and liberty itself could not strip of its habituated fetters.

The surrender of Prague, which was quickly followed by that of most of
the other towns, effected a great and sudden change in Bohemia. Many
of the Protestant nobility, who had hitherto been wandering about in
misery, now returned to their native country; and Count Thurn, the
famous author of the Bohemian insurrection, enjoyed the triumph of
returning as a conqueror to the scene of his crime and his
condemnation. Over the very bridge where the heads of his adherents,
exposed to view, held out a fearful picture of the fate which had
threatened himself, he now made his triumphal entry; and to remove
these ghastly objects was his first care. The exiles again took
possession of their properties, without thinking of recompensing for
the purchase money the present possessors, who had mostly taken to
flight. Even though they had received a price for their estates, they
seized on everything which had once been their own; and many had
reason to rejoice at the economy of the late possessors. The lands and
cattle had greatly improved in their hands; the apartments were now
decorated with the most costly furniture; the cellars, which had been
left empty, were richly filled; the stables supplied; the magazines
stored with provisions. But distrusting the constancy of that good
fortune, which had so unexpectedly smiled upon them, they hastened to
get rid of these insecure possessions, and to convert their immovable
into transferable property.

The presence of the Saxons inspired all the Protestants of the
kingdom with courage; and, both in the country and the capital, crowds
flocked to the newly opened Protestant churches. Many, whom fear alone
had retained in their adherence to Popery, now openly professed the
new doctrine; and many of the late converts to Roman Catholicism
gladly renounced a compulsory persuasion, to follow the earlier
conviction of their conscience. All the moderation of the new regency
could not restrain the manifestation of that just displeasure which
this persecuted people felt against their oppressors. They made a
fearful and cruel use of their newly recovered rights; and, in many
parts of the kingdom, their hatred of the religion which they had been
compelled to profess, could be satiated only by the blood of its
adherents.

Meantime the succors which the imperial generals, Goetz and
Tiefenbach, were conducting from Silesia, had entered Bohemia,