Page:The Hussite wars, by the Count Lützow.djvu/250

 the university of Paris had always insisted on the necessity of strengthening the authority of the ecumenical councils of the Church. The council held in Siena in 1424 had already determined that a new council should be held at Basel after the lapse of seven years. The university of Paris, however, in view of the disturbed condition of the Christian world, wished to advance the date of the new assembly. It was hoped that a general council of the Church would more easily come to terms with the Utraquists than the Pope. The Bohemian envoys were received by King Sigismund on the day of their arrival, but the first meeting had an entirely ceremonial character. On the following day the King assembled the princes, Bohemian nobles, and theologians, and consulted them as to the best manner in which negotiations with the Utraquists could be opened. They advised him to tell the Hussites in a conciliatory fashion that they had strayed from the path of true Christianity and that they had abandoned the doctrines in which their forefathers had believed, and which they themselves had formerly accepted. According to the contemporary chroniclers, Sigismund then transmitted these remarks to the Hussite delegates “with wise and kindly words.” It isa proof of Sigismund’s intense vanity that he believed that his conciliatory words—which contained no concession whatever—would induce the Hussites to abandon doctrines which they had successfully upheld against all Europe for nearly ten years. The Hussites answered that they wished to be granted a hearing by a general meeting of the Christian people, at which laymen also were to be present. According to Dr. Neubauer’s skilful conjecture, the Hussites had remarked that among the lower nobility and the townsmen beyond the borders of Bohemia their views had already found many friends. The germs of the ideas which brought out the German Reformation in the following century perhaps already existed in the border-lands of Bohemia. The brief exchange of views at Pressburg soon proved that the antagonistical parties were at least for