Thereupon she opened her basket, and counted out fifteen plums, and one over, into Prince Wladomir's hat, and fourteen remained. Of these she gave Ritter Mizisla seven and one over, and there were still six in the basket; half of these she gave the wise Primislaus and three over, and the basket was empty. The whole Court was lost in wonder at the fair Libussa's ciphering gift, and at the penetration of her cunning spouse. Nobody could comprehend how human wit was able, on the one hand, to enclose a common number so mysteriously in words; or, on the other hand, to drag it forth so accurately from its enigmatical concealment. The empty basket she conferred upon the two Knights, who had failed in soliciting her love, to remind them that, their suit was voided. Hence comes it, that when a wooer is rejected, people say, His love has given him the basket, even to the present day.
So soon as all was ready for the nuptials and coronation, both these ceremonies were transacted with becoming pomp. Thus the Bohemian people had obtained a Duke, and the fair Libussa had obtained a husband, each according to the wish of their hearts; and what was somewhat wonderful, by virtue of Chicane, an agent who has not the character of being too beneficent or prosperous. And if either of the parties had been overreached in any measure, it at least was not the fair Libussa. Bohemia had a Duke in name, but the administration now, as formerly, continued in the female hand. Primislaus was the proper pattern of a tractable obedient husband, and contested with his Duchess neither the direction of her house nor of her empire. His sentiments and wishes sympathised with hers, as perfectly as two accordant strings, of which when the one is struck, the other voluntarily trembles to the self-same note. Nor was Libussa like those haughty overbearing dames, who would pass for great matches; and having, as they think, made the fortune of some hapless wight, continually remind him of his wooden shoes: but she resembled the renowned Palmyran Queen; and ruled, as Zenobia did her kindly Odenatus, by superiority of mental talent.
The happy couple lived in the enjoyment of unchangeable love; according to the fashion of those times, when the instinct which united hearts was as firm and durable, as the mortar and cement with which they built their indestructible strongholds. Duke Primislaus soon became one of the most accomplished and valiant knights of his time, and the Bohemian Court the most splendid in Germany. By degrees, many knights and nobles, and multitudes of people from all quarters of the empire, drew to it; so that Vizegrad became too narrow for its inhabitants; and, in consequence, Libussa called her officers before her, and commanded them to found a city, on the spot where they should find a man at noontide making the wisest use of his teeth. They set forth, and at the time appointed found a man engaged in sawing a block of wood. They judged that this industrious character was turning his saw-teeth, at noontide, to a far better use than the parasite does his jaw-teeth by the table of the great; and doubted not but they had found the spot, intended by the Princess for the site of their town. They marked out a space upon the green with the ploughshare, for the circuit of the city walls. On asking the workman what he meant to make of his sawed timber, he replied, "Prah," which in the Bohemian language signifies a door-threshold. So Libussa called her new city Praha, that is Prague, the well-known capital upon the Moldau. In process of time, Primislaus's predictions were punctually fulfilled. His spouse became the mother of three Princes; two died in youth, but the third grew to manhood, and from him went forth a glorious royal line, which flourished for long centuries on the Bohemian throne.
MELECHSALA.
Father Gregory, the ninth of the name who sat upon St. Peter's chair, had once, in a sleepless night, an inspiration from the spirit, not of prophecy, but of political chicane, to clip the wings of the German Eagle, lest it rose above the head of his own haughty Rome. No sooner had the first sunbeam enlightened the venerable Vatican, than his Holiness summoned his attendant chamberlain, and ordered him to call a meeting of the Sacred College; where Father Gregory, in his pontifical apparel, celebrated high mass, and after its conclusion moved a new Crusade; to which all his cardinals, readily surmising the wise objects of this armament for God's glory and the common weal of Christendom, gave prompt and cordial assent.
Thereupon, a cunning Nuncio started instantly for Naples, where the Emperor Frederick of Swabia had his Court; and took with him in his travelling-bag two boxes, one of which was filled with the sweet honey of persuasion; the other with tinder, steel and flint, to light the fire of excommunication, should the mutinous son of the Church hesitate to pay the Holy Father due obedience. On arriving at Court, the Legate opened his sweet box, and copiously gave out its smooth confectionery. But the Emperor Frederick was a man delicate in palate; he soon smacked the taste of the physic hidden in this sweetness, and he knew too well its effects on the alimentary canal; so he turned away from the treacherous mess, and declined having any more of it. Then the Legate opened his other box, and made it spit some sparks, which singed the Imperial beard, and stung the skin like nettles; whereby the Emperor discovered that the Holy Father's finger might, ere long, be heavier on him than the Legate's loins; therefore plied himself to the purpose, engaged to lead the armies of the Lord against the Unbelievers in the East, and appointed his Princes to assemble for an expedition to the Holy Land. The Princes communicated the Imperial order to the Counts, the Counts summoned out their vassals, the Knights and Nobles; the Knights equipped their Squires and Horsemen; all mounted, and collected, each under his proper banner.
Except the night of St. Bartholomew, no night has ever caused such sorrow and tribulation in the world, as this, which God's Vicegerent upon Earth had employed in watching to produce a ruinous Crusade. Ah, how many warm tears flowed, as knight and squire pricked off, and blessed their dears! A glorious race of German heroes never saw the light, because of this departure; but languished in embryo, as the germs of plants in the Syrian desert, when the hot Sirocco has passed over them. The ties of a thousand happy marriages were violently torn asunder; ten thousand brides in sorrow hung their garlands, like the daughters of Jerusalem, upon the Babylonian willow-trees, and sat and wept; and a hundred thousand lovely maidens grew up for the bridegroom in vain, and blossomed like a rose-bed in a solitary cloister garden, for there was no hand to pluck them, and they withered away unenjoyed. Among the sighing spouses, whom this sleepless night of his Holiness deprived of their husbands, were St. Elizabeth, the Landgraf of Thuringia's lady, and Ottilia, Countess of Gleichen; a wife not standing, it is true, in the odour of sanctity, yet in respect of personal endowments, and virtuous conduct, inferior to none of her contemporaries.
Landgraf Ludwig, a trusty feudatory of the Emperor, had issued general orders for his vassals to collect, and attend him to the camp. But most of them sought pretexts for politely declining this honour. One was tormented by the gout, another by the stone; one had got his horses foundered, another's armoury had been destroyed by fire. Count Ernst of Gleichen, however, with a little troop of stout retainers, who were free and unencumbered, and took pleasure in the prospect of distant adventures, equipped their squires and followers, obeyed the orders of the Landgraf, and led their people to the place of rendezvous. The Count had been wedded for two years; and in this period his lovely consort had presented him with two children, a little master and a little miss, which, according to the custom of those stalwart ages, had been born without the aid of science, fair and softly as the dew from the Twilight. A third pledge, which she carried under her heart, was, by virtue of the Pope's insomnolency, destined, when it saw the light, to forego the embraces of its father. Although Count Ernst put on the rugged aspect of a man, Nature maintained her rights in him, and he could not hide his strong feelings of tenderness, when at parting he quitted the embraces of his weeping spouse. As in dumb sorrow he was leaving her, she turned hastily to the cradle of her children; plucked out of it her sleeping boy; pressed it softly to her breast, and held it with tearful eyes to the father, to imprint a parting kiss on its unconscious cheek. With her little girl she did the same. This gave the Count a sharp twinge about the heart: his lips began to quiver, his mouth visibly increased in breadth; and sobbing aloud, he pressed the infants to his steel cuirass, under which there beat a very soft and feeling heart; kissed them from their sleep, and recommended them, together with their much loved mother, to the keeping of God and all the Saints. As he winded down along the castle road with his harnessed troop from the high fortress of Gleichen, she looked after him with desolate sadness, till his banner, upon which she herself had wrought the Red-cross with fine purple silk, no longer floated in her vision.