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Of Bigoted Papist Creed, for one thing; that is a great point. We do not meddle with their worship more or less; but we are Heretics, and they hate us as the Night. This is difficulty second. Then, THIRDLY, what much aggravates it, we neglected to abolish Bathyani! And here are Bathyani's Pandours come across the Moldau on us.
From these, the eye turns naturally to the Moldau, with its noble bridge and islands of perfect beauty; while beyond it are the Alt Stadt, and a vast circle of suburbs, the former, venerable and striking from its multitudinous towers, its one great cupola, and its peaked roofs; the latter, contrasting finely with it in the simplicity of its large yet unadorned white buildings.
Prague, with its spires and towers, lies in the valley below, through which curves the Moldau with its green islands, disappearing among the hills which enclose the city on every side. The fantastic Byzantine architecture of many of the churches and towers, gives the city a peculiar oriental appearance; it seems to have been transported from the hills of Syria.
The road passed through Theresienstadt, the fortress of Northern Bohemia. The little city is surrounded by a double wall and moat, which can be filled with water, rendering it almost impossible to be taken. In the morning we were ferried over the Moldau, and after journeying nearly all day across barren, elevated plains, saw late in the afternoon the sixty-seven spires of Prague below us!
Why should I continue these details any further? We visited the theatre, with the music and acting in which we were greatly delighted; we dined on one of the islands in the Moldau, in the open air, in the midst of a crowd, beneath the canopy of heaven, and with a well-managed band to serenade us all the while; we spent an evening greatly to our own satisfaction, under the shade of the trees in the Thiergarten.
In another moment they were in the street, hurrying along towards one of the bridges over the Moldau. The moon was near the zenith, and the streets were almost empty. The Princess soon outstripped her attendant, and was half-way over the bridge, before the other reached it. "Are you free, lady? The mirror is broken: are you free?" The words were spoken close beside her, as she hurried on.
Prince Karl is not there, nor was; the indication had been false; Friedrich searches about, for four days, to no purpose. Prince Karl, he then learns for certain, has crossed the Moldau farther down, farther northward, between Prag and us. Means to cut us off from Prag, then, which is our fountain of life in these circumstances?
He had to fling his poor Queen's Confessor into the River Moldau, Johann of Nepomuk, Saint so called, if he is not a fable altogether; whose Statue stands on Bridges ever since, in those parts. Wenzel's Bohemians revolted against him; put him in jail; and he broke prison, a boatman's daughter helping him out, with adventures.
He knows accurately of the Schwerin Column, of the comfortable Bevern Victory at Reichenberg, and how they have got the Jung-Bunzlau Magazine, and are across the Elbe, their bridges all secured, though with delay of one day; and do now wait only for the word, for the three cannon-shot, in fact, which are to signify that Friedrich is actually crossing to their side of Lower Moldau.
The 23d, visit to the Hermitage of Saint Ivan and to the old castle of Carlstein; the 24th, a grand performance at the theatre; the 25th, arrival of Archduke Rudolph; the 26th, arrival of the young Archdukes, Ferdinand and Maximilian, ball given by the Empress of France; the 27th, dinner given by the Emperor of Austria; the 30th, festival on the island of the Arquebusiers, setting out at half-past six in the evening from the right bank of the Moldau, landing at the end of the island, where a triumphal arch had been built, and young girls threw flowers before Their Majesties' path.
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