(Das Grosse Malefizbuch. Herausgegeben von Wilhelm v. Chezy. Landshut: 1847.)

The peculiar and powerful interest attaching to narratives of remarkable crimes, and of their judicial investigation, is abundantly evidenced by the avidity with which that class of literature is invariably pounced upon by the public. Independently of the romance incidental to the subject, of the doubts and intricacies and conflicting circumstances of extraordinary criminal trials, well calculated to captivate the imagination of the vulgar, and rivet attention on their recital,—such cases possess a psychological interest, making itself felt by the least intelligent of readers, appealing with almost equal force to the scantily educated and to the scholar, to inexperienced youth and thoughtful age. By the former, it is true, the exact process by which such narratives lay hold upon the feelings and imagination, may not be easily detected, but the charm, if unseen, is not the less potent. The great success and enduring reputation of books of this kind, are the best proof of their strong and universal fascination. Whilst the legal works of Gayot de Pitaval are long since shelved and forgotten, the title of his Causes CÉlÉbres^[1] continues as familiar to our ear as those of the most notable literary productions of our own century; the book itself—of frequent reference, and found in every library of importance—has obtained the honours of repeated translation, and of reproduction in numerous forms. Those twenty volumes, it might be thought, were an ample supply of this species of reading, sufficient to stock the world and blunt the public appetite for such records. But the varieties of the subject are inexhaustible, as much so as the infinite shades and capricious directions of human passions, the unceasing diversity and perverse ingenuity of human crime. And Richer’s continuation of what Pitaval began, found as eager readers as its compiler could reasonably desire. In later times, two Germans, Messrs Hitzig and HÄring, have edited with considerable success a work of a similar nature.^[2] Others doubtless will appear. There can be no lack of materials. Each successive half-century yields matter for a new and lengthy series. Meanwhile, and although civilisation, impotent wholly to check crime, is also unable to strip its annals of novelty and pungency, the remarkable criminal records of ruder ages are frequently recurred to and reproduced, as wilder and more romantic in their nature than those of a recent day. Alexander Dumas has collected from various quarters a voluminous work of this nature; and, although its greater portion was already a thrice-told tale, the book is one of the most popular of his multifarious productions. Feuerbach the celebrated jurist, the impartial narrator and critic of the extraordinary history of Caspar Hauser, the indefatigable labourer in the arid vineyard of the law, whose lightest literary pastime would to most men have been toil,^[3] deemed it not unworthy his learned pen to collate and comment two volumes of trials,^[4]—volumes familiarised to the English reader by a recent translation. His well-stored mind and skilful handling imparted new depth and value to the subject, and doubtless the book would not so long have awaited a transfer into our language, but for the warlike circumstances and interrupted Continental communication of the period at which its first edition appeared. The interest of such narratives is no way diminished from their scene being in a foreign land; indeed, it is most engrossing when exotic, since the illustrations of the peculiar laws and characteristics of other nations is then superadded to that of the eccentricities of crime. And, perhaps, the most fertile field at the disposal of the curious in such matters, is afforded by that wide country, claiming to include in its bond of brotherhood every land wherein the German tongue resounds. The variety of the laws by which the kingdoms and provinces of Germany have at different times been governed, tends greatly to diversify its criminal calendar. And, doubtless, in many old libraries, private and public, in the dusty and rarely-opened book-cases of provincial barons and Freiherrn, on the shelves of museums, and in municipal collections (scarce less neglected and unread) of ancient books and manuscripts, much curious reading of this description, well worthy of publicity, lies buried and forgotten.

It is from a literary lumber-room of this kind, we suspect, that Mr ChÉzy has extracted the contents of the three curious volumes now before us, containing, as their old French name implies, details of crimes and malefactors. “What we,” he tells us in his preface, “are wont to call criminal archives, were in many places styled by our forefathers ‘Malefice-books,’ records kept partly by the public executioner, who, in his capacity of torturer, had frequent occasion to share in criminal investigations.” From this passage, and from the expression herausgegeben (edited) in the title-page, we understand that the “Grosse Malefizbuch” is not to be viewed as an original composition, which the word verfasser, (author) employed in the preface, might have led us to believe. This makes a certain difference in the critical view to be taken of the book. Were it a mere fiction, intended as an imitation of the probable style of the headsman, inditing, chiefly as matter of duty, but yet not without a certain rude feeling and interest in the task, the crimes and circumstances his sanguinary profession brought under his notice, we should admit some skill in the tone adopted. But, as an editor, Mr ChÉzy has performed his part in a lazy and slovenly fashion. He appears to have contented himself with merely modernising the orthography, and (slightly) the language. With excellent stuff to work upon, he had it in his power to make a very complete and remarkable book: he has been contented to put forward a meagre and deficient one. We would not have had him greatly alter the text. Here and there a little curtailment might have been advantageously practised, or a paragraph judiciously interpolated. But the volumes should have been richly garnished with notes and commentaries, instead of being wholly without them. From the first page to the last not a line appears—at the end of each volume we vainly seek an appendix—explanatory of the singular usages so frequently referred to; referred to usually in as cursory and off-hand a way as if they were matters of present custom, to which all men were still habituated, and concerning which none needed enlightenment. Mr ChÉzy seems conscious of his fault, for he tells us, in a half apologetic tone, to bear in mind that he is a poet, and not a scholar. No great depth of scholarship was essential for what we would have had him do. A very moderate amount of study and patience would have put him in possession of the necessary information. Its want is wofully felt as we wander through his bald pages, at whose foot not the smallest fragment of a note attracts the reader’s eye, and removes the tantalised feeling with which he encounters distant and unexplained allusions, and is compelled to guess their purport. “This work,” says Mr ChÉzy, “intended to represent men and circumstances as they once may have been, is not confined within the limits of the documental authority. The Malefizbuch may be styled a poetical Pitaval.” In view of this professed design of poetising his materials, and of conveying, through a romantic medium, information concerning old times and obsolete customs, we can but repeat that the author’s performance has fallen short of his project. But the subject was too good to be wholly spoiled, even by the clumsiest treatment, with which, however, it would hardly be fair to charge Mr ChÉzy, whose faults are rather of omission than commission. And the anathemas we are tempted, in our progress through his pages, to invoke upon his head, are frequently checked by the occurrence of interesting passages and striking incidents.

The three volumes of the Malefizbuch are various in the form and nature of their contents, although all bear reference to the same subject, and illustrate, in different points of view, the criminal laws and customs of a rude, cruel, and superstitious period. Besides the absence of notes, the author is guilty of the common German carelessness about dates and places, and is often very vague in his indication of both. This is especially the case with his first volume, which many readers will consider the best, by reason of a certain melancholy interest running through it. We are appealed to for our sympathy with the misfortunes of an executioner’s son, who, after absenting himself from his country, and obtaining an education superior to his station, is compelled to accept the loathsome inheritance of his father, and wield axe and work rack in obedience to the law’s stern dictates. This volume (each volume has a special title, independently of the general one) is called “Ten Narratives from Master Hammerling’s Life and Memoirs.” They are chapters rather than detached narratives, for a connecting thread runs through them, and they in fact form a complete history of the childhood and youth of Meister HÄmmerling, the German Jack Ketch. The name of the latter personage upon an English title-page, would be suggestive of little beyond the drop at Newgate, and penny tracts sold at street corners. But none who have any acquaintance with the German headsman of the middle ages, will be so unjust as to class him with the vulgar and prosaic official who executes in England the last sentence of the law. Formerly, by the laws of the empire, the SCHARFRICHTER was held ehrbar or of honourable repute. The broad bright sword was the only instrument of death he condescended to touch, and consequently his dealings were with men of gentle blood, for whom decapitation was especially reserved. Infamous chastisements were inflicted by the dishonouring hands of the Henker or common hangman, who was considered anrÜchig or infamous. Gradually, the two offices were blended in one, the headsman’s privileges were abridged or became totally obsolete; and the grim romance attaching to the stern saturnine man who, on days of notable executions, appeared on the scaffold in bright scarlet mantle, and peaked hat with sable feather, and with one flashing sweep of his terrible blade severed heads from shoulders of well-born criminals, was dissipated and forgotten. Still, on the crowded and diversified canvass of the middle ages, the strange figure stands prominently forth, recalling, by its associations, many a dark deed and wild legend. But the change is great since then. “The executioner now-a-days,” says Mr ChÉzy, “is a citizen like any body else, an elector and eligible; if he possess enough property, he may be sent as deputy to the second Chamber, and perhaps give his vote against capital punishment. The headsman of former centuries has faded into a tradition; and a poet may therefore be allowed to sketch his portrait once more, perhaps for the last time, in all its different aspects and mysterious horrors.” And without further prelude, we are introduced to the last minister of the law, a meek and melancholy man, who remembers, one still Sabbath morning, that it is his bounden duty to keep up the record in the Malefizbuch, begun by his great-grandfather, the first of his race who could write. Whilst pondering over this necessity, he incidentally recapitulates some of his privileges and advantages; how he is of as good descent after his kind as the best nobleman in the holy Roman empire, tracing back his genealogy to the days of Henry the First of Germany, surnamed the Fowler, who nominated his ancestor to the office of executioner, since when the family has held house and ground, goods and profits, in fief of the crown. And how he is no way subject to the authorities of the land, further than that he is bound to serve them with sword, axe, wheel and cord, with ladder, screws and tongs, pitch, sulphur and rods, either in his own person or by his assistants, as his letter of privileges dictates. Neither is he infamous, like those of his men who remove dead beasts and do such like unclean work; and, whoever addresses him with contemptuous speech, shall be fined according to law of the empire, as if he had insulted a lord of the council. Finally, when the number of unfortunates slain by his hand shall exceed five hundred, the headsman has a right, if it so please him, to abandon his charge, and mix once more upon equal terms with his fellow-citizens. After this recapitulation, Master Hammerling takes up his own history from the day of his birth, when he was laid in his father’s arms as he returned from burning an old witch upon the market-place. This he finds set down in his father’s hand-writing, and also how he was christened by the name of Berthold, on the very day on which Black Hannah, the child-murderess, was executed; whilst her accomplice, long Heinz, was compelled to look on at the execution, and was then flogged out of the town and district. The latter would have been hung, had not the executioner saved him, in virtue of an old privilege, which he exercised less out of love for Heinz than for fear of its becoming annulled by disuse. Had a daughter instead of a son been born to him, he had a right to save the poor girl who had fallen victim to a base seducer. So was it set forth in the headsman’s charter.

Berthold Benz traces back his recollections to a very early period of his childhood, and in his manner of narrating them there is a quaint sad simplicity, by no means unattractive. “My mother, God help her!” he says, “right well do I remember her; and though I should live a hundred and many hundred years, I still shall ever have her before me, with her kindly blue eyes and her ringlets of the same colour as the flax which she drew from the distaff with her slender white fingers, and sent whirling round the spindle. We were always alone; my father went about his affairs, and of the servants none came near us in our apartment, or in our little flower-garden—parted by hedge and fence from the rest of the court—save and except fat Grethel, a sturdy broad-footed Swabian girl, my mother’s cousin, and taken in by her for the love of God.” And Berthold was happy at his mother’s knee, and in his childish fancy deemed the headsman’s hereditary dwelling, with its high surrounding wall, to be little short of a fortress, and held the vaulted sitting-room, with its three narrow windows, at least equal to any hall in the proud castle that towered upon the cliff beyond the stream. But his tranquil happiness lasted not long; the troubles of the doomster’s son had an early beginning. “On a sudden, my dearest mother wept more than she smiled, grew pale and yet paler, weak and still more weak, until at last she was unable to lead me out into the garden. At the same time I ceased to see my father. Neither at meals, nor as formerly, in the chamber, of a morning, was he visible, and however early I got up, the answer to my questions always was that he had already gone out. And one day, Heaven only knows how it happened, dear mother was gone, and when I screamed and wept for her, Swabian Grethel beat me, and said that ‘she was my mother now.’” From this day, Berthold’s sufferings began. Hated by his stepmother, neglected by his father, who was infatuated with his young wife,—he was left to run wild with the executioner’s assistants. After a while, a brother was born, and then his lot became still harder. He was sent to sleep amongst the hay in the loft; and the sole notice he obtained from his father was when the latter instructed him in the duties of his office. But old Benz was a harsh teacher, and the child preferred to receive his lessons from Arnulph, the chief assistant, who took him with him to the town and on rambles in the forest; taught him to sever cabbage-heads at a single stroke, and told him, as they sat together upon the top of the lonely gallows-tree, wonderful tales and strange anecdotes of their craft and its professors. These Berthold drank in with greedy ear; and, although terrified at first by the sight of the grim black gallows, of the mouldering skeletons depending from it, and the ill-omened birds that croaked and hovered around its summit, he soon got used to his ”father’s workshop,“ gladly climbed the ladder to his lofty perch, and enjoyed the terror of the passing horseman whom an unexpected greeting in Arnulph’s harsh voice caused to spur his steed in terror, and hasten on his road. “The Thief’s Thumb,” one of the narratives of this practical joker and hangman, is not without its wild interest, but we cannot dwell upon episodes; our object being rather to exhibit the headsman’s social position and peculiar privileges. One of the latter—and not the least curious—is shown in the chapter headed “Vom Rosenthal,”—from the Valley of Roses—in which Berthold’s adventures may properly be said to begin.

“Regularly each Saturday evening after vespers, my father (now in heaven) went into the town, turned from the market-place into the alley known as the Rosenthal, which winds, narrow and dark, in the direction of the prison and behind St Kummerniss, and struck, at regular intervals, three heavy blows upon the door of a great dark house, bearing the sign of the Elephant. Thereupon, an old woman gave him entrance, ushered him into a spacious arched hall, and placed a wooden stoup of wine and a loaf of bread upon the table. Whilst he ate and drank, a number of young women entered the room, every one of whom handed him a silver coin, sometimes exchanged a word with him, and then walked away in silence. Almost all these women had a strange look, the lustre of their staring eyes was quenched, their features were drawn, their cheeks pale, and their clothes hung loosely upon them; they looked shyly at my father, but kindly at me, as though they would gladly have kissed and caressed me. This, however, as I afterwards found, was strictly forbidden them; and once, when a young girl extended her hand to pat my cheek, my father exclaimed, ‘Away with you, hussy!’ and struck her upon the face. Whereupon the poor girl slunk from the room, bleeding at mouth and nose, and pursued by the laughter of her companions.”

At times, Benz would leave his son in the lower room, whilst he searched the house to see that no strangers were there at that forbidden hour. Then Berthold often heard screams and sounds of quarrel; and one evening that the uproar was greater than usual, he crept in alarm from the apartment, and found his way through the back door into a court, where a few trees grew, and at whose further end was a grass-plot, on which linen lay bleaching. “On the grass, near the fountain, sat a pretty child, keeping the geese and fowls and grunting swine from the bleaching-place, with a long stick, and when she saw me, she smiled kindly at me. I went up to her, took the little maid’s hand, and asked her name.

“‘I am called Elizabeth. And you?’

“‘They call me Benz,’ I replied, and, although Arnulph had constantly warned me never to say who I was, unless asked, I thoughtlessly added: ‘and I am the headsman’s boy.’

“I shuddered at the words as I spoke them, and expected Elizabeth to shrink from me with disgust. Instead of that she said, quite friendly,

“‘Sit down by me, Benz, and help me to watch the linen.’

“I thought myself in heaven; since dear mother had left me, I had never known the joy of a smile from a sweet face. In a moment we two children were the best of friends, sat hand in hand beside each other, laughed and chattered unceasingly, and forgot the whole world besides. I asked little Elizabeth who were her parents. She looked at me in amazement with her great black eyes, knew not what I meant, and was only the more bewildered by my attempted explanation. At last I heard my father’s whistle; kissed my new friend, and ran into the house. On my way home, I told my father what had happened, and he said the little maid was an orphan, whose mother had died in the house, and whom old Sarah had taken charge of. A father, however, she had never had, at least to his knowledge. Thenceforward, I went nowhere so willingly as to the town. I no longer cared that the passengers avoided us, and that boys pursued us with scoff and insult. I knew that a kind greeting and a loving kiss awaited me, and little Elizabeth was soon as dear to me as my blessed mother; so that, in my dreams, their two figures blended into one. It was very different afterwards, when the heavenly purity, in whose full glory my mother had departed, had left Elizabeth for ever.

“Thus, I came to the age of twelve, and grew a tall strong lad, skilful and active; already I was so expert with the sword that with a horizontal cut I sent the blade between blocks piled on each other, and without in the least injuring them. I also tied a noose with a dexterity that filled Arnulph with proud joy, and he declared me fully qualified to officiate upon the scaffold. It happened one day that my father, plagued with the gout, ordered me to go alone to the town, and to fetch the tribute from the well-known house of the Elephant. He made me promise not to let the women caress me, and to lose none of the bright pfennings they had to give me. I obeyed his orders, and brought him home the full amount. But I did not tell him what had happened to me by the way. When the boys, who usually ran after us, saw that I was alone, they ventured much nearer than formerly; and amongst them I particularly remarked a fair-haired lad, who had always been the most spiteful and violent of them all, and whom his companions sometimes called Engolf, sometimes by the nickname of Bully-bird. He was the son of a patrician, of the noble Herr Hahn of Baumgarten, and was somewhat older than myself. This time he followed me to the very threshold of the house, and just as the door was opened he struck at me. I warded his blow, and returned it with one upon the nose, which knocked him down, and gave me time to enter the house.”

Berthold’s persecutors awaited his exit to take their revenge, but he provided himself with a stick for defence, and, moreover, Elizabeth showed him an opening in the garden wall, choked with bushes and rubbish, and leading into a timber-yard, through which he passed unseen, and of which he thenceforward availed himself on his frequent visits to his playfellow. Engolf, however, watched him, and at last, on a certain afternoon, as he turned into the timber-yard, he heard a shout of “Huzza! the hangman’s boy!” and was set upon by a number of lads, from whom he escaped with difficulty, and severely beaten, by the help of Elizabeth, who dragged him into the garden as he fell senseless from a blow on the head. In the house of the Elephant he lay for some time, too ill for removal, carefully tended by his child-mistress, and by the wretched but kind-hearted women. About that period, however, the “Lutheran heresy” had begun to take root in the town, and a certain Dr Neander preached furiously against gambling and drunkenness, and against such establishments as that in which Berthold was confined by his wounds; “against all those things, in short, which, according to old usage and to the emperor’s statutes, paid tribute to the headsman. This pleased the women beyond measure; with yellow envy they had long seen their husbands, lovers, and sons, wager away their fair white groschen at skittles and dice and cards; the headsman‘s daughters in the Rosenthal were a yet sharper thorn in their eyes; and now, supported by the preacher‘s frantic harangues, they raised such an infernal outcry that a noble councillor trod our rights under foot for the sake of peace, forbade all games of chance, and sent his officers to seize the loose women at the Elephant, and put them across the frontier. This occurred just at the time I lay ill in the Rosenthal.” Berthold was carried home to his stepmother, who would not receive him, and Arnulph made him a bed in the hounds’ kennel, for which piece of humanity his violent mistress beat him, and procured his dismissal. And throughout the book we hear no more of the rough but well-meaning journeyman hangman. Berthold’s father came to visit his son and dress his wounds, but the henpecked headsman dared not take him into his house. The poor boy lay suffering and hungry, tormenting himself on account of Elizabeth, whom the authorities had removed from the Rosenthal, and given in charge to people of better repute than those who had had care of her infancy; but who those people were, and where he should seek his little friend, Berthold knew not. And when he recovered, his stepmother and her son ill-treated him, and drove him from their presence; and, Arnulph having left, he had no friend or companion but the shaggy hounds with which he slept.

At this point of his youthful tribulations, Master Hammerling ceases to discourse of himself, and abruptly transports us to the sign of the Thistle, an isolated public house, consisting partly of the ruins of an old watch-tower, and much frequented by students, who on bright summer evenings loved to sit under the trees and lie upon the grass before its door, until the tolling bell warned them to return to the town before gates and bridges were closed for the night. This inn was kept by a strange old couple, childless, avaricious, and, as it was reported, passing rich, who went by the names of Father Finch and Mother Blutrude. They professed great poverty, and were furious if any doubted it, which few cared to do, since a certain rash scoffer had suddenly fallen sick, and gradually withered away and expired, in consequence, it was supposed, of certain unholy incantations of Mother Blutrude. The fear of her incantations, however, did not deter a reckless and debauched student from laying a plan for appropriating her concealed treasures. He found means to ingratiate himself with the old people, and to conceal himself in a nook at the top of the old tower, whence he saw them in the dead of night counting a large sum in silver coin. He only waited their departure to possess himself of the store, when he heard them talk of removing to the same place a large amount of Hungarian ducats they had bestowed elsewhere, and he resolved to wait where he was for this richer booty. He waited so long, that hunger, thirst, want of sleep and greed of gold bewildered his weak brain, and drove him mad. With delirious eagerness he filled his cap and pockets with the silver, rushed down the high steep staircase, forced the door with his foot, and bursting into the public room, seized Father Finch by the throat, and demanded his gold. The guests came to the rescue, dollars and crowns were scattered on the floor, and at last the madman was dragged away to prison, whilst old Finch drove every one from his house, barred the door, and set to work with his wife to collect the treasure. Benz and his son were in the town when the lunatic student was carried by, and soon afterwards a boy came running in with news that Father Finch had committed suicide from anxiety and despair. Straightway the headsman ordered one of his men to fetch his great sword and get ready his cart, and then he took the road to the Thistle, followed by an inquisitive mob, pressing as close to his heels as their aversion to his calling would allow. He went to exercise one of the most remarkable privileges of his office. What this was may best be told in the words of Mr ChÉzy’s hangman.

“We found the old house surrounded by gaping idlers, whom nothing short of my father’s presence could have induced to open a path. They gave way before his threatening gesture and raised voice, and we reached a loft where the gray-headed sinner hung from a strong staple, his stiffened feet almost touching an iron chest, from which Blutrude, who, cowered in a corner, never diverted her gaze. Soon after us came councillors, writers, and bailiffs, then a man bearing the sword, which the headsman took, and after cutting down the dead, he drew a circle round the corpse as far as his weapon’s point could reach. Then he raised his voice and said:

“‘I stand as headsman on my property and heritage, or do any here say nay?’

“Then one of the council replied: ‘None say nay. You are headsman within the precincts of the city and in the Count’s domain, Master Benz; act then according to your sealed rights and privileges, and with God’s help, as we are ready to give you ours.’

“My father continued: ‘Thus runs the emperor’s decree: Wheresoever any one, with sinful hand, shall take his own life, there is every thing, in hall or chamber, cellar, barn, or stable, the headsman’s property, so far as he, standing beside the corpse, can reach with his sword above his head, below his feet, and on all sides. Have I spoken well?’

“‘On my soul and conscience,’ replied the councillor, ‘you have spoken well. And so take hence what to thee pertaineth.’”

And, in spite of old Blutrude’s screams and protestations, the treasure-chest was conveyed away in the headsman’s cart. Whilst this went on, Berthold, in rambling over the house, found Elizabeth, who had been given into the untender care of the hostess of the Thistle. The little hand-maid was delighted to meet her old friend, and they were engaged in affectionate colloquy when Blutrude, furious at the loss of her pelf, fell upon them with blows and abuse. Berthold cared little for her violence to himself, but when she attacked Elizabeth his forbearance deserted him, and, apostrophising her as a witch, he expressed a passionate hope that the day would come when he should set fire to her death-faggots. The effect of this wish is described in a singular passage:—“She shrank from me and was silent. Whether it was that my words sounded prophetically to her evil conscience, or that my boyish glance already possessed that peculiar power which has since often made strong men quake, and given noble horses the mad staggers, Blutrude reeled aside like a drunken person, allowed me to take leave of Elizabeth undisturbed, and for some time afterwards did not regain her usual vigour and malice.” This strange power, attributed to himself by the headsman, is referred to further on in the volume, when a horse shies and is seized with staggers at the mere glance of Berthold’s eye. That the gaze of the public executioner might have a strong effect upon men, in an age when he was regarded with a feeling of superstitious horror, would have nothing to surprise; nor is it astonishing that an old woman, already suspected of witchcraft, should be terrified and tongue-tied by a hint of tar-barrels from the mouth of the hangman’s son. The power of his evil eye upon horses is more difficult to explain and credit. But admitting the substance and incidents of the book before us to be extracted from bona fide chronicles, and there is not wanting a certain amount of internal evidence corroborative of the editor’s assertion to that effect, such passages as this are highly curious illustrations of the superstitions of that day. In most parts of the world the evil eye has been a favourite belief. The French have their Mauvais-oeil, the Germans their Schelauge, the Italians the Malocchio; and if in any of those countries mesmerism had been invented and practised two or three hundred years ago, its disciples would, in all probability, have been held endowed with the power attributed to himself by Berthold Benz.

The dismissal of Arnulph, his chief aide-de-camp, had left the headsman short-handed, and in vain he sought some one to supply his place; so that after having, for very many years, put his hand to no instrument of punishment save the broad short sword, the chief emblem of his office, he suddenly found himself compelled to descend to lower functions, and to break a murderer on the wheel. At this execution a rare incident occurred, showing another of the Scharfrichter’s privileges. The culprit was bound upon the grating, and Benz dealt him the first blow, upon the shin. The bone snapped, and the unhappy victim, a man of gigantic frame and strength, maddened by extremity of agony, wrenched out the cramp-iron to which his right wrist was bound, and extended his arm to ward off the coming blow. Thereupon a forward young man stepped thoughtlessly out of the crowd, seized the criminal’s arm and drew it back, whilst one of the executioner’s assistants again drove in the iron. Then the headsman laid down his wheel, stepped up to the imprudent youth, clapped his hand upon his shoulder and said, “Now art thou mine till thy day of death.” Voluntary aid given to the executioner entailed perpetual servitude, inevitable and infamous. In this instance, the volunteer, by trade a turner from Nuremberg, and who was also a professional pugilist, was compelled, in spite of prayers and repugnance, to, strip his jerkin and assist in the horrible execution then going forward, after which he mournfully accompanied his new mates to the executioner’s dwelling. House and home, his honest name, and a loving and expectant bride, were all for ever lost to him by this one rash act. And the only hope he dared indulge was, that his family and friends might never learn his fate, but deem him dead in distant parts. The cruel severity with which Master Benz enforced his privilege was requited to him by his pressed recruit, who found undue favour in the eyes of Grethel. The Nuremberger, however, absorbed in grief, took little heed of the lady’s amorous advances; and she, incensed by his indifference, applied to old Blutrude for a love-philter. All this forms a part of the romantic plot which is made the vehicle for exhibiting the public and private existence of the headsman of the middle ages, and we need but briefly touch upon it. The Nuremberg Joseph drank the potion, which reminded him, by its exhilarating effects, of “the foaming, reaming drink he had once tasted at his master’s wedding at Namur, in Brabant, and which the Walloons fetch from the county of Champagne, in France, to thin their blood, clogged by thick barley beer.” Soon, however, the young man repented of deceiving Benz, who was kind to him after his rough fashion; and one morning that the headsman called him to his room, to eat a savoury pottage his wife had prepared, but for which he himself felt little appetite, Veit (the Nuremberger) thought the moment opportune to make a clean breast, and, whilst eating, began his confession. Meanwhile Grethel, superintending in the kitchen the breakfast of her household, missed and asked for her favourite. “He is in the master’s room,” was the reply, “eating the pottage.” The headsman’s wife grew pale as death, for the pottage was poisoned. She hurried into the room just as Veit, after completing his confession, fell in convulsions upon the floor; and her husband, indignant at her infidelity, stripped his leathern girdle and furiously beat her, loading her with opprobrious epithets. She escaped from his hands, and ran into the town, exhibited the cuts upon her face and arms to the authorities, accused her husband of this ill-treatment, and of having poisoned his assistant in a moment of groundless jealousy. Benz was forthwith arrested. Appearances were strong against him. He had gone out of his way to invite his servant to eat the mess intended for himself. And when the effects of the poison manifested themselves, he had beaten his wife instead of rendering assistance to the sufferer, who had died soon afterwards. His protestations of innocence were discredited; and as he persisted in not confessing a crime he had not committed, he was conducted to that torture-chamber whose horrors he had so often superintended. He shrunk not at sight of the rack, but stood upon his rights and privileges; repudiated the jurisdiction of the city council, and appealed to a higher tribunal. “My lords would not listen to this, and appealed, in their turn, to the special privileges of the town; but the strange headsman, whom they had summoned to their assistance, pulled down to the wrist the shirt sleeves he had rolled up, put on his doublet, and declared, with steadfast voice, that he must certainly, in execution of a legal judgment, torture his own son, if required, but that he would not act against the Emperor’s ordinances, or lay hand upon a brother-craftsman in obedience to an arbitrary command.” So the counsellors, finding the executive fail them, and being also, as it would appear, legally in the wrong, were compelled to concede Master Benz’s claim to be arraigned before another court of judicature. The delay was the headsman’s salvation. Count Ruprecht, a sort of lord of the manor, and nobleman of great weight in the district, obtained admission to his dungeon, under pretence of consulting him about a disease, which “leech and surgeon, wise-women and farriers, had been unable to cure.” From this it would appear that in those days the executioner either dabbled in the medical art, or was supposed to possess prescriptions (perhaps charms) of efficacy in certain cases. We have been unable to trace any particulars connected with this belief; and Mr ChÉzy, although he must have access in Germany to many more sources of such information than are open to us, leaves his readers, as usual, wholly in the dark.

The brief dialogue in the dungeon is curious and characteristic. The Count, straitened in his finances, covets the iron chest with a golden lining, taken by Benz from beneath the feet of Father Finch the suicide. In consideration of its receipt, he engages to rescue the executioner from his unpleasant position. The latter, although innocent, is by no means confident of acquittal, and accepts the terms. Then says the Count to the headsman, with touching confidence, “You have been known to me for many years as an honourable man, I require no other guarantee than your word. And I pledge my honour as a nobleman to rescue you, either by craft or by the strong hand.” Recourse to violence was unnecessary. The Count revived an old tribunal, long in disuse, which sat under an aged oak by the river’s brink, and consisted of himself alone. The council had little fancy for giving up their prisoner, but yielded to menaces in the emperor’s name, and Benz was brought before this primitive court. The burgomaster supported the accusation, but, on the other hand, seven nobly-born persons deposed on oath to the prisoner’s innocence, and Etzel the cup-bearer, a stalwart retainer of the Count’s, renowned in all the country-side for his reckless courage and powerful arm, threw his glove into the ring, and challenged to mortal combat any who should question it. Thrice the herald proclaimed the defiance, but none took it up; the sun went down, and the Count declared the charge unfounded and the prisoner free. This was the first and last time Count Ruprecht asserted his right to hold this penal tribunal. And subsequently an imperial decree declared the judgment null and the Count’s privilege obsolete. But before that came to pass, the headsman’s innocence was established, and the true culprit discovered.

During his captivity, Benz had reflected on his unkindness to his first-born, and resolved to repair past injustice by better treatment. On returning home, his first inquiry was for Berthold. The answer was, that the boy had run away. The truth was, that his stepmother had had him conveyed to a long distance from his father’s house, and by frightful menaces deterred him from returning. And now she wheedled her husband out of a pardon, and things resumed their old course in the headsman’s house. We pass over a good deal of episodical matter, having little to do with the main subject of the book; amongst other things, a long account of a son of Count Ruprecht, who was sent on his travels in charge of a learned preceptor and bad horseman, one Dr Wohlgemuth, on whom the scamp of a pupil played an infinity of mischievous tricks, proving that travelling tutors three hundred years ago had by no means a sinecure. After an absence of some duration, Berthold returns home in the suite of this young Count Ulrich, finds Elizabeth still at the sign of the Thistle, and his old enemy Engolf and other dissolute companions persecuting her with their insolent addresses, to which she turns a deaf ear. She has not forgotten Berthold; their childish affection has grown into love, and they mutually plight their troth. Soon afterwards, Berthold sets out on a three years’ pilgrimage, during which to learn surgery and farriery, and Count Ruprecht promises that, on his return, none but he shall shoe his horses and cure his servants. But the headsman’s son has higher aspirations, and resolves to become a physician. At Heidelberg and Paris the three years pass quickly by in diligent study, and at the end of that time he has conquered the doctor’s gown, and returns to his native place as Dominus Bertholdus. As he draws near to the town, he prays in heart for a good omen to welcome his return; but none is vouchsafed him, and in its stead he meets Engolf and has an angry colloquy. At the little inn he sees Elizabeth, who betrays great agitation on beholding him, for a report had been set about of his death. At a ball to which he accompanies her, held at the old house of the Elephant, now converted into a respectable inn, he meets Engolf, who coarsely taunts him with taking up with his cast-off mistress. Elizabeth cannot repel the imputation, Berthold spurns her from him, and strikes Engolf; a fight ensues, blood is shed, and the headsman’s son is obliged to conceal himself for a while. Then comes some more extraneous matter, until we find Berthold established as assistant in the house of Master Baldwin the physician, who one day sends him to attend the infliction of torture on an old woman accused of witchcraft. In the wrinkled wretch bound upon the rack, he recognises old Blutrude, and here, after seven years’ separation, he meets his father.

“The headsman had grown old in those seven years: his silver hair hung scantily over his temples; his high bald brow was crossed with furrows; his long beard resembled thick snow-flakes; but still he was strong and vigorous. From his short and muscular neck his broad shoulders spread in powerful development; his long arms were nervous, his fists of iron; his eyes glittered as in the days of his prime; and the dusky red of his countenance bore witness that the old man had not yet abandoned the pleasures of the bottle, in spite of the gout, whose presence was indicated by his wide shapeless boots of soft buckskin. On beholding him, a cold shudder came over me; and yet it needed an effort not to fall into his arms and greet him with the name of father, and offer my aid in his horrible office. Behind him stood his assistant, a stout young fellow, in whose features and reddish hair I recognised Grethel’s son.” Here a touch of witchcraft comes in; Blutrude, after terrible tortures, confessing her dealings with the demon, and implicating Grethel and her son, the former of whom had long been in the habit of accompanying her once in the year to a witches’ sabbath upon the Blocksberg, whilst an evil spirit assumed her form in her husband’s couch. Upon receiving this startling information, old Benz falls down, struck with apoplexy, and presently expires, in spite of the remedies applied by Berthold, who in his emotion betrays himself as the headsman’s son. He is immediately seized, and put in irons. His life is in danger, for he has incurred the penalty of the gallows by daring to mix with his fellow-men, and to forget the stigma and isolation prescribed by his birth. But the executioner being dead, his youngest son accused of witchcraft, and the prison full of criminals, several of whom are soon to be put to the torture, the authorities let Berthold, go free, on condition of his assuming his father’s office. To this he consents, as the only means of escaping the halter, and at once takes possession of the house whose threshold he had expected never again to cross.

The closing chapter of the volume, entitled “The Headsman’s Wedding,” is perhaps the most striking and original of the whole book. Berthold’s installation in his father’s house and office had not long occurred, when he was called upon to exercise the latter, and to put to the rack his old and bitter foe Engolf of Baumgarten, accused of conspiracy against the state. Even under the torture, the profligate found sneers and sharp words to address to his executioner, and boasted of his base triumph over the unhappy Elizabeth, then in prison on the charge of murdering her infant. Whilst in a state of frenzy, she had thrown it into the water. Maddened by his enemy’s taunts, the headsman exercised to the very utmost the tortures at his command, and tugged and strained till every joint of the unhappy wretch was dislocated, and the foam stood upon his lips. At last Engolf confessed his crime and was released from the hands of him who had crushed his body, and whose heart he had broken. Then Berthold received orders to hold himself ready, in three days from that time, to execute Elizabeth, condemned to die by the sword.

“It was a hard trial for me, when, upon the eve of this execution, I had to betake myself to her prison, to share, according to old custom, the culprit’s last meal. The priest had just left her when I entered the narrow cell, and she sat buried in thought, her head sunk upon her breast, her long black hair falling like a veil over her face, her hands folded in her lap.” The poor girl could not make up her mind to die, and wildly implored her former lover to save her, ignorant that she was to perish by his hand. But his feelings towards her had undergone a total change; indignation and contempt had replaced affection; and he beheld her despair and heard her entreaties without a spark of compunction. “You must die, Elizabeth,” he said, “and truly by no other hand than mine.”

“She gazed at me with expanded eyeballs, her features, distorted by despair, gradually assumed a milder expression, a scarcely perceptible smile crossed her pale lips. ‘Death from your hand is sweet,’ she at last said. ‘Here is my heart, strike! why delay? I am ready.’ These gentle words broke down my anger; I had to lean against a pillar in order not to sink to the ground, and had hardly strength to reply. ‘Will you not understand me, Elizabeth? Have you forgotten whose son I am?’” Then she told him how a traveller had come to the inn, and had said (probably at Engolf’s instigation) that Berthold was dead. And how, after that, the seducer had perseveringly environed her with his wiles, and at last, by aid of a potion old Blutrude supplied, had effected her ruin. And as the headsman heard her sad tale, his anger was converted into pity. He partook her last repast, and at parting they pressed each other’s hands in friendship. But the love Berthold once had cherished for the orphan playmate of his boyish days had fled for ever.

That same night the tribunal condemned Engolf to the gallows. All the grace his anguished parent could obtain for him was that he should die by the hands of the headsman himself, not of an inferior executioner—and in his own clothes, booted and spurred. This favour cost fifty marks of gold, and a bequest to the hospital of all the property his father could will away.

With the dawn, Berthold repaired to the city, where the sentence was read in the public market-place, and “a white wand was broken and thrown in fragments at the feet of the child-murderess.” Then Elizabeth was delivered over to the executioner, who lifted her into the cart, where a Capuchin monk took his place beside her, and the melancholy procession to the scaffold began. On the way, Berthold’s men encouraged him, exhorting him to strike the blow on Elizabeth’s slender neck with the same firmness and precision with which, just before he left the house, he had severed that of an old wether. They considered him fortunate, that his first essay with the sword should be made on a meek and unresisting girl, and not on some tough old culprit, who would spitefully shrug his shoulders, so as to disappoint the aim and bring shame upon the headsman. “At last we stood, Elizabeth and I, face to face between the three pillars, gazed at each other, and shook hands for the last time. Then I bound her eyes, bid her kneel down, and whilst an assistant, standing on one side, with body bent forward, and outstretched arm, held up her head by the long hair, I threw off cloak and doublet, grasped the sword with both hands, and, settling myself firmly on my feet, prepared to give the cut that should deprive her of life. Mute and breathless with expectation, the mob looked up at the scaffold; the monk ceased to mutter his prayers aloud, but moved his lips in silence; the stillness of death reigned around. I felt a dizziness in my brain; instead of one head I saw three, and I turned about, and asked in a loud voice, which of them the law commanded me to strike off. The populace began to murmur, my assistants exchanged meaning smiles and scornful glances, the magistrate impatiently called to me to make an end; Elizabeth stirred not and made no sign. Then I had pity on the youth and beauty of the murderess; I felt I should never be able to strike her death-blow, and a sudden resolution took possession of my soul, the resolution to save her. I sank the sword’s point, leant upon its hilt, and, claiming my privilege, demanded Elizabeth for my wife. Thereupon the murmurs of the crowd were converted into loud rejoicings, and whilst I supported the fainting girl in my arms, the people insisted I should at once conduct her to the altar. My Lords of the Council knew well that I was in my right, and none ventured to hinder or object. Followed by the noisy mob, we returned to the city, and within the hour the priest of St Kummerniss united me to Elizabeth. Then she once more ascended the cart, which drove away with her, this time at a brisk trot instead of a funeral pace, whilst I went to the council-house to hang Engolf.... The body remained hanging till sunset, then I took it down, laid it in the coffin, and went my way home.”

“There was revel and jubilee in the house. With song and dance, and play, and flowing jugs, the servants celebrated the headsman’s wedding day. And when the hour came, I led Elizabeth to her chamber, drew my father’s sword from its scabbard, and placed it in the bridal bed between her and myself. There it has ever since remained.”

With this singular and thoroughly German incident, the headsman’s memoirs, as conveyed in autobiographical form, conclude, although we may presume the greater portion of the other volumes to be derived from similar records, moulded into a different shape by Mr ChÉzy. The second volume consists of one long narrative, entitled “Hildebrand Pfeiffer,” a story of the seventeenth century. An executioner plays an important part in it, but is not the hero of the tale, as in Benz’s narrative. Hildebrand Pfeiffer is a man of five-and-thirty, of handsome face and person, who has studied long and successfully at Heidelberg, Prague, and Paris, and has learnt surgery at Cologne, where we now find him. Possessed by the demon of pride and ambition, he sees no better way of attaining the brilliant position he covets, than through the medium of the philosopher’s stone, at whose discovery he ardently labours under the guidance of Doctor David da Silva, or Master Wood, as the vulgar translated his Portuguese name—a learned physician and ex-teacher at the high school, to whom Hildebrand serves as assistant and amanuensis. Besides dabbling in white magic, the old Jew-leech is shrewdly suspected of dealing in the blacker sort, but this does not prevent scholars flocking to gather wisdom from his lips, and sick persons sending for him so often as their fears of death prevail with their avarice to pay his heavy fee. And he has long been left unmolested to his mysterious pursuits, when, in an evil hour, he sends his old servant, in company with a young maiden, to gather mandragora at the gallows’ foot. The plant is to be employed in some alchemical conjuration, and is valuable only if gathered at the witching hour by a perfect virgin. The one selected is Adelgunde, a beautiful girl, who loves Hildebrand, and is beloved by him. Unfortunately, upon the night selected for plucking the mystical mandrake, the headsman and his assistants repair to the place of execution to inter the corpse of a suicide, and there detect and seize the two women, the elder of whom throws the blame of her unholy proceedings upon Da Silva and Hildebrand. There is, perhaps, rather too much of witchcraft in the volume, but some of the incidents are very wild and original. With more skill and care, and power of description, Mr ChÉzy might have constructed a three volume romance of a striking kind out of the materials he has loosely and hastily crammed into a third of the space. There is a certain Count Philippus, or Philipps, of whom much was to be made, but he is neglected, and roughly sketched. He comes to Cologne to raise troops for the emperor, and is very successful in his recruiting, having mustered a strong body of idle artisans, debauched students, and desperadoes of all kinds. In the joy of his heart he drinks himself ill; Hildebrand attends him, and wins his heart by tolerating the flagon, when the soldier had expected to be put on a diet of drugs and spring water. The Count’s levies are drawn up, and about to march away, when the police make their appearance at Dr Da Silva’s door, to arrest him and his assistant on a charge of witchcraft. Warned in time, Hildebrand conceals himself amongst the men at arms, and follows Philipps to the field as body-surgeon. It is the period of the thirty years’ war, and the ambitious mediciner, interrupted in his pursuit of the grand secret of gold-making, conceives the more feasible project of rising to eminence and wealth by deeds of arms. He is confirmed in his new aspirations by the gift of a sword, manufactured by the headsman, and supposed to confer invincibility on him who wields it. There is a remarkable chapter, from which we gather the details of this superstition. Hannadam, the executioner, has his fortified dwelling in the suburbs of Cologne, and one evening a Lutheran officer rides up from the adjacent Swedish camp, and endeavours to induce him, by the bribe of a well-filled purse, to make him a charmed sword. From the battlements of his little fortress, Hannadam holds converse with the Swede, who complains that he has had his foot in the stirrup for twenty years, and is still a cornet, whilst his comrades of equal standing have risen to high rank. He holds it high time to look after his promotion.

“‘Undoubtedly it is,’ said the headsman jeeringly. ‘A forty-year-old cornet cuts a poor figure. I will promote you to a majority.’

“‘So you shall,’ replied the horseman, ‘and I will tell you how. But first answer a question,—you are a popish idolator?’

“‘Infernal heretic!’ shouted the executioner. ‘Would you have me set my dogs at you?’

“The Swede was astounded by this burst of anger. He had intended no harm, but in the simplicity of his heart had designated the Roman Catholics by the epithet that from childhood upwards he had heard and used.

“‘If you are no idolator,’ he replied very quietly, ‘give me back my purse.’

“The headsman laughed.

“‘I am papist enough,’ he said, ‘to take example by my priests, and restore no offering.’

“‘Indeed,’ said the cornet. ‘But I begin to see what offended you. Never fear, you shall not hear the word again.’

“‘You will do wisely not to repeat it. And now say what you would for your money.’

“‘Did I not tell you I cannot get promotion?’

“‘Well—’

“‘Well? In the name of all the idols, I would have a charmed sword, such as only a headsman and a Romanist can make.’

“The purse fell jingling at the Swede’s feet.

“‘Begone!’ cried the headsman. ‘I am no sorcerer.’

“‘The charmed sword is a matter of white magic, seeing it is made under invocation of the holy Trinity and of the blessed cavalier, St Martin, without aid of the powers of darkness. To-night is favourable to its forging—such a night will not for a long time recur—for me, perhaps, never—with the like concurrence of fortunate circumstances. Do my bidding, and take the rich reward. After midnight, red Mars is in the ascendant, and in the direct aspect of Venus. That is the lucky hour to put the weapon together. The blade must be a sword that has served upon the scaffold, and severed a criminal’s head from his body; the wood of the hilt must be part of the wheel upon which some poor sinner has been broken; the guard must be of the metal of chains in which a murderer has been hung. You need put it but loosely together; the armourer shall complete the work. The blade is the most important; let it be long and slender, not above two fingers broad, and with a single edge. The Tubal’s-fire you of course have: our executioners, also, keep that. Will you prepare the sword, master?’

“‘I would do so,’ replied the headsman, ‘and have all things needful;—but the fire is wanting.’

“‘Impossible!’ exclaimed the cavalier.

“‘But nevertheless true,’ replied Hannadam. ‘I have only lately inherited my charge; I found the lamp in the forge extinguished, and since then no oak has been struck by lightning.’

“The Swede cursed and swore like a blind heathen, rode disconsolately away, and forgot, in his disappointment, to reclaim the purse he had again thrown up to the headsman. The latter whistled a peasant’s dance between his teeth, and gave orders to raise the drawbridge.

“‘You told the man an untruth,’ said his wife gently; ‘the lamp now burning in the smithy received its light from a blasted oak.’

“The headsman laughed. ‘I know it right well, darling,’ he replied; ‘but it will be long before I give such a sword to an unbelieving heretic, for him to use against those he styles idolators. I will at once to work, and prepare the weapon. In our days a blade is not to be despised, from whose mere glitter the foe will fly by dozens.’”

At midnight the sparks flew fast in the headsman’s smithy, and the wondrous weapon was prepared. The Swede might well have found it useful in the severe action between his countrymen and the Imperialists, which took place the following day within sound and sight of the city. The battle over, Count Philipps and Hildebrand rode up to Hannadam’s dwelling; and the Count, whose vassal the headsman was, demanded admittance and lodging. Hildebrand showed some repugnance to enter the house of the executioner. “No need to fear,” said the Count. “According to imperial charter, the headsman’s office is honourable; and, moreover, he and his household will have sufficient sense not to touch us. His bread, his wine, his meat do not defile those partaking them, neither does his roof dishonour those it covers. But you must have the goodness to see to our horses yourself. At the worst, my nobility is good enough to shield us from stain even in the knacker’s dwelling.”^[5] So the count and the leech take up their quarters in the house of Hannadam, whose wife is no other than that beautiful Adelgunde, with whom Hildebrand had been deeply in love, and whom he had now long mourned as dead. She had been tried at Cologne on a charge of witchcraft, having been detected gathering mandragora at midnight beneath the gallows, and had been put to the torture; but Hannadam, to whose lot it fell to inflict it, was touched by her beauty, and handled her gently. In a conversation with Count Philipps, he explains to him how it is in the executioner’s power greatly to aggravate or lighten the agony he is ordered to inflict. Finally, Hannadam marries her, in virtue of the privilege already exemplified in the story of Berthold Benz. She is a somnambulist, and having seen her former lover enter the house, (although her husband does all in his power to keep her from sight of him, and even confines her in her room,) she gets up in the night, and by a most perilous path across the roof of the house, reaches Hildebrand’s chamber, bearing with her the sword of her husband’s manufacture, which she gives to her lover, bidding him use and conquer with it. Taking little heed of the supposed power attributed to the weapon, Hildebrand nevertheless girds it on, and the next day joins Colonel Madelon’s regiment of cuirassiers. Distracted at finding Adelgunde the wife of another man, he covets death, and resolves to seek it in action. The count unwillingly parts with him, on condition of his returning that evening to his post. But evening comes, the fight is over, the wounded count looks anxiously for his leech, and Hildebrand appears not. The cuirassiers are far away, pursuing the beaten foe.

Time passes—the exact period is not defined—and we again meet the warlike physician, who is brought before us in a very remarkable chapter, detailing the punishment and degradation, at the headsman’s hands, of an entire regiment that has disgraced itself in action. At that period the affairs of the Imperialists were in any thing but a flourishing state. At Leipsig—on the same ground where, eleven years previously, Gustavus Adolphus had beaten Tilly—the Swedes, under the gallant Torstenson, had gained a signal victory over the Archduke Leopold-William; a victory shameful to the German name from the cowardice and want of discipline of a portion of the troops engaged. The remnant of the beaten army rallied near Prague, whose gates, some time after the fight, a regiment of cavalry was seen to approach, its ranks thinned less by hostile sword than by scandalous desertion. Deep shame sat upon the bearded countenances of the horsemen, and their hearts were oppressed by apprehension of punishment; for rumour said that the corps was ordered to Prague to answer for its misconduct. The officers were even more cast down than the men; they spoke in whispers, consulting each other how they might best justify themselves, and proposing to throw all the blame on their subordinates. On the other hand, the private soldiers did not scruple to say above their breath, that “a sensible housekeeper begins to sweep his stairs from the top.” The regiment was close to the town, ordering its ranks previous to entrance, when a young officer came up at full gallop, saluted the colonel courteously but coldly, and said:

“I am the bearer of an unpleasant order.”

“Duty is duty, Sir,” replied the commanding officer; “be good enough to deliver your message.”

This was to the effect that the men should dismount, lead their horses into the town with lowered colours and without trumpet-sound, and then, so soon as the beasts were put up, repair to the market-place with swords at side, officers as well as men. This reception was ominous of even worse things than had been anticipated; and many a soldier regretted he had not followed an example abundantly supplied him, and deserted immediately after the battle. In two hours time, however, the regiment arrived with downcast eyes at the appointed place of muster. They marched two and two, with long intervals between the files. At the entrance of the narrow streets were pickets of dismounted dragoons, four deep, their musketoons on their arms, their drawn swords hanging from their wrists; the doors and windows of the houses were lined with carabineers, their weapons at the recover. A major and a provost-marshal were there on horseback, the latter attended by his men, who stood round a couple of carts. As each rank of the cuirassiers reached the square, the major commanded them to halt, and then gave the word “Draw swords!” followed by “Ground arms!” Whereupon every man, without distinction, had to lay his naked sword upon the ground, before he was allowed to move forwards. The cornets did the same with their colours, and the provost’s men took up swords and standards and put them in the carts. The disarmed soldiers formed up as prisoners in the square, and their hearts misgave them when they saw it arranged as for an approaching execution. True, there was neither scaffold nor gallows, but in the centre stood the gloomy man in the red cloak, his assistants behind him, between an iron vice and a pile of brushwood. A hedge of halberds surrounded the whole square. On one side a crowd of military officials of high rank sat upon their horses, to try the offenders, if indeed trial could be said to await men manifestly already condemned. Hard upon the circle of military pressed the populace; windows, roofs, and balconies were thronged with curious spectators; but it was as much as the nearest of them could do to catch a few words of what passed, when the disarmed regiment appeared before the court-martial.

The heads of accusation were tolerably well known, and resolved themselves into the one undeniable fact that the regiment, at first victorious, but afterwards repulsed, had fled in shameful haste and confusion, communicating its panic to the rest of the cavalry, leaving the infantry exposed, and causing the loss of the already half-won fight. These circumstances were too notorious to need proof; and the chief question was, whether the soldiers had fled in spite of every exertion of their officers, or whether the latter had been, by their pusillanimity, the chief causes of the disaster. This question it probably was that was debated for nearly two hours, and produced such violent dissensions amongst the prisoners, that the intervention of the guard was required to keep them from coming to blows. The bystanders could not distinguish words, but only a confused clamour of voices, which suddenly ceased at the blast of a trumpet. The prisoners drew back; the judges, consulted together for a moment; and then there was an abrupt and uneasy movement, amongst, behind, and in front of them, the motive of which immediately became apparent. The spectators knew not whither first to turn their eyes. Here policemen bound the officers’ hands behind their backs; in another place the provost’s men separated the soldiers by tens, something in the way in which a tithe-owner counts the sheaves in a field. Drums were placed on end, with dice upon their heads: yonder the brushwood blazed up in bright flames, which the headsman’s helpers fed with the colours and decorations of the regiment, whilst their master snapped sword-blade after sword-blade in his iron vice. With mournful eyes the officers saw their flags consumed and their weapons broken at the hangman’s hands. The most painful death would have been sweet and welcome compared to this moral agony. Despondingly they sank their heads, and those esteemed themselves fortunate whose hair was long enough to hide their shame-stricken countenances.

Whilst the officers endured the curious or spiteful gaze of the throng, the men threw dice for their lives upon the sheepskin tables. He of each ten who threw the lowest, was immediately seized by the executioners, who bound his hands and placed him with the group of officers. And the closing act of this terrible ceremony was performed by the public crier, who proclaimed the whole regiment, from the lieutenant-colonel down to the last dragoon, as “Schelme” or infamous knaves. After which the mob dispersed, streaming through lanes and alleys to the place where the officers and tenth men were to be hanged. The remainder of the regiment were conveyed to a place of security, till such time as they could be sent to dig fortifications in Hungary, or to labour on the wharves of a seaport.

Hildebrand Pfeiffer is amongst those saved from death to undergo slavery; but he contrives to escape his doom, and is next seen dwelling, a pious ascetic and penitent, in a mountain hermitage, under the name of Father Gregorius. Enthusiastic in whatever he does, he passes his time prostrate before a crucifix, lacerating his shoulders with many stripes. His despair arises partly from grief at the loss of Adelgunde, and partly from shame at having been branded as a dastard with the rest of Madelon’s cuirassiers. His old friend and patron, Count Philipps, finds him out, reasons with and consoles him, and makes him his chaplain. But after he has long been esteemed for his piety and eloquence, he offends the Count by a diatribe against the prevalent belief in witchcraft, whose absurdity his good sense and early education enable him to recognise. There is an extraordinary scene at a convent, where Adelgunde, who deserted her husband’s house on the night of her interview with Hildebrand, has taken refuge. She falls into a manner of ecstasy, repeats Solomon’s Song in Latin, and commits other extravagancies, greatly to the scandal of the sisterhood, and of Father Bonaventura, the convent chaplain. Finally, both Hildebrand and Adelgunde are burnt for sorcery. There is a vein of interest in the tale to the very end, although the book, in an artistical sense, is roughly done. The style is crabbed, and the dialogue quaint, but often effective. The final volume of the Malefizbuch, under the agreeable title of “GalgenvÖgel,” (Gallowsbirds) contains four tales of very middling merit, and is altogether the worst. It differs from the other two as saying little concerning the headsman and his functions, further than that he steps in at the close of each tale, to execute the sentence of the law on the criminals whose offences and adventures it narrates. M. ChÉzy announces his store of materials to be by no means expended, and promises a further series should this one find favour. If it does so, he must attribute the success to the interest inseparable from the subject, not unlikely to attract readers in spite of the editor’s negligence, and of the book’s manifold deficiencies.