Bohemia and the Tyrol come together in my blood and in yours, and
both of us are made men?' said the two contracting parties.--Alas,
no: the competitor Duke, father of the Bride, died some two years
after, probably with diminished hopes of it; and King Johann lived
to see the hope expire dismally altogether. There came no
children, there came no--In fact Margaret, after a dozen years of
wedlock, in unpleasant circumstances, broke it off as if by
explosion; took herself and her Tyrol irrevocably over to Kaiser
Ludwig, quite away from King Johann,--who, his hopes of the Tyrol
expiring in such dismal manner, was thenceforth the bitter enemy
of Ludwig and what held of him."

Tyrol explosion was in 1342. And now, keeping these preliminary
dates and outlines in mind, we shall understand the big-mouthed
Lady better, and the consequences of her in the world.


MARGARET WITH THE POUCH-MOUTH.

What principally raised this dance of the devils round poor
Ludwig, I perceive, was a marriage he had made, three years before
Waldemar emerged; of which, were it only for the sake of the
Bride's name, some mention is permissible. Margaret of the Tyrol,
commonly called, by contemporaries and posterity, MAULTASCHE
(Mouthpoke, Pocket-mouth), she was the bride:--marriage done at
Innspruck, 1342, under furtherance of father Ludwig the Kaiser:--
such a mouth as we can fancy, and a character corresponding to it.
This, which seemed to the two Ludwigs a very conquest of the
golden-fleece under conditions, proved the beginning of their
worst days to both of them.