Anyway, the "Holy Roman Empire," describing itself as of German nationality, spread out over Central Europe, absorbing one Slavonic tribe after another until there remained as the most western of them only the Czechs of Bohemia as a coherent body, their national life centred on Prague.
However, we are still on the way to Prague up the valley of the Elbe, an interesting route, as it takes you by Dresden, rich in art treasures and still renowned for its music.
The best time of year to travel by this route is the season when the fruit trees are in blossom. Then the valley of the Elbe is a mass of white and pale green set against a background of yellow sandstone rocks and the sombre greens and purples of pine forests. It is not so very long ago since this district of Saxony formed part of the Kingdom of Bohemia, and many names familiar to travellers in these parts recall memories of Slavonic inhabitants—Blasewitz, Loschwitz, Pilnitz, whither the royal family of Wettin, another Slavonic name, was wont to retire for the summer months. The Wettins have now retired from business as monarchs, and their former subjects are following the prevailing fashion of submission to democratic rule tempered by an occasional diversion in the form of an attempted local counter-revolution. These movements are generally innocuous; they sometimes add to the gaiety of nations by the sheer imbecility of their inception and attempted execution, and they appear to be welcome rather than otherwise, as a means of distracting public attention from the universal muddle and general misguidance of European affairs, to those who consider themselves called upon and qualified to set those affairs right.
You may also approach Prague via Vienna; in former days you were encouraged by Austrian propaganda to do so, and this in order to emphasize the fact that you were expected to regard Prague as a quaint little provincial town lying on the road to nowhere in particular. The hand of the Habsburg lay heavy on Prague, and all the glory of great possessions had to be concentrated on Vienna.
We are still on the road to Prague, which has come into its own at last, whereas the glory of Vienna has departed. You wind up to the Bohemian Forest through lovely scenery, where the grey ramparts of Eggenburg look out over the blue distances, across the uplands of Bohemia, passing Tabor dreaming yet of stirring days of religious strife, its towers mirrored in the waters of Jordan, and onward till a wide curve brings the first sight of the towers and spires of "Zlata Praha," Golden Prague.
The usual travelling Westerner prefers the shortest and most convenient route to Prague, namely, via Paris. You may get right through from London to Prague in thirty-six hours if you just skirt round Paris by the ceinture, but a right-minded wayfarer, who should never hurry, will not miss an opportunity of taking the tonic of a few days in the "Ville Lumière." If he be a true wayfarer—that means not only an enterprising traveller but also given to contemplation—he will bestow some thought on the geographical position respectively of Paris and his destination, Prague, which should help him to enter into the spirit of those two cities; but of this more hereafter.
When the wayfarer does tear himself away from Paris he should travel by the train de luxe, which lands him, without the trouble of changing, in Prague at a reasonably early hour of the evening. This route is interesting in itself, as it leads through many notable places, Château Thierry, with its grim reminders of the Great War, Nancy, and Strasbourg restored to France. Then on to Stuttgart, the capital of a small but healthy German Republic, formerly the Kingdom of Würtemberg; there has been no exaggerated display of republican fervour here in this clean and proper capital, and a crown still tops the coat of arms of a line of rulers, on the former royal palace. You cross the fertile country of Franconia, a wide curve gives you a fine view of Nuremberg, and then you ascend towards the pass that divides the Ore Mountains from the Bohemian Forest. There are quaint old towns growing out of crumbling battlements perched on rocks, towns of soft-sounding South German names breathing history of long ago. There is, for instance, Waiblingen, a very ordinary-looking wayside station, yet what memories does that name recall! Memories of Hohenstaufen Emperors, Fredericks and Conrads, down to the last and luckless Conradin, memories of faction fights between the city republics of Italy, within the walls of those cities, between Guelph and Ghibelline, Welf and Waiblingen. This country Bavaria was also at one time the home of the Welfs; they were a strong, determined race, and spent much time and energy in vigorous opposition to Holy Roman Emperors, possibly as men of common sense they considered the whole prevailing idea of empire rather nonsensical; they were eventually banished to the country about Hanover and Brunswick, where they flourished by virtue of their forceful character—and we Britons have reason to be grateful that it was so.
We move along to Eger or Cheb, where we find a last reminder of the Hohenstaufen in the ruins of a castle and a round two-storied chapel built by Frederick Barbarossa.