Page:The Hussite wars, by the Count Lützow.djvu/322

 to them. The members of the Council received this statement with surprise and not without indignation. Cardinal Cesarini pointed out with undeniable fairness that as all the spokesmen of the Bohemians had been allowed to address the Council twice, they were bound to recognise the right of the representatives of the Council to do the same. It must, of course, be considered that the articles of Prague had been the result of a compromise, and that even the most conservative Utraquists were not, after long and victorious warfare, prepared to accept lesser concessions than those demanded in the articles, and afterwards, with slight modifications, granted by the compacts. Cesarini’s intervention was again successful, and the members of the Bohemian embassy consented to defer their departure. Though the cardinal had again prevented a complete rupture between the antagonists, no one knew better than he that the continuation of the plenary sittings of the Council could at that moment but little further an agreement. During the prolonged sittings of the Council the debates became more and more embittered. The more extreme Roman divines continued to impress on the Bohemians the duty of accepting unconditionally all decrees of the Roman Church—a standpoint which obviously rendered all negotiations superfluous. The Bohemians, particularly the Táborites, more and more energetically protested against the designation of “heretics” which was applied to them by some members of the Council, and bitterly reproached their opponents with the treachery committed against Hus, whom they revered as a saint. Cesarini, who, as already mentioned, had established amicable relations with some of the Bohemian delegates, came to the conclusion that private meetings between members of the Council and representatives of Bohemia might draw the opponents closer together. In this plan the cardinal was assisted by Duke William of Bavaria, whom King Sigismund, who was still detained in Italy, had appointed “protector” of the Council. Through the duke’s influence four prominent