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The Upper Rhine : Mayence to the Lake of Constance
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THE CONCILIUM S SAAL AT CONSTANZ.

393

A narrow staircase leads to the long loft, or bare barn-likeChamber, in wliich the Council formerly held its sittings. Atthat time the building was comparatively new, having beenerected only 26 years before the Session of the Diet; thougheven now it has but few marks of age about it. Along theChamber is ranged a series of Square oaken pillars, or ratherposts, and these are marked with numbers for the merchantswho now assemble here three times a-year, for the sale of clothmanufactured in Switzerland and Wirtembui'g. The chamberbelow is still devoted to the purposes of a Kaufhaus (Exchange).

The old Council-chamber, denuded and desolate as it nowappears, reminds one of the bare deck of an immense man-of-war laid up in ordinary.

Here it was that Huss, on the 5th of June, in the pre-sence of the Emperor and the assembled cardinals, bishops,kings, princes, nobles, and priests of Christendom, was shownhis printed works, and on his admitting them to have beenwritten by him, the principles deduced from them were readover to him.

Of these, some he qualified, so as to remove their ob-noxious spirit; others he evaded; and a few he denied;whereupon the Emperor Sigismund and the Archbishop ofCambray exhorted him to submit unconditionally to theChurch. Huss again assured them that he had come therewith that design, if it could be proved to him that he

On the following day, thirty-nine propositions drawnup from his works were submitted to him, the priests andmonks screaming at him the while, " like the Jews at Jesus,"to use Huss's own words — while many cried aloud, "Burnhis works! burn them !"

Repeated and urgent were the efforts now made by theEmperor and nobles, the Pope and cardinals, to induce