of all ages, John Žiška. This is not the place to tell of the doings of those Hussite armies and their exploits, and how they kept all Europe at bay so that every Bohemian might feel secure in the faith that was in him. Right away in the hazy background of hills against which stand up the towers and spires of Prague you may see an incline sloping down towards the river and to northward. This incline is now all built over, and this quarter of the town is called Žiškov in memory of the great Hussite who held this hill against repeated attacks until he was in a position to go over to the offensive. Dissensions had broken out among the crusaders, the imperial armies melted away and left Sigismund to face his people alone. He came to some agreement with the leaders of the opposition and was even solemnly crowned at St. Vitus; but the battle on Žiška's hill marked the beginning of the Hussite wars. [Illustration: ST. VITUS.] With the defeat of the Bohemian army on the White Mountain ends the story of St. Vitus as the cathedral of a free country. The building was resumed after the Thirty Years' War came to an end, and other kings were crowned in the church that had known the glory of Charles IV and George Podiebrad; but those who came after were aliens to Bohemia, neither came they to that country intent only on its interests; a succession of Habsburgs passes by in pageant, to receive the crown of Bohemia as one among many distinctions to which their house was heir. Ferdinand III and Leopold I pass by, and Leopold's second son Charles VI second as King of Bohemia, last male representative of the House of Habsburg, who was succeeded by his daughter Maria Theresia. Troubles began again as in the days when the Přemysl dynasty died out, and the German Electors decided to choose a new Emperor. The choice fell on Charles of Bavaria, so old St. Vitus saw again a coronation pageant and one which much resembled that of Frederick the Winter King. Charles of Bavaria was crowned at Prague with all the usual pomp and ceremony; he then left Bohemia never to return. Officially this Charles' coronation seems to count for nothing in the history of Austria into which that of Bohemia was merged. Bohemia became for years a pawn in the stern game between Maria Theresia and Frederick of Prussia, and St. Vitus suffered damage from the latter's guns; the glory of Golden Prague had departed and the stately cathedral looked down for nearly three centuries on a city that had been put aside, out of the way of the world's commerce and its great affairs, to dream of the days when Charles IV was King and Bohemia the land of a free and prosperous people. * * * * *