nconsiderate man Dr. Melchior, who represented the matter quite
otherwise. I beg that your worship will signify to the women, that they
may return to their homes; assuredly what has happened shall not happen
again, of that I hereby assure your worship.' When the women heard
this, and that nothing further had happened to the ladies, as has been
related above, the women were well content, went home and laid aside
their bundles and bunches of keys, nevertheless, not out of reach, that
they might have them at hand day or night in case of need."

Here ends the old narrative. The priest was obliged the following year
to leave Loewenberg ignominiously, as he would not desist from his
scandalous proceedings. Amongst other things he had a public chop and
beer-house erected for the old Silesian beer. The spiteful Dr. Melchior
became afterwards in desperation a soldier, and was hanged at Prague.
And the valiant women,--we hope they took refuge with their husbands at
Breslau or in Poland.

After 1632, the town decayed more and more every year, now under
Swedish or Imperial, now under Evangelical, or Roman Catholic
ministers; in 1639, the town contained only forty citizens, and had a
debt of a ton and a half of gold; in 1641, the citizens themselves
unroofed their houses in order not to pay taxes, and dwelt in thatched
huts. When the peace came, the town was almost entirely in ruins. Eight
years later, in 1656, there were again one hundred and twenty-one
citizens in Loewenberg and about eight hundred and fifty inhabitants;
eighty-seven per cent, of the population had perished.

CHAPTER VI.

THE THIRTY YEARS' WAR.--THE PEACE.

The peace was signed; the ambassadors had solemnized the ratification
by shaking hands, and trumpeters rode about the streets announcing the
happy event.

At Nuremberg the Imperialists and the Swedes held a peace banquet in
the great saloon of the council-house; the lofty vaulted hall was
splendidly lighted; betwixt the chandeliers hung down thirty kinds of
flowers and real fruits, bound together with gold tinsel; four choirs
were stationed for festive music, and the six classes of invited guests
were assembled in six different rooms. On the table stood two
prodigious show dishes, a triumphal arch, and a hexagonal mound covered
with mythological and allegorical figures with Latin and German
devices. The banquet was served up in four courses, in eac