Romanesque chapel of S Martin, the Church of SS Peter and Paul, and the adjoining cemetery where many of the leaders of the Bohemian national movement are buried.
The districts of Prague situated on the left bank of the Vltava are connected with the other parts of the city by bridges, of which the oldest is the Karlovo most (bridge of Charles). The present structure was begun by Charles IV. in 1357, but in consequence of frequent storms and inundations it was only completed in 1503. The statues on the bridge are of an even later date. Not far from the bridge in the centre of the Malá strana is the monument to Radetzky, erected in 1858 out of captured Piedmontese cannon. Near here are the palaces of the governor of Bohemia and that in which the Bohemian diet (sněm) now meets. At the extreme end of the Malá strana is the extensive Strahov monastery, from the terraces of which the finest view of the city of Prague can be obtained. The monastery possesses one of the most valuable libraries in Prague and a small picture gallery. The church of the monastery contains the tomb of the famous General Pappenheim. In the Malá strana and the adjoining Hradčany are situated the winter residences of the wealthy Bohemian nobility. Of the many palaces, the Waldstein, Schwarzenberg—formerly Rosenberg—palaces, the two palaces of the counts Thun and that of Prince Lobkowitz are the most interesting. On the summit of the Hradčany is the vast palace of the ancient kings of Bohemia, which also contains the hall where the estates of Bohemia formerly met. During the Hussite wars most of the buildings on the Hradčany hill were destroyed, and a large part of the castle still known as the halls of Vladislav was rebuilt by the kings of that name. The handsome halls known as the Spanish and German halls were erected by Ferdinand I., and additions were made by other sovereigns also. The Hradčany was for a time the residence of Rudolph, crown prince of Austria, and it is also occupied by the emperor of Austria during his visits to Prague. Adjoining the Hradčany palace is the famed Cathedral of St Vitus, where the kings of Bohemia were crowned. The earliest church on this spot was built by St Wenceslaus, and the present building was begun by Charles IV. and has as yet remained unfinished. The cathedral contains the chapel of St Wenceslaus, where the insignia of the Bohemian kings are preserved, the tomb of St John of Nepomuk, and a monument to the Bohemian sovereigns who are buried here, the work of Colin of Malines. On the slope of the Hradčany hill are the ancient towers named Mikulka, Daliborka, the white tower and the black tower, which formed part of the fortified works erected by Ottakar II. (1253–1278).
The suburbs of Prague contain few objects of interest, but they are centres of the rapidly increasing trade and industry of Prague.
See Count Lützow, Prague, in “Mediaeval Towns" Series (London, 1902); Tomek, Dějepis Města Prahy (History of the town of Prague), the standard work on Prague, which the author only continued up to the year 1608. (L.)
PRAGUERIE, THE, a revolt of the French nobility against King Charles VII. in 1440. It was so named because a similar rising had recently taken place in Prague, Bohemia, at that time closely associated with France through the house of Luxemburg, kings of Bohemia, and it was caused by the reforms of Charles VII. at the close of the Hundred Years’ War, by which he sought to lessen the anarchy in France. The attempt to reduce the brigand-soldiery, and especially the ordinances passed by the estates of Languedoïl at Orleans in 1439, which not only gave the king an aid of 100,000 francs (an act which was later used by the king as though it were a perpetual grant and so freed him from that parliamentary control of the purse so important in England), but demanded as well royal nominations to officerships in the army, marked a gain in the royal prerogative which the nobility resolved to challenge. The main instigator was Charles I., duke of Bourbon, who three years before had attempted a similar rising, and had been forced to ask pardon of the king. He and his bastard brother, Alexander, were joined by the former favourite, Georges de la Trémoille, John V., duke of Brittany, who allied himself with the English, the duke of Alençon, the count of Vendôme, and captains of mercenaries like Antoine de Chabannes, or lean de la Roche. The duke of Bourbon gained over to their side the dauphin Louis—afterwards Louis XI.—then sixteen years old, and proposed to set aside the king in his favour, making him regent. Louis was readily induced to rebel; but the country
was saved from a serious civil war by the energy of the king's officers and the solid loyalty of his “good cities.” The constable de Richemont marched with the king's troops into Poitou, his old battleground with Georges de la Trémoille, and in two months
he had subdued the country. The royal artillery battered down the feudal strongholds. The dauphin and the duke of Alençon failed to bring about any sympathetic rising in Auvergne, and the Praguerie was over, except for some final pillaging and plundering in Saintonge and Poitou, which the royal army failed to prevent. Charles VII. then attempted to ensure
the loyalty of the duke of Bourbon by the gift of a large pension, forgave all the rebellious gentry, and installed his son in Dauphiné (see Louis XI.). The ordinance of Orleans was enforced.
PRAHRAN, a city of Bourke county, Victoria, Australia, 312 m. by rail S.E. of Melbourne and suburban to it. Pop. (1901), 41,161. It is connected with Melbourne by cable tram over a fine iron girder bridge across the Yarra. Many of its streets are planted with trees and it has numerous handsome shops and villas. Prahran was proclaimed a city in 1879.
PRAIRIE (adopted from the Fr. prairie, a meadow-tract, Late Lat. prataria, Lat. pratum, meadow), a level tract of grassy and treeless country, generally restricted to tracts so characterized in the central parts of North America. In the United States the prairies may be taken to extend from southern Michigan and western Ohio over Illinois (especially designated the Prairie State), Indiana, Missouri, Iowa, Wisconsin and Minnesota, and west of the Missouri to the foothills of the Rocky Mountains (see articles on the several states, and United States). In Canada they extend from the same mountains to a line somewhat to the east of Winnipeg. The word prairie is used in a large number of compounds referring to natural and other features, flora, fauna, &c., characteristic of the prairies. Examples are: prairie-chicken or prairie-hen, a name for the pinnated grouse (Cupidonia or Tympanucus cupido), also applied to Pedioecetes phasinellus, the sharp-tailed grouse; prairie-dog, a rodent of the squirrel family, genus Cynomys, a gregarious burrowing animal, and other animals noticed below; prairie-schooner, a name for the covered wagons in which emigrants used to cross the plains; prairie-grass, &c.
PRAIRIE DU CHIEN, a city and the county-seat of Crawford county, Wisconsin, U.S.A., on the east bank of the Mississippi river about 3 m. above the mouth of the Wisconsin, about 98 m. W. of Madison. Pop. (1890) 3131; (1900) 3232; (1905) 3179; (1910) 3149. It is served by the Chicago, Milwaukee & St Paul, and the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy railways. The city has a fine location, its natural attractiveness and mineral springs in the vicinity combining to make it a summer and health resort. It has an excellent artesian water-supply. Among its buildings are the Crawford county court-house, the city hospital and a sanatorium. It is the seat of St Mary's Academy (1872; R.C.) for young women, and the College of the Sacred Heart (1880; R.C.) for men. Among the manufactures
are beer, wagons, wool, and pearl buttons, and the city is a centre of the fresh-water pearl fisheries along the Mississippi. Prairie du Chien is one of the most interesting places, historically, in Wisconsin. The first white man known to have visited the site was Father Hennepin in 1680; later in the same year the trader Du Lhut (or Duluth) was here. In 1685 Nicholas Perrot, the French commandant in the West, built Fort St Nicholas
near the site of the present city. After the close of the French and Indian War, British authorities assumed possession, but no garrison was regularly maintained. In 1779–1780 Prairie du Chien was the scene of plots and counter plots of American and British sympathizers and of the activities of Godefrey Linctot, the agent of George Rogers Clark. About 1786–1781 a permanent settlement began to grow up around the post. Prairie du Chien was formally surrendered in 1796 to the United States authorities under the Jay treaty, and by them Fort Shelby was erected. On the 17th of July 1814 a force of British, Canadians and Indians under Major William McKay captured the fort, and renamed it Fort McKay, but abandoned it in May 1815. In 1816 Fort Crawford was erected—it was rebuilt on a different site in 1829—and in 1820 one of the principal depots of the American Fur Company was established here. Here in 1823 Judge James Duane Doty (1799–1865) opened the first United States court in what is now the state of Wisconsin. At the time of the Red Bird rising in 1827, Governor Lewis Cass of Michigan
