The wind just then setting on them dead from Cologne made the courtiers serious. Many thought of their souls for the first time.
This is recorded to the honour of Monk Gregory.
On the seventh morning, the Kaiser announced his determination to make a last trial.
It was dawn, and a youth stood before the Kaiser’s tent, praying an audience.
Conducted into the presence of the Kaiser, the youth, they say, succeeded in arousing him from his depression, for, brave as he was, Kaiser Heinrich dreaded the issue. Forthwith order was given for the cavalcade to set out according to the rescript, Kaiser Heinrich retaining the youth at his right hand. But the youth had found occasion to visit Gottlieb and Margarita, each of whom he furnished with a flash, [flask?] curiously shaped, and charged with a distillation.
As the head of the procession reached the gates of Cologne, symptoms of wavering were manifest.
Kaiser Heinrich commanded an advance, at all cost.
Pfalzgraf Nase, as the old chronicles call him in their humour, but assuredly a great noble, led the van, and pushed across the draw-bridge.
Hesitation and signs of horror were manifest in the assemblage round the Kaiser’s person. The Kaiser and the youth at his right hand were cheery. Not a whit drooped they! Several of the heroic knights begged the Kaiser’s permission to fall back.
‘Follow Pfalzgraf Nase!’ the Kaiser is reported to have said.
Great was the wonderment of the people of Cologne to behold Kaiser Heinrich riding in perfect stateliness up the main street toward the Cathedral, while right and left of him bishops and electors were dropping incapable.
The Kaiser advanced till by his side the youth rode sole.
He answered: ‘A poor youth, unconquerable Kaiser! Farina I am called.’
He answered: ‘The hand of a maiden of Cologne, most gracious Kaiser and master!’
Kaiser Heinrich looked behind him, and among a host grasping the pommels of their saddles, and reeling vanquished, were but two erect, a maiden and an old man.
‘That is she, unconquerable Kaiser!’ Farina continued, bowing low.
‘It shall be arranged on the spot,’ said the Kaiser.
A word from Kaiser Heinrich sealed Gottlieb’s compliance.
Said he: ‘Gracious Kaiser and master! though such a youth could of himself never have aspired to the possession of a Groschen, yet when the Kaiser pleads for him, objection is as the rock of Moses, and streams consent. Truly he has done Cologne good service, and if Margarita, my daughter, can be persuaded--’