and the
Holy Roman Empire. It is, therefore, no wonder that his memory held
popular sentiment for centuries, holds it still, though there are signs
that John Nepomuk is creeping up again; and in this lie endless
possibilities.

In the first place it is maintained by ardent nationalists, and
therefore followers of John Hus, that John Nepomuk never existed at all,
that he was simply invented by the Jesuits in their successful efforts
to bring back to Rome the Protestant people of Bohemia whose army had
been defeated in the battle of the White Mountain in 1620. John Nepomuk
was raised, they maintain, in opposition to the real national hero and
martyr John Hus; therefore the whole story of the former John's death is
all invention, and the tablet on the bridge over which he went to
martyrdom is a brazen misstatement of fact. The tablet is of bronze,
anyway, and shows the saint floating serenely on the surface, his head
surrounded by a halo of stars which flew upwards as his body struck the
water. Although this serious event is said to have happened in 1383, it
was not till nearly three centuries later that it was recalled to the
memory of the Bohemian people, who were then encouraged to celebrate the
16th of May as the day set apart for St. John Nepomuk. So they
celebrated--it takes little inducement to make a Bohemian celebrate
anything. The festival included several attractive features, such as a
religious service on the bridge itself, and also a display of fireworks
in memory of the afore-mentioned bunch of stars. Such observances must
have given great satisfaction to the saint, less so the habit of
invoking his aid in times of drought. This surely is rather a delicate
matter. Remember, John Nepomuk had been drowned; therefore to ask him to
see to a further supply of water seems hardly tactful--it is enough to
send any ordinary saint off into a fit of hydrophobia. Anyway, John
Nepomuk was duly canonized some three hundred and fifty years after his
supposed immersion in the waters of Prague. Since then many churches
have been dedicated to his saintly memory; many statues, depicting him
with all the truthfulness inherent in the narrative of "the oldest
inhabitant," adorn shrines by the wayside: he was apparently popular all
over the country--in any case he brought the people at least one
holiday. But the war affected the pleasant relations between a kindly
saint and the people to whom he had been appointed for special duti