Karl Albert, getting into Public Argument in this way, naturally instructed Perusa to demand sight of Kaiser Ferdinand's Last Will, the tenor of which was known by authentic Copy in Munchen, if not elsewhere among the kindred.

After some delay, Perusa (4th November, 1740), summoning the other excellencies to witness, got sight of the Will: to his horror, there stood, in the cardinal passage, instead of "MUNNLICHE" (male descendants), "EHELICHE" (lawfully begotten descendants),--fatal to Karl Albert's claim! Nor could he PROVE that the Parchment had been scraped or altered, though he kept trying and examining for some days.

He withdrew thereupon, by order, straightway from Vienna; testifying in dumb-show what he thought.

"It is your Copy that is false," cried the Vienna people: "it has been foisted on you, with this wrong word in it; done by somebody (your friend, the Excellency Herr von Hartmann, shall we guess ?), wishing to curry favor with ambitious foolish persons!" Such was the Austrian story.

Perhaps in Munchen itself their Copyist was not known;--for aught I learn, the Copy was made long since, and the Copyist dead.