Page:The Hussite wars, by the Count Lützow.djvu/295

 Bohemia the cardinal first visited King Sigismund at Nürnberg. The King, as already mentioned, made light of the recent disaster and declared that he was sure of final victory. He did not, therefore, express a favourable opinion of Cesarini’s conciliatory plans. He was on the point of starting for Italy, where his coronation depended on the favour of the Pope. He knew that Pope Eugenius was—like his predecessor—strongly opposed to general Councils of the Church, and that he was at that moment contemplating the dissolution of the Assembly at Basel. The cardinal, however, proceeded to that town and now at last assumed the presidency of the Council, which had been conferred on him by Pope Martin and confirmed by his successor. Since the spring of the year 1431 ecclesiastics from various countries had begun to arrive at Basel, though the scarcely veiled hostility of Pope Eugenius deterred many. Shortly after the arrival of Cardinal Cesarini the Council took the important step of inviting the Utraquists to appear before the assembly. On October 10 the Council addressed a letter to the clergy, nobility, and the whole Bohemian nation, in which it expressed the sincere wish that peace and unity be re-established in the Church, and it invited 2em