Page:The story of Prague.djvu/22

 Teutonic races, and its capital, Prague, has for more than a thousand years been an outlying bastion of the Slav people, which, sometimes captured, has always been recovered. Within the time of men now living Prague had the appearance of a German city, while it has now a thoroughly Slav character. The town has therefore an intense interest for the student of history, and, indeed, of politics. For more than two centuries a religious conflict, interwoven with the racial struggle in a manner that cannot be defined in few words, attracted the attention of Europe to Bohemia, and particularly to Prague; for the battles of the Zizkov and the Vysehrad were fought within the precincts of the present city. But it is not only in the annals of war that Prague plays a pre-eminent part. The foundation of the University for a time made Prague one of the centres of European thought. Thanks to the enthusiasm and eloquence of Hus, the endeavour to reform the Church, which had failed in England, was for a time successful in Bohemia. Though he was not born at Prague, and died in a foreign country, the life of Hus belongs to Prague. The traveller cannot pass the Bethlehem Chapel or the Carolinum without thinking of the great reformer. Though the iconoclastic fury of the extreme Hussites and the rage of incessant civil warfare have deprived Prague of many of its ancient monuments, it is by no means so devoid of architectural beauty as has been stated by those who, perhaps, know the town only by hearsay. The three ancient round chapels, dating from the beginning of the tenth century, still remain as examples of the earliest ecclesiastical architecture of Prague. The Church of St. George, on the Hradcany Hill, which is now being carefully restored, is a very fine specimen of early romanesque architecture. The four towers at the outskirts of the Hradcany, which date from the thirteenth xvi