for nothing except an important duty that no one would help him bear, gave promise of making him forget everything that usually engrossed his attention, and thus his new object of longing.  Besides, if he returned victorious his fame and reward would be undivided.

The Hapsburg wished to try upon his young favourite the means which had availed to keep his own footsteps in the path which he desired to see Heinz follow:  constant occupation associated with heavy responsibility, the success which brings with it the hope of future achievement and thereby rouses ambition.

The wisdom and kindness of heart of the Emperor Rudolph, whom the grey-haired ruler’s friends called “Wisdom,” had certainly chosen the right course for Heinz.  But he who had always regarded every opportunity of drawing his sword for his master as a rare piece of good fortune, shrank in dismay from this, the most important and honourable charge that had ever been bestowed upon him.  It drew him away from the new path in which he did not yet feel at home, because the love he could not abjure constantly thrust him into the world, into the midst of the life and tumult from which Heaven itself commanded him to turn aside.

The Minorite had scarcely been right in the assertion that only the first rounds of the ladder which leads to heavenly bliss were hard to climb.

How quickly he had set his foot on the first step; but each upward stride was followed by one that dragged him down-nay, it had seemed advisable wholly to renounce the effort to ascend them, when the monk expected him to sever the bond which united him to the Emperor, and to tell the sovereign that he had entered the service of a greater Master, who commanded him to fight with other weapons than the sword and lance.

Heinz had regarded this demand as a summons to turn traitor.  It did not seem to be the call of the devout, experienced director of souls to the disciples, but the Guelph to the Ghibelline, for Ghibelline he meant to remain.  Gratitude was a Christian virtue, too, and to refuse his service to the Emperor, who had been a father to him, to whom he had sworn fealty, and who had loaded him with benefits, could not be pleasing in the sight of any God.  He could never become a Guelph, he told his venerable friend.  The Emperor Rudolph was his beloved master, from whom he had received nothing but kindness.  He might as well be required to refuse obedience to his own father.