Famous female poisoners—This crime not so prevalent in Germany as in southern countries—Frau Ursinus—Her early history—Mysterious deaths of her husband and aunt—Attempted murder of her man-servant—Arrested and sentenced to imprisonment for life in the fortress of Glatz—Anna SchÖnleben or Zwanziger—Deaths followed her advent into different families—Arrested at Bayreuth, confessed her guilt and was condemned to death.

In the early decades of the nineteenth century, when the Napoleonic wars caused constant conflict and change, crime flourished with rank growth in most European countries and nowhere more than in the German states,—both those that remained more or less independent and those brought into subjection to the French Empire. Whole provinces were ravaged by organised bands of brigands, such as that which obeyed the notorious Schinderhannes; travelling was unsafe by all ordinary roads and communications; thieves and depredators abounded; murderers stalked rampant through the land; the most atrocious homicides, open and secret, were constantly planned and perpetrated; swindling and imposture on a large scale were frequently practised, and crimes of every kind were committed by all kinds of people in all classes of society.

Poisoning was not unknown as a means of removal, although it never prevailed to the same extent as among people of warmer blood. It never grew into an epidemic affecting whole groups and associations, but it occurred in individual cases, exhibiting the same features as elsewhere. This form of feloniously doing to death has ever commended itself to the female sex. Women are so circumstanced as wives, nurses and in domestic service that they possess peculiar facilities for the administration of poison, and so the most prominent poisoners in criminal history have been women.

A curious instance is to be found in the German records, and the story may be told in this place as belonging to this period. The murderess was a certain Frau Ursinus, widow of a privy counsellor who was also president of a government board. Ursinus was a highly esteemed member of the upper classes of Berlin. Deep interest attached to this case of Frau Ursinus from the prominent position occupied by her late husband, her considerable fortune, her prepossessing person and spotless reputation, as well as her cultured mind which made her conspicuous in the society of the Prussian capital. The news, therefore, of her sudden and unexpected arrest on a criminal charge, caused great consternation and surprise.

Early in May, Frau Ursinus was at a party, playing whist, when a footman, evidently greatly perturbed, came in and said that several police officials were in the anteroom and wished to speak to her. She rose without manifesting any emotion, put down her cards, excused herself to her fellow-players for this slight interruption, doubtless caused by a mistake which would soon be accounted for, and adding that she hoped soon to return, left the room. She did not, however, come back to resume her game, and after a few moments of strained expectation it became known that she had been arrested and taken to prison on a criminal charge.

Her servant, Benjamin Klein, had complained of not feeling well one day toward the end of the previous February. His mistress had accordingly given him a cup of broth and a few days later some currants. These remedies were of no avail, and he became worse. When, on February 28th, Frau Ursinus offered him some rice, he refused it, whereupon she threw it away, a singular proceeding on her part, as he thought, and his suspicions were aroused that the food she had previously administered to him had contained something deleterious. He made a strict search in consequence through his mistress’s apartments, and presently discovered a powder labelled arsenic in one of the cupboards. This happened on March 21st. On the following day, Frau Ursinus offered him some plums, which he accepted but prudently did not taste. Then he confided the result of his search and his fears to his mistress’s maid, Schley, who took the plums to her brother, an apprentice in a chemist’s shop, where they were analysed. The plums were found to contain arsenic and the master of the establishment immediately laid the information before the authorities; an inquiry was set on foot, the principal witnesses were examined, and in the end Frau Ursinus was taken into custody. These facts came out after the arrest and a good deal more was assumed. It was rumoured that she had not only poisoned her deceased husband three years previously, but also her aunt, a spinster called Witte as well, and a Dutch officer of the name of Rogay. These deaths had occurred in sequence after that of the privy counsellor.

Frau Ursinus persistently denied all the earlier charges of administering poison, but admitted the attempts upon her servant, Klein. A thorough investigation followed, and a number of damning facts in her past and present life were brought to light.

Sophie Charlotte Elizabeth, the widow Ursinus, was born on May 5, 1760, and was the daughter of the secretary of the Austrian legation, Weingarten, afterward called Von Weiss. Contemporary historians call him Baron von Weingarten. He was supposed to have turned traitor to the Austrian government, and this led to his settling in Prussia and to his change of name. According to common belief, he had really refused a tempting offer made to him by the Prussian government to hand over some important papers, very much wanted. But he was in love, and the mother of his betrothed, an enthusiastic partisan of Frederick the Great, managed to abstract the papers from a cupboard. He had to bear the brunt of this misdeed and voluntarily accepted exile. Charlotte lived with her parents until her twelfth year, and was then committed to the care of a married sister in Spandau to be educated. Her parents were Catholics but she declared herself a Lutheran. Later, the father and mother being unwilling to countenance a love affair into which their daughter had been drawn, took up their residence in Stendal. Here Charlotte became acquainted with her future husband, at that time counsellor of the Supreme Court, who after a year’s acquaintance, sought her hand. She did not precisely love this grave, sickly, elderly man, but she confessed to a sincere liking and was willing to marry him on account of his many excellent qualities, his position and his prospects. She was then in her nineteenth year. The pair, after moving to and fro a great deal, finally settled in Berlin, where Privy Counsellor Ursinus died on September 11, 1800.

The match had not been happy; husband and wife lived separately; they were childless and Frau Ursinus was inclined to flirtation, having taken a strong fancy to a Dutch officer named Rogay. The aged husband did not seem to disapprove of the attachment, which his wife always maintained was perfectly platonic, and it was generally believed that the phlegmatic Dutchman was incapable of the “grand passion.” After leaving Berlin, probably to escape her influence, Rogay returned and died there three years before the privy counsellor. When the propensity of Frau Ursinus to secret poisoning was discovered, the making away with this Dutch officer was laid to her charge, but she was acquitted of the crime, and it was indeed sworn by two competent physicians that Rogay had died of consumption.

Privy Counsellor Ursinus died very suddenly and mysteriously, his death being in no wise attributed at the time to his chronic ailments. But when, three years later, the widow came under suspicion, serious doubts were entertained as to whether she had not poisoned her husband. Her own account as to the manner of his death only strengthened the presumption of her guilt. According to her statement, she had given a small party on September 10th, her husband’s birthday. He was in fairly good spirits, but had remarked more than once that he feared he was not long for this life. On retiring to rest, his wife saw nothing wrong with him, but in the middle of the night his moans and groans awakened her. An emetic stood handy by the bedside, kept thus in readiness by the doctor’s order (which the doctor subsequently denied), and Frau Ursinus wished him to take it, but gave him an elixir instead. As he did not improve, she tried the emetic and rang up the servants, but none came; then she sought the porter, desiring him to call them, but still no one appeared. So she remained alone with her suffering husband through the entire night. The following morning he was in a very weak and feeble condition and he died on the afternoon of the same day.

Grave suspicion of foul play was now aroused and Frau Ursinus was arrested. It was urged against her that she had shown no real desire to summon the servants; that she made no attempt to call in the doctor; that the family physician had never prescribed the emetic; why, then, was it there? A worse charge against the wife was her volunteering the statement that she kept arsenic to kill rats, a conventional excuse often made in such cases. And in this case it was put forward quite unnecessarily, for there were no rats in the house.

Yet there was no definite charge against Frau Ursinus. No motive for murder could be ascertained. They were by no means bad friends, this wedded pair. Frau Ursinus might in her secret heart desire to be freed from the bond that tied her to an infirm old man, and marry another husband, but she had always appeared grateful to the privy counsellor and treated him kindly. On the other hand, it was proved that she had purchased a quantity of arsenic for the purpose of destroying the fictitious rats. Sufficient doubt existed to justify the exhumation of the body and proceed to a postmortem examination. No definitely incriminating evidence was, however, forthcoming. The autopsy was conducted by two eminent doctors, who could find no positive traces of arsenic, but there was a presumption from the general condition of the vital organs and convulsive contraction of the limbs that it had been used. Three physicians who had attended Herr Ursinus in his last illness testified that his death resulted from a natural cause, that of apoplexy of the nerves, and repudiated all idea of arsenic. At this stage there was a foregone conclusion that Frau Ursinus would be quite exonerated from the felonious charge.

Suddenly the situation entered upon a new phase. Frau Ursinus was accused of another and entirely new murder, that of her aunt, a maiden lady named Witte, who had died at Charlottenburg on the 23d January, 1801, after a short illness. No suspicious circumstances were noted at the time of her death, but after the arrest of Frau Ursinus, the possibility of her complicity in this deed took definite shape. A careful inquiry ensued and the inculpation, amounting to little less than certainty, was soon established. Again the process of exhumation was set afoot and there was not the smallest doubt that the deceased had died from arsenical poisoning. It was equally certain that Frau Ursinus had administered it.

On her own confession she admitted her arrival at her aunt’s house on January the 16th. FrÄulein Witte was sick and complaining, and her niece, who professed great affection for her, decided to spend some little time with her. On the day following the arrival of her niece, FrÄulein Witte’s disorder increased, and she had other disquieting symptoms. Frau Ursinus now summoned a doctor, stating that she herself felt so low and depressed that she contemplated suicide and had made up her mind to take poison. In the meantime, her aunt became more and more seriously ill. On the 23d of January Frau Ursinus persuaded her to let another physician be called in, who pronounced the illness to be unimportant, but when he left it increased. Frau Ursinus watched by her aunt all night, during the course of which the poor woman died. She was quite alone with her expiring victim and must have been a witness of her terrible convulsions. It came out at the trial that on the occasion of a previous visit to Charlottenburg, Frau Ursinus had written to a chemist in Berlin for a good dose of poison to destroy the rats in her aunt’s house. Here again the rats were non-existent.

This pretence was as false as was her insistence on the fact that she had been in a great state of depression since her husband’s death. This mental condition and her consequent desire to commit suicide came up prominently at her trial. She had always affected great sensibility, wishing to pose as a fragile, delicate person, as she considered robust health to be vulgar. Yet she was naturally strong and well. No proof could ever be found that she meant to take her own life. When really she had most ground for depression, being burdened with a terrible accusation, and the scaffold loomed threateningly before her, the undaunted spirit of the woman rose to the occasion and her real and powerful nature asserted itself. She did not exhibit the smallest sign of low spirits, but fought on with desperate courage and self-reliance, disputing every point, lying freely and recklessly in her unshaken resolve to save life and honour. Her adroitness in defence was greatly aided by her extraordinary knowledge of the Prussian criminal code. Very rarely her fortitude deserted her, and she was betrayed into a strange admission, that if she had really handed poison to her aunt she must have been out of her mind. The object of this particular murder was plainly indicated in the fact that she expected a considerable inheritance from FrÄulein Witte. Conviction in this case followed almost as a matter of course.

Her guilt in attempting the life of the man-servant Klein was never in doubt, but the motive remained obscure to the very end. One explanation was offered by Frau Ursinus herself. She denied all wish to kill him but admitted that she was making an experiment in the operation of lethal drugs with the idea of ascertaining their effect on herself. A more plausible reason was that she had at one time made him her confidant and wished to use him as a go-between in negotiating a second marriage. They had quarrelled, and Klein was about to leave her service, which she dreaded, lest he might tell tales and make her appear ridiculous before the world. She owed him a deep grudge also for having presumed upon the favour she had shown him. To get rid of so presumptuous and dangerous a person was enough to move this truculent poisoner to seek to compass his death. Klein eventually recovered his health and survived for twenty-three years, living comfortably on a pension forcibly extracted from Frau Ursinus.

The verdict pronounced upon her was one of “not guilty” as regards her husband and the Dutch officer Rogay. But she was fully convicted of having murdered her aunt, Christina Regina Witte, and of several felonious attempts to poison her servant, Benjamin Klein. Her sentence was imprisonment for life in a fortress and she endured it in Glatz, on the frontier of Silesia and Bohemia. From the first she was treated with excessive leniency and in a way to prove that prison discipline was then a mere farce in Prussia. She was permitted to furnish and arrange the quarters allotted to her according to her own taste, and she spent much time at a comfortable writing table under a well lighted window. She engaged a lady companion to be with her constantly, and passing travellers curious to make the acquaintance of a murderess were allowed to call on her and to listen to her unending protestations of innocence. She did not always evoke sympathy, and the government was much abused for its favouritism. A cutting comparison was drawn between this aristocratic criminal parading the ramparts of Glatz in silks and satins, and humble offenders who had been condemned for succumbing weakly to ungovernable rage and who were driven to toilsome labour in deep ditches, heavily chained and grossly ill-used. Here she acted the lady of quality, and being possessed of a considerable income, was able to give parties which were largely attended. At one of these receptions, it is said that a lady guest on noticing some grains of sugar sparkling in a salad involuntarily started back. Frau Ursinus remarking this, said, smiling sarcastically, “Don’t be afraid, it is not arsenic!”

Her companion who was with her until her death on April 4, 1836, and never left her, bore witness to her religious resignation in bearing her physical suffering caused chiefly by a chest complaint. She remained more or less unconscious for some months, but on the night before her end her mental faculties returned and she passed away peacefully. She was the first person to be buried in the Protestant cemetery which King Frederick William III had given to the evangelical congregation at Glatz.

A year before her death she had ordered a costly oak coffin. Clad in a white petticoat, a cap trimmed with pale blue ribbon on her head, her hands encased in white gloves, on one finger a ring which had belonged to her late husband and with his portrait on her breast, she lay as if asleep, an expression of peace upon her unchanged face. Several carriages, filled with her friends and acquaintances, followed the body to the grave, which was decorated with moss and flowers, and when the clergyman had finished his discourse, six poor boys and the same number of girls, to whom she had shown great kindness, sang a hymn in her honour. Instead of the sexton, the hands of friends and poor recipients of the dead woman’s charity filled in the grave and shaped the mound above it. It was a bitterly cold morning, and yet the cemetery could hardly contain the people who thronged it.

Thus Frau “GeheimrÄthin” Ursinus died in the odour of sanctity. Her many relatives, who greatly needed money, only received one-half of her fortune; the other half she parcelled out into various bequests and several pious institutions benefited; and we may thus fairly conclude that she desired to rehabilitate her accursed name by ostentatious deeds of charity. She left her gaoler, who had treated her considerately, five hundred thalers and his daughter a piano. Doctor Friedham, who had procured the royal favour through which she was liberated from the fortress, received a substantial legacy.

Another female poisoner in a lower sphere of life, whose lethal propensities were more strongly developed and more widespread, belongs to this period and the neighbouring kingdom of Bavaria. The woman, Anna SchÖnleben or Zwanziger—her married name—known in criminal history as the German Brinvilliers, was as noxious as a pestilence, and death followed everywhere in her footsteps. Never did any human being hunger more to kill, and revel more wantonly in the reckless and unscrupulous employment of the means that secret poisoning put at her disposal. Her extravagant fondness for it was “based upon the proud consciousness of possessing a power which enabled her to break through every restraint, to attain every object, to gratify every inclination and to determine the very existence of others. Poison was the magic wand with which she ruled those whom she outwardly obeyed, and which opened the way to her fondest hopes. Poison enabled her to deal out death, sickness and torture to all who offended her or stood in her way; it punished every slight; it prevented the return of unwelcome guests; it disturbed those social pleasures which it galled her not to share; it afforded her amusement by the contortions of the victims, and an opportunity of ingratiating herself by affected sympathy with their sufferings; it was the means of throwing suspicion upon innocent persons and of getting fellow servants into trouble. Mixing and giving poison became her constant occupation; she practised it in jest and in earnest, and at last with real passion for poison itself, without reference to the object for which it was given. She grew to love it from long habit, and from gratitude for its faithful services; she looked upon it as her truest friend and made it her constant companion. Upon her apprehension, arsenic was found in her pocket, and when it was laid before her at Culmbach to be identified, she seemed to tremble with pleasure and gazed upon the white powder with eyes beaming with rapture.”

We will take up her story when she was a widow of about fifty years old, resident at Pegnitz and bearing the name of Anna SchÖnleben. In 1808 she was received as housekeeper into the family of Justice Glaser, who had for some time previous been living apart from his wife. Shortly after the beginning of her service, however, a partial reconciliation took place, in a great measure effected through the exertions of SchÖnleben, and the wife returned to her husband’s house. But their reunion was of short duration, for in the course of four weeks after her return, she was seized with a sudden and violent illness, of which, in a day or two, she expired.

After this event, SchÖnleben quitted the service of Glaser and was received in the same capacity into the household of Justice Grohmann, who was then unmarried. Although only thirty-eight years of age, he was in delicate health and had suffered severely from gout, so that SchÖnleben soon gained his favour by the kindly attentions she bestowed upon his health. Her cares, however, were unavailing; her master fell sick in the spring of 1809, his disease being accompanied with violent internal pains of the stomach, dryness of the skin, vomiting, etc., and he died on the 8th of May after an illness of eleven days. SchÖnleben, who had nursed him with unremitting anxiety and solicitude during his illness and administered all his medicines with her own hand, appeared inconsolable for his loss and that of her situation. The high character, however, which she had acquired for her unflagging devotion and tenderness as a sick nurse, immediately procured her another post in the family of Herr Gebhard, whose wife was at that time on the point of being confined. This event took place on the 13th of May, shortly after the arrival of the new housekeeper, who made herself particularly useful. Mother and child were thought to be progressing extremely well when, on the third day after the birth, the lady was seized with spasms, high temperature, violent thirst, vomiting, etc. In the extremity of her agony, she frequently exclaimed that they had given her poison. Seven days after her confinement she expired.

Gebhard, the widower, bereaved and helpless in managing household affairs, thought it would be prudent to retain the housekeeper in his service who had been so zealous and assiduous during his wife’s illness. Some of his friends sought to dissuade him from keeping a servant who seemed by some fatality to bring death into every family with which she became connected. The objection arose from mere superstitious dread, for as yet no accusation had been hinted at, and Gebhard, a very matter of fact person, laughed at their apprehensions. SchÖnleben, who was very obliging, with a great air of honesty, humility and kindliness, remained in his house and was invested with almost unlimited authority.

During her residence in the Gebhard household, there were many circumstances which, although they excited little attention at the time, were subsequently remembered against her. They will be mentioned hereafter; for the present, let us follow the course of events and the gradual growth of suspicion. Gebhard had at last, by the importunity of his friends, been persuaded to part with his housekeeper and did so with many regrets. SchÖnleben received her dismissal without any remark beyond an expression of surprise at the suddenness of his decision. Her departure for Bayreuth was fixed for the next day, and she busied herself with arranging the rooms, and filled the salt box in the kitchen, remarking that it was the custom for one who went away to do this for her successor. On the next morning, as a token of her good-will, she made coffee for the maids, supplying them with sugar from a paper of her own. The coach which her master had been good-natured enough to procure for her was already at the door. She took his child, now twenty weeks old, in her arms, gave it a biscuit soaked in milk, caressed it and took her leave. Scarcely had she been gone half an hour when both the child and servants were seized with violent retching, which lasted some hours and left them extremely weak and ill. Suspicion being now at last fairly awakened, Gebhard had the salt box examined, which SchÖnleben had so officiously filled. The salt was found strongly impregnated with arsenic; in the salt barrel also, from which it had been taken, thirty grains of arsenic were found mixed with about three pounds of salt.

It was now clear to every one that the series of sudden deaths which had occurred in the families in which SchÖnleben had resided, had been due to arsenical poison, and it seemed extraordinary that this circumstance had been so long overlooked. It came to light now that while she was with Gebhard two friends who had dined with her master in August, 1809, were seized after dinner with the same symptoms of vomiting, convulsions, spasms and so forth, which had attacked the servants on the day of SchÖnleben’s departure, and again, had shown themselves in the condition of the unfortunate mistress when she died. Also SchÖnleben had on one occasion given a glass of white wine to a servant who had called with a message, which had produced similar effects; the attack was indeed so violent as to oblige him to remain in bed for several days. On another occasion she had taken a lad of nineteen, Johann Kraus, into the cellar, where she had offered him a glass of brandy which he tasted, but perceiving a white sediment in it, declined to swallow. And again, one of her fellow servants, Barbara Waldmann, with whom SchÖnleben had had frequent quarrels, after drinking a cup of coffee was seized with exactly the same symptoms as the others. Last of all, it was remembered that at a party which Judge Grohmann gave, he sent her to the cellar for some jugs of beer, and after partaking of it, he and all his guests—five in number—were almost immediately seized with the usual spasms.

The long interval which had elapsed since the death of most of these individuals rendered it improbable that an examination of the bodies would throw any light upon these dark transactions. It was resolved, however, to put the matter to the test, and the result of this tardy inspection was more decisive than might have been expected; all the bodies exhibited in a greater or less degree traces of arsenic. On the whole, the medical authorities felt themselves justified in stating that the deaths of at least two of the three individuals had been occasioned by poison.

Meantime SchÖnleben had been living quietly at Bayreuth, quite unconscious of the storm gathering round her. Her finished hypocrisy even led her, while on the way there, to write a letter to her late master reproaching him with his ingratitude at dismissing one who had been a protecting angel to his child; and in passing through NÜrnberg, she dared to take up her residence with the mother of her victim, Gebhard’s wife. On reaching Bayreuth, she again wrote to Gebhard vainly hoping he would take her back into his service, and she made a similar unsuccessful attempt on her former master Glaser. While thus engaged, the warrant for her arrest arrived and she was taken into custody on October 19th. When searched, three packets were found in her pocket, two of them containing fly powder and the third arsenic.

For a long time she would confess nothing; it was not till April 16, 1810, that her courage gave way, when she learned the result of the examination of the body of Frau Glaser. Then, weeping and wringing her hands, she confessed she had on two occasions administered poison to her. No sooner had she admitted this than she fell to the ground in convulsions “as if struck by lightning,” and was removed from the court. Strange to say, although she knew that by her confession she had more than justified her condemnation to death, she laboured to the very last to gloss over and explain the worst features of her chief crimes, and in spite of ample evidence, denied all her lesser offences. It was impossible for her false and distorted nature to be quite sincere, and when she told a truth she at once associated with it a lie.

When Anna SchÖnleben fell into the hands of justice, she had already reached her fiftieth year; she was of small stature, thin and deformed; her sallow and meagre face was deeply furrowed by passion as well as by age, and bore no trace of former beauty. Her eyes were expressive of envy and malice and her brow was perpetually clouded, even when her lips moved to smile. Her manner, however, was cringing, servile and affected, and age and ugliness had not diminished her craving for admiration. Even in prison and under sentence of death, her imagination was still occupied with the pleasing recollections of her youth. One day when her judge visited her in prison, she begged him not to infer what she had been from what she was; that she was “once beautiful, exceedingly beautiful.”

Her life history antecedent to the events just recorded has been constructed from trustworthy sources and her own autobiography which fills eighteen closely written folio sheets. Born in NÜrnberg in 1760, she had lost her parents before she reached her fifth year. Her father had possessed some property and until her nineteenth year she remained under the charge of her guardian, who was warmly attached to her and bestowed much care upon her education. At the age of nineteen she married, rather against her inclination, the notary Zwanziger, for that was her real name. The loneliness and dulness of her matrimonial life contrasted very disagreeably with the gaieties of her guardian’s house, and in the many absences of her husband, who divided his time between business and the bottle, she passed her time in reading sentimental novels such as the “Sorrows of Werther,” “Pamela” and “Emilia Galeotti.” Her husband, with her help, soon ran through her small fortune, which was wasted in extravagant entertaining and in keeping up an establishment beyond their means. They sank into wretched impecuniosity, with a family to support and without even the consolation of common esteem. She took to vicious methods and presently her husband died, leaving his widow to follow the career of an adventuress.

During the years that intervened between the death of her husband and the date on which she first entered Glaser’s service, her life had been one long course of unbridled misconduct. Absolutely devoid of principle, she associated with others as vicious as herself; she became a wanderer on the face of the earth and for twenty years never found a permanent resting place or a sincere friend. Fiercely resenting the evil fortune that had constantly befallen her, she chafed with bitter hatred against all mankind; her heart hardened; all that was good in her nature died out and she became a prey to the worst passions, consumed always with uncontrollable yearning to better her condition by defying all divine and human laws. When and how the idea of poison first dawned on her, her confessions did not explain, but there is every reason to believe that it was before she entered Glaser’s service. Determined as she was to advance her own interests, poison seemed to furnish her at once with the talisman she was in search of; it would punish her enemies and remove those who stood in her way. From the moment she met Glaser, she resolved to secure him as her husband. That he was already married was immaterial, for poison would be a speedy form of divorce. To bring her victim within range of her power, she schemed to effect the reconciliation so successfully accomplished, and directly after Frau Glaser returned home, Zwanziger began her operations. Two successful doses were administered, of which the last was effectual. While she was mixing it, she confessed, she encouraged herself with the notion that she was preparing for herself a comfortable establishment in her old age. This prospect having been defeated by her dismissal from Glaser’s service, she entered that of Grohmann. Here she sought to revenge herself upon such of her fellow servants as she happened to dislike by mixing fly powder with the beer,—enough to cause illness but not death. While at Grohmann’s home she had also indulged in matrimonial hopes; but all at once these were defeated by his intended marriage with another. She tried to break this engagement off, but ineffectually, and Grohmann, provoked by her pertinacity, decided to send her away. The wedding day was fixed; nothing now remained for Zwanziger but revenge, and Grohmann fell a victim to poison.

From his service Zwanziger passed into that of Gebhard, whose wife shared the fate of Grohmann, for no other reason, according to her own account, than because that lady had treated her harshly. Even this wretched apology was proved false by the testimony of the other inmates of the house. The true motive, as in the preceding cases, was that she had formed designs upon Gebhard similar to those which had failed in the case of Glaser, and that the unfortunate lady stood in the way. Her death was accomplished by poisoning two jugs of beer from which Zwanziger from time to time supplied her with drink. Even while confessing that she had poisoned the beer, she persisted in maintaining that she had no intention of destroying her mistress; if she could have foreseen that such a consequence would follow, she would rather have died herself.

During the remaining period from the death of Gebhard’s wife to that of her quitting his service, she admitted having frequently administered poisoned wine, beer, coffee and other liquors to such guests as she disliked or to her fellow servants when any of them had the bad luck to fall under her displeasure. The poisoning of the salt box she also admitted; but with the strange and inveterate hypocrisy which ran through all her confessions, she maintained that the arsenic in the salt barrel must have been put in by some other person.

The fate of such a wretch could not, of course, be doubtful. She was condemned to be beheaded, and listened to the sentence apparently without emotion. She told the judge that her death was a fortunate thing for others, for she felt that she could not have discontinued poisoning had she lived. On the scaffold, she bowed courteously to the judge and assistants, walked calmly up to the block and received the blow without shrinking.