Prague, as you may imagine, had grown, despite the troubles it had passed through, both in importance and in extent. When Charles IV came to the throne, the city still consisted of three parts as before; during his reign a new town was added, and this was made necessary by the rise of the University which Charles had founded. Charles must have been considering the idea of creating a seat of learning in Prague before he accompanied his father to Crecy, for we find him writing to the Pope on the subject while he was yet recovering from his wounds and before he returned to Bohemia. It was at a Diet held at Prague in 1348 that Charles announced his intention of founding a University, and he set about it with his customary energy. The King himself took in hand the organization of this his new foundation, ably assisted by the Archbishop, Ernest of Pardubic, as Chancellor. Students of many countries, many nations, flocked to Prague, evidence of the fact of the city's central position in Europe, and soon the new University ranked with those older institutions--the only ones of the kind in Europe--Bologna, Paris and Oxford. The number of students increased rapidly: by the end of Charles's reign there were some six or seven thousand of them. The trouble was to accommodate them all. The professors held lectures in their own apartments, in monasteries if they happened to belong to one or other of the many congregations in Prague, and theology courses were held in the Cathedral. This was well enough at first, but even then there was no provision for the students' lodgings. They could not live in colleges, as there were none; in fact, the only university buildings in existence, which probably served various ceremonial occasions, was a congeries of buildings called the Carolinum, after its founder. These buildings stood in the Old Town, and there were probably others used for university purposes dotted about the town, as is the case to-day. Still, the students remain unhoused. There must have been a good many houses without the walls of the Old Town and Vyšehrad, the ancient borough, and I take it that Charles collected all these houses under one administration of its own, walled the place in securely and called it Nové Město, New Town, quite simply. Charles laid the foundation-stone of the New Town in the same year as that in which he started the University, fitted the former out with various necessaries, a town-hall, a church or two, perhaps St. Stephen's, and so provided more housing room for the good people of Prague and their guests the students. [Illustration: VENICE IN PRAGUE.]