The Bloody Mass and the First Shots

On 12 June 1848, Whit Monday, the former parish priest of Miletín, Jan Arnold, read a mass on Wenceslas Square at the statue of Saint Wenceslas, which was afterwards called the bloody or the red mass. When the people, of whom a great multitude were present, began to disperse after the mass, one crowd moved with noise and singing along Celetná Street past the general command of the time, which was full of troops. Suddenly, from there and from Králodvorská Street opposite, soldiers with fixed bayonets rushed out upon the people, and in that collision several persons were wounded. The people scattered with a great outcry, there were calls to arms, and after the Parisian example barricades began to be built. It is said that the first shots at the soldiers were fired at that time from the windows of the Blue Star inn, where Bakunin and some Polish members of the Slavonic Congress were lodging. In an unaccountable manner the wife of Prince Windischgrätz, born Princess Schwarzenberg, then lost her life; it is generally held that out of curiosity she stepped up to the window and was struck by a stray bullet, though other explanations were also offered.