The Black Tower, Eger.

Palace Of Wallenstein.

What a relentless Nemesis pursued the three most famous generals in that awful conflict: upon the Protestant side the Swede, Gustavus Adolphus; upon the Catholic, the Belgian Tilly and the Bohemian Wallenstein! The first was slain in the very hour of his victory over Wallenstein at Lutzen; the second mortally wounded in a battle with Gustavus Adolphus six months previous to the latter's death; and Wallenstein, the most ambitious and mysterious of them all, was murdered in his bedchamber at Eger, while in the neighboring castle, now a melancholy ruin,-his officers, Illo, Kinsky, and the rest, were treacherously clone to death! In that stupendous drama of destruction, lasting three decades, which cost in all ten million lives, and took from Germany more than one half of its entire population, Bohemia suffered indescribably, and finally lost her national independence. The revolutionist party -virtually the successors of the Hussites - had called upon the Protestant princes to assist them; but on the 8th of November, 1620, the much more powerful armies of the Catholic League, under the famous general, Tilly, met the Czechs upon a height near Prague called the White Mountain, and crushed their forces irretrievably. To this day all Bohemians - Protestants and Catholics alike - avert their gaze from that ill-fated hill, whose pallid silhouette rises like a whited sepulchre, within which lie their vanished glory and their vanquished dead. It is impossible to exaggerate the effect which this disaster caused. For in this conflict politics and religion, patriotism and Protestantism, had become so wholly and inextricably mingled, that when the Czechs were routed and destroyed upon the slopes of the White Mountain, their national existence also seemed annihilated. "Here," says one of their historians, "the history of Bohemia closes, and that of other nations in Bohemia begins." The vengeance of the conquerors was merciless. Tortures, imprisonments, and executions followed one another with relentless speed. Among the highest Czech nobility twenty-seven were beheaded, and seven hundred and twenty-eight others had their property confiscated, and were hopelessly ruined. The rector of the university had his tongue torn out. The country was inundated with adventurers, among whom the old Czech estates were recklessly divided.

Ruins Of The Castle At Eger.

The City Hall At Eger, Where Wallenstein Was Mordered, 1634.

Three quarters of the people's property is said to have passed thus into the hands of foreigners, who flocked to Prague like vultures to a feast. In 1627, by imperial decree, Bohemia was declared to be a purely Catholic country and an hereditary portion of the empire. Thereupon thirty-six thousand families, containing the best blood of the nation, emigrated from Bohemia rather than abjure their faith. Through massacre and emigration, therefore, the population of the country is said to have been reduced from about four millions to eight hundred thousand! It is, however, only fair to say once more that this was not entirely the result of a religious struggle. True, the important question of religious liberty was at stake, and played a prominent part in the whole fearful tragedy. But "Catholic"

The Death Of Wallenstein.

Church Of The Bohemian Monastery Of Tepl.

and " Protestant " were often merely labels for demoniac monsters of depravity, and shibboleths of religion were convenient cloaks for fiendish cruelties and crimes. Political intrigues and a lust for land were also wonderful motives for promoting and continuing that reign of terror. And it is now the recognition of these facts that makes it possible for modern Catholics and Protestants to study and discuss them with judicial calm. In studying the history of Prague, one sometimes feels that all its citizens must have been either Catholics or Protestants. But here, as everywhere, it is erroneous to forget the Jew.