It does not appear that he was made to suffer for his boldness, but two
of the lower ecclesiastics, John of Nepomuk and Puchnik, were put to
the rack to make them confess facts learned by them in the confessional.
They persistently refused to answer. Wenceslas, infuriated by their
obstinacy, himself seized a torch and applied it to their limbs to make
them speak. They were still silent. The affair ended in his ordering
John of Nepomuk to be flung headlong, during the night, from the great
bridge over the Moldau into the stream. A statue now marks the spot
where this act of tyranny was performed.
The final result of the emperor's cruelty was one which he could not
have foreseen. He had made a saint of Nepomuk. The church, appreciating
the courageous devotion of the murdered ecclesiastic to his duty in
keeping inviolate the secrets of the confessional, canonized him as a
martyr, and made him the patron saint of Bohemia.
Puchnik escaped with his life, and eventually with more than his life.
The tyrant's wrath was followed by remorse,--a feeling, apparently,
which rarely troubled his soul,--and he sought to atone for his cruelty
to one churchman by loading the other with benefits.
Pages:
203
204
205
206
207
208
209
210
211
212
213
214
215
216
217
218
219
220
221
222
223
224
225
226
227