ir disposal, this, of a man who was scarcely fit to run at large,
most reasonable persons would say; but all did not think so. John von
Goerlitz, the younger brother of the emperor, fearing public scandal from
such a transaction, induced the princes who held him to set him free. It
proved a fatal display of kindness and family affection for himself. The
imperial captive was no sooner free than, concealing the wrath which he
felt at his incarceration, he invited to a banquet certain Bohemian
nobles who had aided in it. They came, trusting to the fact that the
tiger's claws seemed sheathed. They had no sooner arrived than the claws
were displayed. They were all seized, by the emperor's order, and
beheaded. Then the dissimulating madman turned on his benevolent brother
John, who had taken control of affairs in Bohemia during his
imprisonment, and poisoned him. It was a new proof of the old adage, it
is never safe to warm a frozen adder.

The restoration of Wenceslas was followed by other acts of folly. In the
following year, 1395, he sold to John Galcazzo Visconti, of Milan, the
dignity of a duke in Lombardy, a transaction which exposed him to
general contempt. At a later date he visited Paris, and here, in a
drunken frolic, he played into the hands of the King of France by ceding
Genoa to that country, and by recognizing the antipope at Avignon,
instead of Boniface IX. at Rome. These acts filled the cup of his folly.
The princes of the empire resolved to depose him. A council was called,
before which he was cited to appear. He refused to come, and was
formally deposed, Rupert, of the Palatinate, being elected in his stead.
Ten years afterwards, in 1410, Rupert died, and Sigismund became Emperor
of Germany.

Meanwhile, Wenceslas remained King of Bohemia, in spite of his brother
Sigismund, who sought to oust him from this throne also. He took him
prisoner, indeed, but trusted him to the Austrians, who at once set him
free, and the Bohemians replaced him on the throne. Some years
afterwards, war continuing, Wenceslas sought to get rid of his brother
Sigismund in the same manner as he had disposed of his brother John, by
poison. He was successful in having it administered to Sigismund and his
ally, Albert of Austria, in their camp before Zuaym. Albert died, but
Sigismund was saved by a rude treatment which seems to have been in
vogue in that day. He was suspended by the feet for twenty-four hours,
so that the poison ran out