HUS AT CONSTANCE
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attention of the Council also to the views of Hus and his adherents. King Sigismund suggested that Hus should attend the Council, and there develop his views, and at the same time vindicate the orthodoxy of the Bohemian nation, on which he as well as his brother Wenceslas laid great stress. Before Hus set out on his journey, King Sigismund offered him a letter of safeconduct, which allowed him, according to the words of Professor Tomek, "to come unmolested to Constance, there have free audience, and return unharmed, should he not submit to the authority of the Council." It is not necessary to discuss here the various opinions as to the exact meaning of the letter of safe-conduct ; the statement of Dr. Tomek, the greatest living authority with regard to Hus, may be considered as decisive. That the letter was not merely a guarantee that Hus should reach Constance in safety, is proved by the fact that he only received it after he had arrived there ; still less can the remarks of Hus himself, who in his letters before leaving Bohemia expressed forebodings of coming doom, be used as an argument to prove that the letter of safe-conduct had Httle value. Hus was well aware that no official injunctions could ensure him against possible violence on the part of such fanatical enemies as Michael de Causis ; nor could the possibility that the thesis " that no faith " should be kept with heretics might be used against him escape the sagacity of Hus. Such apprehensions did not induce Hus to waver even for an instant in his decision to attend the Council ; he felt assured that, whatever might subsequently be his fate, he would be allowed freely to expound his views before the assembled Council. After having addressed a letter of farewell to his pupil Martin, and another — one of the
