Page:The Works of J. W. von Goethe, Volume 4.djvu/221

Rh We rejoiced in our participation of the honour, and in our one hundred-thousandth part of a sovereignty which now appeared in its full brilliancy. The different trains of the hereditary imperial marshal, and of the envoys deputed by the six temporal electors, marched after these step by step. None of them consisted of less than twenty attendants and two state carriages,—some, even, of a greater number. The retinue of the spiritual electors was ever on the increase,—their servants and domestic officers seemed innumerable: the Elector of Cologne and the Elector of Treves had above twenty state carriages, and the Elector of Mainz quite as many alone. The servants, both on horseback and on foot, were clothed most splendidly throughout; the lords in the equipages, spiritual and temporal, had not omitted to appear richly and venerably dressed, and adorned with all the badges of their orders. The train of his imperial majesty now, as was fit, surpassed all the rest. The riding-masters, the led horses, the equipages, the shabracks and caparisons, attracted every eye; and the sixteen six-horse gala-wagons of the imperial chamberlains, privy councillors, high chamberlain, high stewards, and high equerry, closed, with great pomp, this division of the procession, which, in spite of its magnificence and extent, was still only to be the vanguard.

But now the line became concentrated more and more, while the dignity and parade kept on increasing. For in the midst of a chosen escort of their own domestic attendants, the most of them on foot, and a few on horseback, appeared the electoral ambassadors, as well as the electors in person, in ascending order, each one in a magnificent state carriage. Immediately behind the Elector of Mainz, ten imperial footmen, one and forty lackeys, and eight heyducks announced their