CHAPTER III
Prague in Modern Times
AFTER the battle of the White Mountain, the interest of the story of Prague declines for a time. A period of strenuous reaction in Church and State, during which the Government endeavours to efface the memorials of past national glory, cannot be picturesque. As it was necessary to replace by new architectural monuments the ancient buildings that recalled events that it was now thought desirable to forget, Prague was in the seventeenth and eighteenth century covered with buildings in the rococo and ‘Jesuite’ styles, which often unfavourably impress the passing traveller who is unable to discern that they are by no means connected with the period of Bohemia’s greatness.
During the Thirty Years’ War Prague several times again plays a considerable part. After Gustavus Adolphus’s great victory at Breitenfeld in 1631, his Saxon allies occupied Prague in November of that year. They were accompanied by many Bohemian exiles, who caused the heads of the twelve patriots that were still exposed on the bridge towers to be removed and buried with great solemnity in the Tyn Church. Preparations were even made to re-establish Protestanism, but in May of the following year Wallenstein’s army stormed the Malá Strana and the Hradcany Castle, and the Saxons shortly afterwards entirely evacuated Bohemia, though not before amassing
