Oldr̆ich bequeathed to his son both his zeal for the national language and the national independence, and also the love of romantic adventure. Even before his accession to the throne, Brac̆islav had attracted attention as a hero of romance. He had made a sudden expedition to the nunnery of Schweinfurt, to carry off from thence the beautiful daughter of a German Count. The gate of the nunnery was secured by a bar; but Brac̆islav cut through the bar with his sword, and carried off his bride in triumph, though some of his followers were cut off and killed. But the great purpose of his life was to recover the ground which Bohemia had lost in her struggle with Poland. Even before his accession to the throne, he had reconquered the greater part of the province of Moravia, which the Poles had torn away from Bohemia; and, as soon as he became duke, he resolved to carry his plans yet further, and to invade Poland itself. The death of Duke Casimir of Poland, and the infancy of his successor, facilitated this expedition. Brac̆islav retook Cracow by storm, overran much of Silesia, and transplanted many of the Poles to Bohemia, where he suffered them to maintain their old laws and customs. He then marched to Gnesen, the centre of the intended scheme for establishing the ecclesiastical supremacy of Poland over Bohemia. The city was ill-defended, and Brac̆islav entered it in triumph. Then followed one of those scenes which show how strangely the fiercer elements in the Bohemian character were checked and crossed by influences like those of St. Wenceslaus and St. Adalbert. It will be remembered that the body of the latter saint had been buried by the king of Poland at Gnesen, and Brac̆islav had many motives for desiring to recover so valuable a possession. But the scene which preceded the restoration of the national saint to the country, which had so ill-treated him during his life, is curiously unlike the ordinary performances of a military conqueror; and, if there are any who think that such a mediæval legend is beneath the dignity of history, they should remember that the historian Cosmas, who has preserved it for us, was a man actively engaged in the ordinary political affairs of his time.