would be powerless. “The Austrian Monarchy,” he confided to a noted clerical, “considering its peculiar structure, has only two firm bases on which it can rest in safety and unity,—the dynasty and the church.” Accordingly he brought about, in 1855, the adoption of the famous concordat, a convention between the pope and the monarchy, a pact that increased immensely the legal power of the papacy in Austria. The concordat was abolished in 1868 because of the bitter opposition of the liberals. Bohemia, the land of Hus and Havlíček, fought the concordat openly and fearlessly, suspecting in it a hidden menace to its freedom of conscience and to national aspirations.
The uncompromising opposition of the Bohemians to Bach and to his policies visited upon them the wrath of Vienna. Under Bach they were probably subjected to oppression more ruthless and cruel than any they had experienced since the time of Ferdinand II.
Patriots, some of them mere youths, were thrown in prison on the flimsiest accusation of police spies. It was not safe to converse in Bohemian in the streets of Prague. Spies were at the heels of every Bohemian prominent in public life. Police agents tried to connect Francis L. Rieger with a treasonable plot to disrupt the monarchy and he had to flee the state to save himself
