Page:History of the Thirty Years' War - Gindely - Volume 1.djvu/200

 coronation; after these came the King with uncovered head, attended by the Administrator of the Protestant consistory and his vicar. To the Queen and her retinue, as also to other high personages, were assigned special seats from which they could obtain a view of the ceremony. On this occasion there were thrown among the people several thousand memorial coins, and their good-humor was preserved by causing white and red wine to flow for an hour from a fountain prepared near the castle for this purpose, and free for every one’s refreshment. Nor were the cannons on this day dumb, as the Queen held this to be no longer necessary for the sparing of her nerves. Three days later she was herself crowned, and with the usual pomp, except that no coins were thrown among the people.

The solemnities of these days were not without notes of discord. The King had, since he crossed the frontier, charmed all hearts with his obliging kindness, and especially at the coronation banquet, as he rose and proposed the health of the Estates. The evil tongue of fault-finders found in him as yet nothing to lay hold of. The Queen, however, was no longer spared. She could express herself but awkwardly in the German language—knew nothing of the Bohemian—and her attendants were mostly young women from England, so that she was separated from the Bohemian ladies as if by a Chinese wall. She could not, by courteous words, give to the first meeting a friendly character, and so was exposed defenceless to the criticism of her sex. Four days had not yet elapsed since her arrival, when it had been spied out that she had no regard for order, no hour for meals, none for attendance at church. Her toilet was quite unpardonable; at least the modesty of the ladies of Prague was deeply wounded by