of Sigismund, which sprang from a cause equally discreditable to both princes.[1]
From the Tirol the pope crossed by the Arlberg Pass into Vorarlberg. Richenthal, that very entertaining, though very mendacious chronicler of the council, thus describes the pope’s journey:[2] “When the pope arrived at the summit of the Arlberg near where the monastery is, his carriage overturned and he lay in the snow under the carriage. Then his lords and courtiers came to him and said: ‘Holy Father, hast thou not been injured!’ He answered, ‘I lie here in the name of the devil!’ Then when they proceeded onward from the monastery and could look down on Bluditz (probably Bludenz) and the land, he said: Sic capiuntur vulpes, which means, ‘Thus are foxes entrapped.’” The pope and his party then proceeded to Feldkirch and from there by Reinegg to Constance, where the pope was received with great solemnity.
It was not, however, Baldassare Cossa who was to prove Hus’s most dangerous and bitterest enemy. These were found among his own countrymen. It is the fact that in all the most important moments the task of great Bohemians has been frustrated by the envy and malice of their own countrymen that renders the history of Bohemia one of the saddest in the annals of the world. Foremost among Hus’s enemies was John the iron, Bishop of Litomysl. It is not probable that he was greatly interested in Wycliffe’s profound but arid doctrines. Like most of Hus’s Bohemian opponents, he had probably read none of the English reformer’s works. But as a notorious simonist and a very opulent man, he saw the great danger which men of his class would necessarily incur, if the
- ↑ During the festivities that by Frederick’s order took place at Innsbruck in honour of Sigismund, a young girl, the daughter of a notable citizen, was violated, and public opinion pointed to one of the two princes as having been guilty of the deed. Both Sigismund and Frederick affirmed their innocence, each maintaining that the other was the culprit. Mortal enmity arose between the two princes in consequence. The whole story is told by Eberhard Windeck, c. 32.
- ↑ Ulrich von Richenthal, Chronik des Constanzer Concils, ed. 1882, p. 25.
