palaces of the earth can offer. From the long monotonous architectural
lines of the Hradschin, imposing from its massiveness and its imperial
situation, and with the dome and minarets of the cathedral clustering
behind them, the eye swept across the fertile valley, through which the
rapid, yellow Moldau courses, to the opposite line of cliffs crested with
the half imaginary fortress-palaces of the Wyscherad. There, in the
mythical legendary past of Bohemia had dwelt the shadowy Libuscha,
daughter of Krok, wife of King Premysl, foundress of Prague, who, when
wearied of her lovers, was accustomed to toss them from those heights
into the river. Between these picturesque precipices lay the two Pragues,
twin-born and quarrelsome, fighting each other for centuries, and growing
up side by side into a double, bellicose, stormy, and most splendid city,
bristling with steeples and spires, and united by the ancient
many-statued bridge with its blackened mediaeval entrance towers.

But it was not to enjoy the prospect that the aged, discrowned, solitary
emperor, almost as dim a figure among sovereigns as the mystic Libuscha
herself, was gazing from the window upon the imperial city.

"Ungrateful Prague," he cried, "through me thou hast become thus
magnificent, and now thou hast turned upon and driven away thy
benefactor. May the vengeance of God descend upon thee; may my curse come
upon thee and upon all Bohemia."

History has failed to record the special benefits of the Emperor through
which the city had derived its magnificence and deserved this
malediction. But surely if ever an old man's curse was destined to be
literally fulfilled, it seemed to be this solemn imprecation of Rudolph.
Meantime the coronation of Matthias had gone on with pomp and popular
gratulations, while Rudolph had withdrawn into his apartments to pass the