Page:Zawis and Kunigunde (1895).djvu/249

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BOPPO CONFRONTS AND REPUDIATES RUDOLPH
245

versation of the people, as left no doubt that in its main features the truth had not been overstated. Zawis lay a prisoner after presenting himself at the palace at Prague, on a most dutiful and courteous mission, where he had been directly invited to present himself as an honored guest, by order of the king in person. “Wenzel is but a boy,” said the peasants, “and a neglected boy. His soul is not his own. Bohemia is intended to be made a province attached to the new dynasty, no longer as a kingdom, but as a family estate. Rudolph himself is but a hired servant to a new master who has exchanged us for provinces in Italy, although we never belonged to him.”

Boppo determined to change his course and proceed to Vienna. He should there be better able to procure definite advices of the precise locality where the emperor should be found.

On this point Hungarian and Moravian peasants were necessarily inignorance. Nearing Vienna, Boppo learned to his surprise the seething discontent of the inhabitants of that city. The better to observe the situation, he resolved to seek the hospitality of the great Cistercian Monastery at Neustadt. Approaching this great establishment, he observed pendent from the neck of a monk, whose garb differed from the others, a cross of equal arms, fleurie, quarterly sable and argent. This dreadful symbol recalled the too painful scenes at Gran; and the old man determined not to entrust himself within the fortress, and possibly the prison gates of that strongly walled enclosure.