Page:Guide to the Bohemian section and to the Kingdom of Bohemia - 1906.djvu/11

9 limited, assumed an attitude, that was strongly opposed to the government of Vienna. They maintained the right of voting the taxes of the country—a right of which they had never been formally deprived even after the year 1620. To obtain the support of the wider classes of the population, the nobles determined in 1847 that they would at the meeting of the Estates, that was to take place in the following year, demand, that the representation of the Bohemian towns should be largely increased and that the Estates should in future have a more efficient control over the taxation of the country. They also demanded, that the Bohemian language should be introduced into all the higher schools of the country. The revolutionary outbreak of 1848 prevented the meeting of the Estates in that year. When the news of the Paris revolution of February reached Prague, the excitement there was very great. On March 11th a vast public meeting voted a petition to the government of Vienna, which demanded, that the Bohemian language should be granted equal rights as the German one in all the government offices in Bohemia, that a general diet consisting of representatives of all the Bohemian lands should be summoned, and that numerous liberal reforms should be introduced.

The deputation, which presented these demands in Vienna, received a somewhat equivocal answer. In reply, however, to a second deputation the emperor Ferdinand of Austria declared on April 8th, that equal rights would be granted to the two nationalities in Bohemia, that the question of the reunion of Moravia and Silesia with Bohemia should be left to a general meeting of representatives of all parts of the Austrian empire. It was further stated in the imperial message, that a new meeting of the Estates of Bohemia, which would include representatives of the principal towns, would shortly be summoned. This assembly,