For some months it had been proposed; but the Spanish Rising and the armaments of Austria made it essential.
The meeting took place at Erfurt (September 27th).

The Thuringian city was ablaze with uniforms, and the cannon thundered salvoes of welcome as the two potentates and their suites entered the ancient walls and filed through narrow streets redolent of old German calm, an abode more suited to the speculations of a Luther than to the world-embracing schemes of the Emperors of the West and East.

With them were their chief warriors and Ministers, personages who now threw into the shade the new German kings.

There, too, were the lesser German princes, some of them to grace the Court of the man who had showered lands and titles on them, others to hint a wish for more lands and higher titles.

In truth, the title of king was tantalizingly common; and if we may credit a story of the time, the French soldiery had learnt to despise it.