Page:Maria Felicia.pdf/139

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A STORY OF BOHEMIAN LOVE
135

ference is hardly to be wondered at since a shameful example is given in the very court. Our future sovereign has no more regard for a priest than for any other man; limits his privileges in every way, lightens the respect for him among the people, and calls religious convent life indolence. Why, then, should not malicious persons, mockers of the Holy Word of God, stick out their horns once more and think of the times when they were allowed to confess their shameful faith openly, forgetting the well-deserved punishment which was inflicted upon them in Bydžov, with the approval of our religious Empress, to whom the infidel son gives no happiness? Let me see; how long ago was it? I believe I had been married a few years when it happened. It is a pity that my husband is not here; he knows it exactly, and knows how everything ended. He can tell a story; it is a pleasure to listen to him. Oh, he is a living chronicle! The den of the heretics was accidentally discovered, and as a frightful warning a whole crowd of them were burned, and