y death ought to contribute to the Master's glory,
pray that it may come quickly and that He may enable me to support all
my calamities with constancy. You will probably nevermore behold my face
at Prag."

He set out on Oct. 11, as boldly as later Luther to Worms.

XI.

Hus Arrives at Constance.

On his journey Hus was everywhere welcomed heartily and at Biberach even
triumphantly. He reached Constance, a beautiful city of fifty thousand
inhabitants, on Nov. 3, and found lodgings with Fida, "a second widow
of Sarepta," in St. Paul St.,--now Hus St.--near the Schnetz Gate, not
far from the abode of Pope John XXIII. On the same day came the historic
and notorious safe-conduct of Sigismund--"The honorable Master John Hus
we have taken under the protection and guardianship of ourselves and of
the Holy Empire. We enjoin upon you to allow him to pass, to stop, to
remain and to return, freely and without any hindrance whatever; and you
will, as in duty bound, provide for him and for his, whenever it shall
be needed, secure and safe conduct, to the honor and dignity of our
Majesty." Dated at Speyer, October 18, 1414.

[Illustration: HOUSE WITH TABLET WHERE HUS LODGED AND THE SCHNETZ GATE.]

John XXIII with piratical pomposity promised the papal protection: "Even
if Hus had killed my own brother, he shall be safe in Constance."

With the Emperor Sigismund came twenty princes and one hundred and forty
counts. The Pope had been a pirate; at Bologna he had plundered and
oppressed his people and sold licenses to usurers, gamblers, and
prostitutes; his cruelty thinned the population; in the first year as
legate at Bologna he outraged two hundred maidens, wives, or widows,
and a multitude of nuns; at least so Catholic historians say.

With this holy father there came to the Council twenty-nine cardinals,
seven patriarchs, over three hundred bishops and archbishops, four
thousand priests, two hundred and fifty university professors, besides
Greeks and Turks, Armenians and Russians, Africans and Ethiopians, in
all from sixty to a hundred thousand strangers, and thirty thousand
horses.

In order to amuse these godly fathers amid their grave labors there
came seventeen hundred artists, dancers, actors, jugglers, musicians
and--prostitutes, seven hundred public ones, not counting the private
ones.

Hus wrote: "Would that you could see this Council, which is called most
holy and infallible; truly you would see great wick