A few months after the incident above recorded Professor Maedler returned to Dorpat, not alone; with him was the Frau Professorinn—Minna. Everything had gone off in the garden as Rollmann had planned.
The moon and Minna, or Minna and the moon, put it which way you will, were secured.
When the Professor arrived at Dorpat with his wife, the students gave him an ovation after the German style, that is to say, they organized a Fackel-zug, or torch-light procession.
Three hundred young men, some wearing white caps, some green caps, some red, and some purple, marched along the street headed by a band, bearing torches of twisted tow steeped in tar, blazing and smoking, or, to be more exact, smoking and blazing. Each corps was followed by a hired droschky, in which sat the captain and stewards of the white, red, green, or purple corps, with sashes of their respective colours. Behind the last corps followed the elephants, two and two. By elephants is not meant the greatest of quadrupeds, but the smallest esteemed of the students, those who belong to no corps.
The whole procession gathered before the house of the Professor, and brandished their torches and cheered. Then the glass door opening on the balcony was thrown back, and the Professor John Henry Maedler appeared on the balcony leading forth his wife. The astronomer looked younger than he had been known to look for the last twenty years. His whiskers in the torchlight looked not grey, but red. The eyes, no longer blear with star-gazing, watered with sentiment. His expression was no longer that of a man troubled with integral calculus, but of a man in an ecstasy. He waved his hand. Instantly the cheers subsided. "My highly-worthy-and-ever-to-be-honoured sirs," began the Professor, "this is a moment never to be forgotten. It sends a fackel-zug of fiery emotion through every artery and vein. Highly-worthy-and-ever-to-be-honoured sirs, I am not so proud as to suppose that this reception is accorded to me alone. It is an ovation offered to my highly-beloved-and-evermore-to-be-beloved-and-respected consort, Frau Minna Maedler, born Witte, the daughter of a distinguished lady, who, like myself, has laboured on Selenography, and loved Selenology. Highly-worthy-and-ever-to-be-respected sirs, when I announce to you that I have returned to Dorpat to endow that most-eminent-and-ever-to-become-more-eminent-University with one of the most priceless treasures of art the world has ever seen, a monument of infinite patience and exact observation; I mean a wax moon; I am sure I need only allude to the fact to elicit your unbounded enthusiasm. But, highly-worthy-and-ever-to-be-honoured sirs, allow me to assure you that my expedition to Hanover has not resulted in a gain to the highly eminent University of Dorpat only, but to me, individually as well.
"That highly-eminent-and-evermore-to-become-more-eminent University is now enriched through my agency with a moon of wax, but I—I, sirs—excuse my emotion, I have also been enriched with a moon, not of wax, but of honey. The wax moon, gentlemen, may it last undissolved as long as the very-eminent-and-evermore-to-become-more-eminent University of Dorpat lasts. The honey moon, gentlemen, with which I have been blessed, I feel assured will expand into a lifetime, at least will last also undissolved as long as Minna and I exist."
The Electress's Plot.
The Elector Frederick Christian of Saxony reigned only a few weeks, from October 5th to December 13, 1763; in his forty-first year he died of small-pox. He never had enjoyed rude health. The mother of the unfortunate prince, Marie Josepha of Austria, was an exceedingly ugly, but prolific lady, vastly proud of her Hapsburg descent. The three first children followed each other with considerable punctuality, but the two first, both sons, died early. Frederick Christian was the third. The Electress, a few months before his birth, was hunting, when a deer that had been struck, turned to her, dragging its broken legs behind it. This produced a powerful impression on her mind; and when her son was born, he was found to be a cripple in his legs. His head and arms were well formed, but his spine was twisted, and his knees, according to the English ambassador, Sir Charles Williams—were drawn up over his stomach. He could not stand, and had to be lifted about from place to place. At the age of five-and-twenty he had been married to Maria Antonia, daughter of the Elector of Bavaria, afterwards the Emperor Charles VII.
His brother, Francis Xavier, was a sturdy fellow, like his father, and the Electress mother tried very hard to get Frederick Christian to resign his pretentions in favour of his brother, and take holy orders. This he refused to do, and was then married to Maria Antonia, aged twenty-three. Her mother had also been an Austrian princess, Amalia, and also remarkable for her ugliness. The choice was not happy, it brought about a marriage between cousins, and an union of blood that was afflicted with ugliness and infirmity of body.
Maria Antonia had not only inherited her mother's ugliness, but was further disfigured with small-pox. She was small of stature, but of a resolute will, and of unbounded ambition. English tourists liked her, they said that she laid herself out to make the Court of Dresden agreeable to them. Wraxall tells a good story of her, which shows a certain frankness, not to say coarseness in her conversation—a story we will not reproduce.
She had already made her personality felt at the Bavarian Court. Shortly after the death of her father, in imitation of Louisa Dorothea, Duchess of Gotha, she had founded an "Order of Friendship, or the Society of the Incas." The founding of the Order took place one fine spring day on a gondola in the canal at Nymphenburg. Her brother, the Elector of Bavaria, was instituted a member, the Prince of Fürstenberg was made chancellor, and was given the custody of the seal of the confraternity which had as its legend "La fidelité mêne." The badge of the Order was a gold ring on the little finger of the left hand, with the inscription, "L'ordre de l'amitié—Maria Antonia." Each member went by a name descriptive of his character, or of that virtue he or she was supposed to represent. Thus the chancellor was called "Le Solide."
Sir Charles Williams says that on the very first night of her appearance in Dresden she made an attempt to force herself into a position for which she had no right; to the great annoyance of the King of Poland (Augustus, Elector of Saxony).
At Dresden, she favoured the arts, especially music and painting. She became the patroness of the family Mengs. She sang, and played on the piano, and indeed composed a couple of operas, "Thalestris" and "Il trionfo della fidelita," and the former was actually put on the stage. Sir Charles Williams in 1747 wrote that, in spite of her profession that in her eyes no woman ought to meddle in the affairs of state, he ventured to prophecy, she would rule the whole land in the name of her unfortunate husband.
Nor was he wrong. The moment that her father-in-law died, she put her hand on the reins. She was not likely to meet with resistance from her husband, he was not merely a cripple in body, but was contracted in his intellect; he was amiable, but weak and ignorant. Sir Charles Williams says that he once asked at table whether it was not possible to reach England by land—although it was an island.
Frederick Christian began to reign on 5th October 1763, and immediately orders were given for the increase of the army to 50,000 men. Maria Antonia was bent on becoming a queen, and for this end she must get her husband proclaimed like his father, King of Poland. She was allied to all the Courts of Europe, her agreeable manners, her energy, gained her friends in all quarters. She felt herself quite capable of wearing a royal crown, and she wrote to all the courts to urge the claims of her husband, the Elector, when—the unfortunate cripple was attacked by small-pox, had a stroke, and died December 17th. Small-pox had carried off his ancestor John George IV., and in that same century it occasioned the death of his brother-in-law, Max Joseph of Bavaria, and of the Emperor Joseph I.
He left behind him four sons, his successor, Frederick Augustus, and the three other princes, Charles, his mother's favourite, Anthony, and Maximilian Joseph, the third of whom died the same year as his father. He had also two daughters.
The death of her husband was a severe blow to the ambition of the Electress; her eldest son, Frederick Augustus, was under age, and the reins of government were snatched from her hands and put into those of the uncle of the young Elector, Xavier, who had been his mother's favourite, and in favour of whom his elder brother had been urged to resign his pretensions. Xavier was appointed administrator of Saxony, and acted as such for five years.
When, at the age of eighteen, Frederick Augustus III. assumed the power, he endeavoured to fulfil his duties with great diligence and conscientiousness, and allowed of no interference. He had, indeed, his advisers, but these were men whom he selected for himself from among those who had been well tried and who had proved themselves trusty.
The Electress-mother had, during the administration of Prince Xavier, exercised some little authority; she now suddenly found herself deprived of every shred. Her son was too firm and self-determined to admit of her interference. Moody and dissatisfied, she left Dresden and went to Potsdam to Frederick II., in 1769, apparently to feel the way towards the execution of a plan that was already forming in her restless brain. She does not seem to have met with any encouragement, and she then started for Italy, where she visited Rome in 1772, and sought Mengs out, whose artistic talents had been fostered under her care.
Under the administration of Prince Xavier, the Electress Dowager had received an income of sixty thousand dollars; after her son had mounted the throne, her appanage was doubled, more than doubled, for she was granted 130,000 dollars, and in addition her son gave her a present of 500,000 dollars. This did not satisfy her, for she had no notion of cutting her coat according to her cloth, she would everywhere maintain a splendid court. Moreover, she was bitten with the fever of speculation. The year before her son came of age and assumed the power, she had erected a great cotton factory at Grossenhain, but as it brought her in no revenue, and cost her money besides, she was glad to dispose of it in 1774. The visitor to Dresden almost certainly knows the Bavarian tavern at the end of the bridge leading into Little Dresden. It is a tavern now mediævalised, with panelled walls, bull's eye glass in the windows, old German glass and pottery—even an old German kalendar hanging from the walls, and with a couple of pretty Bavarian Kellnerins in costume, to wait on the visitor. There also in the evening Bavarian minstrels jodel, and play the zither.
This Bavarian tavern was established by the Electress Mother, who thought that the Saxons did not drink good or enough beer, and must be supplied with that brewed in her native land.
But this speculation also failed, and her capital of five hundred thousand dollars was swallowed up to the last farthing, and to meet her creditors she was obliged to pawn her diamond necklace and the rest of her jewels. This happened in Genoa. When her allowance came in again she redeemed her jewelry, but in 1775 had to pawn it again in Rome. Unable to pay her debts, and in distress for money, she appealed repeatedly, but in vain, to her son.
Frederick Augustus was, like his father, of feeble constitution, and moreover, as he himself complained later on in life, had been at once spoiled and neglected in his youth; and he was unable through weakness to ascend a height. He did not walk or ride, but went about in a carriage. The January (1769) after he came to the Electoral crown, he married Amelia Augusta of Zweibrücken, sister of Max Joseph, afterwards first King of Bavaria. She was only seventeen at the time.
The favourite son of his mother was Charles. This prince had been hearty and in full possession of his limbs in his early age, but when he reached the years of eleven or twelve, he became crippled and doubled up like his father. Wraxal says that beside him Scarron would have passed as a beauty. He was so feeble and paralysed that he could only be moved about on a wheeled chair. He died in 1781. His elder brother, the Elector, though not a vigorous man, was not a cripple.
One of the attendant gentry on the Electress Mother, in Rome, was the Marquis Aloysius Peter d'Agdolo, son of the Saxon Consul in Venice, Colonel of the Lifeguard, and Adjutant General to Prince Xavier whilst he was Administrator.
Agdolo advised the Electress Mother to raise money to meet her difficulties by selling to her son, the Elector, her claims on the Bavarian inheritance. Her brother, Maximilian Joseph, was without children; and the nearest male claimant to the Electoral Crown of Bavaria was the Count Palatine of Sulzbach, only remotely connected. It was, therefore, quite possible that Bavaria might fall to a sister. Now on the death of her brother, the Dowager Electress of Saxony certainly intended to advance her claims against any remote kinsman hailing through a common ancestor two centuries ago. But whether she would be able to enforce her claim was another matter. She might sell it to her son, who would have the means of advancing his claim by force of arms and gold. This was in 1776. Maria Antonia was delighted with the scheme and at once hastened to Munich to put it in execution, taking with her all her diamonds which she had managed to redeem from pawn.
Whilst she was on her way to Munich, Agdolo was despatched to Dresden, to open the negociation with her son, not only for the transference of her rights on Bavaria, but also for the pawning of her diamonds, to her son.
She had urgent need of money, and in her extremity she conceived an audacious scheme to enable her at the same time to get hold of the money, and to retain her rights on Bavaria. The plan was this:—As soon as she had got the full payment from the Elector for the resignation of her claims in his favour, she had resolved suddenly to proclaim to the world that he was no son at all of the late Elector Frederick Christian—that he was a bastard, smuggled into the palace and passed off as the son of the Elector, much as, according to Whig gossip, James the Pretender was smuggled into the palace of James II. in a warming pan, and passed off as of blood royal, when he was of base origin.
Frederick Augustus thus declared to be no son of the House of Saxony, the Electoral crown would come to her favourite son Charles, who was a cripple. The Elector was not deformed—evidence against his origin; Charles was doubled up and distorted—he was certainly the true son of the late Elector, and the legitimate successor.
If Maria Antonia should succeed—she would rule Saxony in the name, and over the head of her unfortunate son Charles, and her rights on Bavaria would not have been lost or made away with.
Arrived in Munich, she confided the whole plan to her ladies-in-waiting. She told them her hopes, her confidence in Agdolo, who was gone to Dresden to negociate the sale, and who was thoroughly aware of her intentions.
Agdolo, as all the ladies knew, was a great rascal. He had been pensioned by Prince Xavier with six hundred dollars per annum, and he had what he received from the Electress Mother as her gentleman-in-waiting. He was married to the Princess Lubomirska, widow of Count Rutowska, had quarrelled with her, and they lived separate, but he had no scruple to receive of an insulted wife an annual allowance. All these sources of income were insufficient to meet his expenses; and no one who knew him doubted for a moment that he would lend himself to any intrigue which would promise him wealth and position. The plot of the Dowager Electress was a risky one—but, should it succeed, his fortune was assured.
At Dresden he was well received by the Elector; and Frederick Augustus at once accepted the proposition of his mother. He consented to purchase Maria Antonia's resignation in his favour of her claims on the allodial inheritance of the family on the extinction of the Bavarian Electoral house in the male line, and to pay all her debts, and to find a sum sufficient to redeem the diamonds, which were represented as still in pawn at Rome.
Maria Antonia and her confidant appeared to be on the eve of success, when the plan was upset, from a quarter in which they had not dreamed of danger. Among the ladies of the court of the Dowager Electress was one whose name does not transpire, who seems to have entertained an ardent passion for Agdolo. He, however, disregarded her, and paid his attentions to another of the ladies. Rage and jealousy consumed the heart of this slighted beauty, and when the Electress Mother confided to her the plan she had formed, the lady-in-waiting saw that her opportunity had arrived for the destruction of the man who had slighted her charms. She managed to get hold of her mistress' keys and to make a transcript of her papers, wherein the whole plan was detailed, also of copies of her letters to Agdolo, and of the Marquis's letters to her. When she had these, she at once despatched them—not to the Elector of Saxony, but to Frederick II. at Berlin, who stood in close relations of friendship with the Elector of Saxony. She had reckoned aright. Such tidings, received through the Court of Prussia, would produce a far deeper impression on Frederick Augustus, than if received from her unknown and insignificant self. It is possible also that she may have known of her mistress having been at Berlin and there thrown out hints of something of the sort, so that Frederick II. would at once recognise in this matured plan the outcome of the vague hints of mischief poured out at Potsdam a few years before.
All was going on well at Berlin. Adolphus von Zehmen, Electoral Treasurer, had already started for Munich, furnished with the requisite sums. He was empowered to receive the deed of relinquishment from the Dowager Electress, and also her diamond necklace, which, in the meantime, was to be brought by a special courier from Rome. Maria Antonia, on her side, had constituted Councillor Hewald her plenipotentiary; she wrote to say that he would transact all the requisite negociation with the Treasurer Zehmen, and that the diamond necklace had arrived and was in his hands.
Agdolo received orders from the Electress Mother on no account to leave Dresden till the middle of September, 1776, lest his departure should arouse suspicion.
The conduct of the Marquis was not in any way remarkable, he moved about among old friends with perfect openness, often appeared in Court, and was satisfied that he was perfectly safe. He was not in the least aware that all his proceedings were watched and reported on, not by order of the Elector, but of his own mistress, who received regular reports from this emissary as to the behaviour and proceedings of the Marquis, so that she was able to compare with this private report that sent her by Agdolo, and so satisfy herself whether he was acting in her interest, or playing a double game.
This bit of cunning on her part, was not surprising, considering what a man Agdolo was, and, as we shall see, it proved of great advantage to her, but in a way she least expected.
The Marchese d'Agdolo had paid his farewell visit to the Elector, and received leave to depart. Frederick Augustus had not the remotest suspicion that his mother was playing a crooked part, and he seemed heartily satisfied with the negociation, and made the Marquis a present.
On September 15, 1776, Agdolo was intending to start from Dresden, on his return to Munich, and the evening before leaving he spent at the house of a friend, Ferber, playing cards. Little did he suspect that whilst he was winning one stake after another at the table, the greatest stake of all was lost. That evening, whilst he was playing cards, a courier arrived from Berlin, in all haste, and demanded to see the Elector in person, instantly, as he had a communication of the utmost importance to make from Frederick II. He was admitted without delay, and the whole of his mother's plot was detailed before the astonished Elector.
"The originals of these transcripts," said the courier, "are in the hands of the Marchese d'Agdolo, let him be arrested, and a comparison of the documents made."
The Privy Council was at once assembled, and the papers received from Frederick II. were laid before it. The members voted unanimously that the Marquis should be arrested, and General Schiebell was entrusted with the execution of the decree. No surprise was occasioned by the entry of General Schiebell into the house of Ferber. It was a place of resort of the best society in Dresden; but when the General announced that he had come to make an arrest, many cheeks lost their colour.
"In the name of his Serene Highness the Elector," said the General, "I make this man my prisoner," and he laid his hand on the shoulder of Agdolo, who had served under him in the Seven Years' War. He was taken at once to his own lodgings, where his desks and boxes—already packed for departure—were opened, and all his papers removed. The same night, under a strong guard, he was transported at 10 o'clock, to Königstein. In that strong fortress and state prison, perched on an isolated limestone crag, the rest of his life was to be spent in confinement.
But the Marchese, like a crafty Italian, had made his preparations against something of the sort; for among his papers was found a communication addressed by him to the Elector, revealing the whole plot. It was undated. If the search of his rooms and the discovery of his papers had been made earlier, the Elector might have believed that the man had really intended to betray his mistress, but, he had postponed the delivery of the communication too late.[17]
A few days later, the Marchese received a sealed letter from the Elector; and he was treated in his prison without undue severity; his pension was not withdrawn; and the Elector seems never to have quite made up his mind whether Agdolo really intended to make him aware of the plot at the last minute, or to go on with the plan after his mistress's orders.
After some years, when Agdolo began to suffer in his chest, he was allowed to go to the baths of Pirna, under a guard. His wife never visited him in prison. She died, however, only two years later, in 1778, at the age of fifty-six. Agdolo lived on for twenty-three years and a half, and died August 27, 1800. All his papers were then sent to Frederick Augustus III., who read them, dissolved into tears, and burnt them.
We must return for a moment to Munich. No sooner had the emissary of the Electress Mother heard of the news of the arrest of Agdolo, than he hastened to Munich with post horses as hard as he could fly over the roads. Maria Antonia, when she heard the news, at once made fresh dispositions. She sent word that same night to Hewald to make off, and in another half hour he had disappeared with the diamonds.
Next day the completion of the resignation of claims was to be made. The Electress Mother requested the Treasurer Zehmen to go to the dwelling of her Councillor Hewald, who, as we can understand, was not to be found anywhere. Herr von Zehmen was much surprised and disconcerted, and the Dowager Electress affected extreme indignation and distress, charging her plenipotentiary with having robbed her of her diamonds, and bolted with them. Then she took to her bed, and pretended to be dangerously ill. Next day the news reached Zehmen of what had occurred at Dresden, and with the news came his recall. She saw the treasurer before his departure, and implored him to get both Agdolo and Hewald arrested and punished, because, as she declared, they had between them fabricated a wicked plot for her robbery and ruin.
Hewald went to Frankfort with the jewels, where he was stopped and taken by an officer of Frederick Augustus, and brought on Jan. 27, 1777, to Dresden. He was sent to the Königstein, but was released in 1778.
In 1777 died the Elector of Bavaria, but his sister was unable to obtain any recognition of her claims; and she died 23rd April, 1780, without any reconciliation with the eldest son. Next year died her favourite son, the cripple, Charles.
FOOTNOTE:
[17] This is supposed to have been the contents of the packet addressed to the Elector, the contents have never been revealed.
Suess Oppenheim.
On December the sixteenth, 1733, Charles Alexander, Duke of Würtemberg, entered Stuttgart in state. It was a brilliant though brief winter day. The sun streamed out of a cloudless heaven on the snowy roofs of the old town, and the castle park trees frosted as though covered with jewels. The streets were hung with tapestries, crimson drapery, and wreaths of artificial flowers. Peasants in their quaint costume poured in from all the country round to salute their new prince. From the old castle towers floated the banners of the Duchy and the Empire—for Würtemberg three stag-horns quartered with the Hohenstauffen black lions. The Duke was not young: he was hard on fifty—an age when a man has got the better of youthful impetuosity and regrets early indiscretions—an age at which, if a man has stuff in him, he is at his best.
The land of Würtemberg is a favoured and smiling land. At the period of which we write, it was not so ample as the present kingdom, but fruitful, favoured, and called the Garden of the Empire. For twenty years this Duchy had been badly governed; the inhabitants had been cruelly oppressed by the incompetent Duke Eberhardt Ludwig, or rather by his favourites. The country was burdened with debt; the treasury was exhausted. It had, as it were, lain under winter frost for twenty years and more, and now though on a winter day laughed and bloomed with a promise of spring.
And every good Würtemberger had a right to be glad and proud of the new duke, who had stormed Belgrade under Prince Eugene, and was held to be one of the bravest, noblest minded, and most generous of the German princes of his time.
As he rode through the streets of Stuttgart all admired his stately form, his rich fair hair flowing over his shoulders, his bright commanding eye, and the pleasant smile on his lip; every Würtemberger waved his hat, and shouted, and leaped with enthusiasm. Now at last the Garden of Germany would blossom and be fruitful under so noble a duke.
But in the same procession walked, not rode, another man whom none regarded—a handsome man with dark brown hair and keen olive eyes, a sallow complexion, and a finely moulded Greek nose. He had a broad forehead and well arched brows. He was tall, and had something noble and commanding in his person and manner. But his most remarkable feature was the eye—bright, eager, ever restless.
This man, whom the Würtembergers did not observe, was destined to play a terrible and tragic part in their history—to be the evil genius of the duke and of the land. His name was Joseph Suess Oppenheim.
Joseph's mother, Michaela, a Jewess, had been a woman of extraordinary beauty, the only child of the Rabbi Salomon of Frankfort. She had been married when quite young to the Rabbi Isachar Suess Oppenheim, a singer. Joseph was born at Heidelberg in 1692, and was her child by the Baron George of Heydersdorf, a soldier who had distinguished himself in the Turkish war, and with whom she carried on a guilty intrigue. From his father Joseph Suess derived a dignified, almost military bearing, and his personal beauty from his mother.
The Baron's romance with the lovely Jewess came to an end in 1693, when he held the castle of Heidelberg against the French. He surrendered after a gallant defence; too soon, however, as the court-martial held on him decided; and he was sentenced to death, but was pardoned by the Emperor Leopold, with the loss of all his honours and offices, and he was banished the Empire.
Suess had a sister who married a rich Jew of Vienna, but followed her mother in laxity of morals, and, after having wasted a good fortune in extravagance, fell back on her mother and brother for a maintenance. He had a brother who became a factor at the court of Darmstadt. They lived on bad terms with each other, and were engaged in repeated lawsuits with one another. This brother abjured Judaism, was baptised, and assumed the name of Tauffenberg. Joseph Suess was connected, or nominally connected, through Isachar, his reputed though not his real father, with the great and wealthy Jewish family of Oppenheim. The branch established in Vienna had become rich on contracts for the army, and had been ennobled. One member failed because the Emperor Leopold I. owed him many millions of dollars and was unable to pay. Joseph began life in the office of the court bankers and army contractors of his family at Vienna. Here it was that he obtained his first ideas of how money could be raised through lotteries, monopolies,and imposts of all kinds. But though Joseph was put on the road that led to wealth, in the Oppenheim house at Vienna, he missed his chance there, and was dismissed for some misconduct or other, the particulars of which we do not know.
Then, in disgrace and distress, he came to Bavaria, where he served a while as barber's assistant. Probably through the influence of some of the Oppenheims, Joseph was introduced into the court of the family of Thurn and Taxis, which had acquired vast wealth through the monopoly of the post-office. Thence he made his way into an office of the palatine court at Mannheim.
This was a period in which the German princes were possessed with the passion of imitating the splendour and extravagance of Louis XIV. Everyone must have his Versailles, must crowd his court with functionaries, and maintain armies in glittering and showy uniforms.
Germany, to the present day, abounds in vast and magnificent palaces, for the most part in wretched repair, if not ruinous. The houses of our English nobility are nothing as compared in size with these palaces of petty princes, counts, and barons.
To build these mansions, and when built to fill them with officials and servants, to keep up their armies, and to satisfy the greed of their mistresses, these German princes needed a good deal of money, and were ready to show favour to any man who could help them to obtain it—show where to bore to tap fresh financial springs. All kinds of new methods of taxation were had recourse to, arousing the bitter mockery of the oppressed. The tobacco monopoly was called the nose-tax; it was felt to be oppressive only by the snuff-takers and smokers; and perhaps the stamp on paper only by those who wrote; but the boot and shoe stamp imposed by one of the little princes touched everyone but those who went barefoot.
Joseph Suess introduced the stamp on paper into the palatinate. He did not invent this duty, which had been imposed elsewhere; but he obtained the concession of the impost, and sold it to a subfactor for 12,000 florins, and with the money invested in a speculation in the coinage of Hesse-Darmstadt. All the little German princes at this time had their own coinage, down to trumpery little states of a few miles in diameter, as Waldeck, Fulda, Hechingen, and Montfort; and Germany was full to overflow of bad money, and barren of gold and silver. Suess, in his peregrinations, had obtained a thorough insight into the mysteries of this branch of business. He not only thoroughly understood the practical part of the matter—the coinage—but also where the cheapest markets were, in which to purchase the metals to be coined. Now that he had some money at his command, he undertook to farm the coinage of Hesse-Darmstadt; but almost immediately undersold it, with a profit to himself of 9,000 florins. He took other contracts for the courts, and soon realised a comfortable fortune. Even the Archbishop of Cologne called in his aid, and contributed to enrich him, in his efforts to get a little more for himself out of the subjects of his palatinate. In the summer of 1732 Joseph Suess visited the Blackforest baths of Wildbad, for the sake of the waters. At the same time Charles Alexander of Würtemberg and his wife were also undergoing the same cure. Oppenheim's pleasant manners, his handsome face, and his cleverness caught the fancy of Charles Alexander, and he appointed him his agent and steward; and as the Prince was then in want of money, Suess lent him a trifle of 2,000 florins. Charles Alexander had not at this time any assurance that he would ascend the ducal throne of Würtemberg, though it was probable.[18] The reigning Duke, Eberhardt Louis, had, indeed, just lost his only son; but it was not impossible that a posthumous grandson might be born. Charles Alexander was first-cousin of the Duke. It is said that Suess on this occasion foretold the future greatness of the Prince, and pretended to extract his prophecy from the Cabala. It is certain that Charles Alexander was very superstitious, and believed in astrology, and it is by no means improbable that Suess practised on his credulity. He had at his disposal plenty of means of learning whether the young Princess of Würtemberg was likely soon to become a mother—her husband had died in November—and he was very well aware that the old Duke was failing. The loan made by Suess came acceptably to Prince Charles Alexander just as a Jewish banker, Isaac Simon of Landau, with whom he had hitherto dealt, had declined to make further advances.
When the Prince returned to Belgrade, where he resided as stadtholder of Servia, under the Emperor, he was fully convinced that he had discovered in Suess an able, intelligent, and devoted servant. His wife was a princess of Thurn and Taxis, and it is possible that Suess, who had been for some time about that court at Ratisbon, had used her influence, and his acquaintance with her family affairs, to push his interests with the Prince, her husband.
On October 31, 1733, died the old Duke Eberhardt Louis, and Charles Alexander at once hastened from Belgrade to Vienna, where, in an interview with the Emperor, without any consultation with the Estates, or consideration for the treasury of Würtemberg, he promised Leopold a contingent of 12,000 men to aid in the war against France. Then he went on to Stuttgart.
Poor Würtemberg groaned under the burdens that had been imposed on it; the favourites had been allowed to do with it what they liked; and Charles Alexander's first public declaration on entering his capital was: "From henceforth I will reign over you immediately, and myself see to the reform of every grievance, and put away from my people every burden which has galled its shoulders. If my people cry to me, my ears shall be open to hear their call. I will not endure the disorder which has penetrated everywhere, into every department of the State; my own hand shall sweep it away."
And as a token of his sincerity he ordered every office-holder in Church and State to put on paper and present to him a schedule of every payment that had been made, by way of fee and bribe, to obtain his office. This was published on December 28, 1733. The older and wiser heads were shaken; the Duke, they said, was only heaping trouble on his shoulders; let the past be buried. He replied, "I must get to the bottom of all this iniquity. I must get inured to work."
But the hero of Belgrade had all his life been more accustomed to the saddle than the desk, and to command in battle—a much simpler matter—than to rule in peace. The amount of grievances brought before him, the innumerable scandals, peculations, bewildered him. The people were wild with enthusiasm, but the entire bureaucracy was filled with sullen and dogged opposition.
Würtemberg enjoyed a constitution more liberal than any other German principality. The old Duke Eberhardt with the Beard, who died in 1496, by his will contrived for the good government of his land by providing checks against despotic rule by the dukes his successors. On the strength of this testament the Estates deposed his successor. The provisions of this will were ratified in the Capitulation of Tübingen, in 1514, and every duke on assuming the reins of government was required to swear to observe the capitulation. Duke Charles Alexander took the oath without perhaps very closely examining it, and found out after it was taken that he was hampered in various ways, and was incapacitated from raising the body of men with which he had undertaken to furnish the Emperor, independent of the consent of the Parliament. It may here be said that there was no hereditary house of nobles in Würtemberg; the policy of the former dukes had been to drive the hereditary petty nobles out of the country, and to create in their place a clique of court officials absolutely dependent on themselves. By the constitution, no standing army was to be maintained, and no troops raised without the consent of the Estates; the tenure of property was guaranteed by the State, all serfage was abolished, and no taxes could be imposed or monopolies created without the consent of the Estates.
The Estates consisted of fourteen prelates, pastors invested with dignities which entitled them to sit in the House, and seventy deputies—some elected by the constituencies, others holders of certain offices, who sat ex officio. The Estates had great power; indeed the Duke could do little but ask its consent to the measures he proposed, and to swallow humble pie at refusal. It not only imposed the taxes, but the collectors were directly responsible to the Estates for what was collected, and paid into its hands the sum gathered. Moreover, any agreement entered into between the Duke and another prince was invalid unless ratified by the Estates.
When Duke Charles Alexander, who had been accustomed to the despotic command of an army as field-marshal, found how his hands were tied and how he was surrounded by impediments to free action on all sides, he was very angry, and quarrelled with the Ministers who had presented the capitulation to him for signature. He declared that the paper presented for him to sign had not been read to him in full, or had the obnoxious passages folded under that he should not see them, or that they had been added after his signature had been affixed.
He became irritable, not knowing how to keep his promise with the Emperor, and disgusted to find himself a ruler without real authority.
Now, as it was inconvenient to call the Assembly together on every occasion when something was wanted, a permanent committee sat in Stuttgart, consisting of two parts. This committee acted for the Estates and were responsible to it.
Wanting advice and help, unwilling to seek that of the reliable Ministers—and there were some honest and patriotic—the Duke asked Joseph Suess to assist him, and Suess was only too delighted to show him a way out of his difficulties. The redress of grievances was thrust aside, abuses were left uncorrected, and the Duke's attention was turned towards two main objects—the establishment of a standing army, and the upsetting of the old constitution.
Würtemberg was then a state whose limits were not very extensive, nor did they lie within a ring fence. The imperial cities of Reutlingen, Ulm, Heilsbronn, Weil, and Gmünd were free. It might not be convenient for the Emperor to pay with hard cash for the troops the Duke had promised to furnish, but he might allow of the incorporation of these independent and wealthy cities in the duchy. Moreover, it was a feature of the times for the princes to seek to conquer fresh districts and incorporate them. France had recently snatched away Mompelgard from Würtemberg, and Charles Alexander recovered it. The duchy had suffered so severely from having been overrun by French troops that the Estates acquiesced, though reluctantly, in the Duke's proposal that a standing army should be maintained. Having obtained this concession, Suess instructed him how to make it a means of acquiring money, by calling men to arms who would be thankful to purchase their discharge. The army soon numbered 18,000 soldiers. His general-in-chief was Remchingen, a man who had served with him in the Imperial army and was devoted to his interests. The Duke placed his army under officers who were none of them Würtembergers. At the head of an army officered by his own creatures, the Duke hoped to carry his next purpose—the abrogation of the capitulation, and the conversion of the State from a constitutional to a despotic monarchy. Suess now became the Duke's most confidential adviser, and, guided by him, Charles Alexander got rid of all his Ministers and courtiers who would not become the assistants in this policy, and filled their places with creatures of his own, chief of whom was a fellow named Hallwachs. In order to paralyse the Assembly the Duke did not summon it to meet, and managed to pack the committee with men in his interest; for, curiously enough, the committee was not elected by the delegates, but itself elected into the vacancies created in it. By means of the committee the Duke imposed on the country in 1736 a double tax, and the grant of a thirtieth of all the fruits; and this was to last "as long as the necessities of the case required it."
Suess himself was careful to keep in the background. He accepted no office about court, became Minister of no branch of the State; but every Minister and officer was nominated by him and devoted to him. Towards these creatures of his own he behaved with rudeness and arrogance, so that they feared him almost more than the Duke. If the least opposition was manifested, Suess threatened the gallows or the block, forfeiture of goods, and banishment; and as the Duke subscribed every order Suess brought him, it was well known that his threats were not idle.
Suess employed Weissensee, a pastor, the prelate of Hirsau, as his court spy. This worthless man brought to the favourite every whisper that passed within his hearing among the courtiers of the Duke, everything that was said in the committee, and advised whether the adhesion of this or that man was doubtful.
Suess so completely enveloped the Duke in the threads of the web he spun about him, that Charles Alexander followed his advice blindly, and did nothing without consulting him.
In 1734 Suess farmed the coinage of Würtemberg, with great profit to himself, and, having got it into his own hands, kept it there to the end. But there is this to be said for his coinage, that it was far better than that of all the other states of Germany; so that the Würtemberg silver was sought throughout Germany. There was nothing fraudulent in this transaction, and though at his trial the matter was closely investigated, no evidence of his having exceeded what was just could be produced against him.
It was quite another matter with the "Land Commission," a well-intentioned institution with which the Duke began his reign. Charles Alexander was overwhelmed with the evidence sent in to him of bribery under the late Duke, and, unable to investigate the cases himself, he appointed commissioners to do so, and of course these commissioners were nominated by Suess. The commission not only examined into evidence of bribery in the purchase of offices, but also into peculation and neglect of duty in the discharge of offices. Those against whom evidence was strong were sentenced to pay a heavy fine, but were not necessarily deprived. Those, on the other hand, who had acquired their offices honourably and had discharged their functions conscientiously were harassed by repeated trials, terrified with threats, and were forced to purchase their discharge at a sum fixed according to an arbitrary tariff. Those who proved stubborn, or did not see at what the commissioners aimed, were subjected to false witnesses, found guilty, and fined. These fines amounted in some instances to £2,000.
After the commission had exhausted the bureaucracy, and money was still needed, private individuals became the prey of their inquisitorial and extortive action.
Any citizen who was reported to be rich was summoned before the tribunal to give an account of the manner in which he had obtained his wealth; his private affairs were investigated, his books examined, and his trial protracted till he was glad to purchase his dismissal for a sum calculated according to his income as revealed to the prying eyes of the inquisitors.
But as this did not suffice to fill the empty treasury, recurrence was had to the old abuse which the Land Commission had been instituted to inquire into and correct. Every office was sold, and to increase the revenue from this source fresh offices were created, fresh titles invented, and all were sold for ready money. Every office in Church as well as State was bought; indeed, a sort of auction was held at every vacancy, and the office was knocked down to the highest bidder.
This sort of commerce had been bad enough under the late Duke, but it became fourfold as bad now under the redresser of abuses, for what had before been inchoate was now organised by Suess into a system.
Not only were the offices sold, but after they had been entered upon, the tenant was expected to pay a second sum, entitled the gratuity, which was to go, it was announced, towards a sustentation fund for widows and orphans and the aged. It is needless to say that none of this money ever reached widows, orphans, or aged.
A special bureau of gratuities was organised by decree of the Duke, and filled with men appointed by Suess, who paid into his hands the sums received; and he, after having sifted them, and retained what he thought fit, shook the rest into the ducal treasury. This bureau was founded by ducal rescript in 1736.
Side by side with the Office of Gratuities came the Fiscal Office into being, whose function it was to revise the magisterial and judicial proceedings of the courts of justice. This also was filled by Suess with his creatures. The ground given to the world for its establishment was the correction of judicial errors and injustices committed by the courts of law. It was the final court of revision, before which every decision went before it was carried into effect. Legal proceedings, moreover, were long and costly, and the Fiscal Court undertook to interfere when any suit threatened to be unduly protracted to the prejudice of justice. But the practical working of the Fiscal Court was something very different. It interfered with the course of justice, reversing judgments, not according to equity, but according to the bribes paid into the hands of the board. In a very short time the sources of justice were completely poisoned by it, and no crime, however great and however clearly established, led to chastisement if sufficient money were paid into the hands of the court of revision. The whole country was overrun with spies, who denounced as guilty of imaginary crimes those who were rich, and such never escaped without leaving some of their gold sticking to the hands of the fiscal counsellors.
As usual with Joseph Suess, he endeavoured to keep officially clear of this court, as he had of the Office of Gratuities, and of all others. But the Duke nominated him assistant counsellor. Suess protested, and endeavoured to shirk the honour; but as the Duke refused to release him, he took care never once to attend the court, and when the proceedings and judgments were sent him for his signature he always sent them back unsigned; and he never was easy till relieved of the unacceptable title. For Suess was a clever rogue. In every transaction that was public, and of which documentary evidence was producible that he had been mixed up with it, he acted with integrity; but whenever he engaged on a proceeding which might render him liable to be tried in the event of his falling into disfavour, he kept himself in the background and acted through his agents; so that when, eventually, he was tried for his treasonable and fraudulent conduct, documentary evidence incriminating him was wholly wanting.
After the death of the Duke, it was estimated from the records of the two courts that they had in the year 1736-7 squeezed sixty-five thousand pounds out of the small and poor duchy.
Suess had constituted himself jeweller to the Duke, who had a fancy for precious stones, but knew nothing of their relative values. When Suess offered him a jewel he was unable to resist the temptation of buying it, and very little of the money of the Bureau of Gratuities ever reached him; he took the value out in stones at Suess' estimation. When some of his intimates ventured to suggest that the Jew was deceiving him as to the worth of the stones, Duke Charles Alexander shrugged his shoulders and said with a laugh, "It may be so, but I can't do without that coujon" (cochon).[19] . At the beginning of 1736 a new edict for wards was issued by the Duke, probably on Suess' suggestion, whereby he constituted a chancery which should act as guardian to all orphans under age, managing their property for them, and was accountable to none but the Duke for the way in which it dealt with the trust. Then a commission was instituted to take charge of all charitable bequests in the duchy; and by this means Suess got the fingering of property to the amount of two hundred thousand pounds, for which the State paid to the Charities at the rate of three per cent.
Then came the imposition of duties and taxes. Salt was taxed, playing-cards, groceries, leather, tobacco, carriages, even the sweeping of chimneys. A gazette was issued containing decrees of the Duke and official appointments, and every officer and holder of any place, however insignificant, under Government was compelled to subscribe to this weekly paper, the profits of which came to the Duke and his adviser. Then came a property and income tax; then in quick succession one tormenting edict after another, irritating and disturbing the people, and all meaning one thing—money.
Lotteries were established by order of the Duke. Suess paid the Duke £300 for one, and pocketed the profits, which were considerable. At the court balls and masquerades Suess had his roulette tables in an adjoining room, and what fell to the croupier went into his pocket.[20]
At last his sun declined. The Duke became more and more engrossed in his ideas of upsetting the constitution by means of his army, and listened more to his general, Remchingen, than to Suess. He entered into a compact with the elector of Bavaria and with the Bishops of Würzburg and Bamberg to send him troops to assist him in his great project, and, as a price for this assistance, promised to introduce the Roman Catholic religion into Würtemberg.
The enemies of Suess, finding that he was losing hold of the Duke, took advantage of a precious stone which the Jew had sold him for a thousand pounds, and which proved to be worth only four hundred, to open the eyes of Charles Alexander to the character of the man who had exercised such unbounded influence over him. Suess, finding his power slipping from him, resolved to quit the country. The Duke stopped him. Suess offered five thousand pounds for permission to depart; it was refused. Charles Alexander was aware that Suess knew too many court secrets to be allowed to quit the country. Moreover, the necessities of the Duke made him feel that he might still need the ingenuity of Suess to help him to raise money. As a means of retaining him he granted him a so-called "absolutorium"—a rescript which made him responsible to no one for any of his actions in the past or in the future. Furnished with this document, the Jew consented to remain, and then the Duke required of him a loan of four thousand pounds for the expenses of a journey he meditated to Danzig to consult a physician about a foot from which he suffered. The "absolutorium" was signed in February 1737.
On March 12 following, Charles Alexander started on his journey from Stuttgart, but went no farther than his palace at Ludwigsburg.
Although the utmost secrecy had been maintained, it had nevertheless transpired that the constitution was to be upset as soon as the Duke had left the country. He had given sealed orders to his general, Remchingen, to this effect. The Bavarian and Würtemberg troops, to the number of 19,000 men, were already on the march. The Würtemberg army was entirely officered by the Duke's own men. Orders had been issued to forbid the Stuttgart Civil Guard from exercising and assembling, and ordering that a general disarmament of the Civil Guard and of the peasants and citizens should be enforced immediately the Duke had crossed the frontier. All the fortresses in the duchy had been provided with abundance of ammunition and ordnance.
At Ludwigsburg the Duke halted to consult an astrologer as to the prospect of his undertaking. Suess laughed contemptuously at the pretences of this man, and, pointing to a cannon, said to Charles Alexander, "This is your best telescope."
The sealed orders were to be opened on the 13th, and on that day the stroke was to be dealt. Already Ludwigsburg was full of Würzburg soldiers. A courier of the Duke with a letter had, in a drunken squabble, been deprived of the dispatch; this was opened and shown to the Assembly, which assembled in all haste and alarm. It revealed the plot. At once some of the notables hastened to Ludwigsburg to have an interview with their prince. He received them roughly, and dismissed them without disavowing his intentions. The consternation became general. The day was stormy; clouds were whirled across the sky, then came a drift of hail, then a gleam of sun. At Ludwigsburg, the wind blew in whole ranges of windows, shivering the glass. The alarm-bells rang in the church towers, for fire had broken out in the village of Eglosheim.
The Assembly sent another deputation to Ludwigsburg, consisting of their oldest and most respected members. They did not arrive till late, and unable to obtain access through the front gates, crept round by the kitchen entrance, and presented themselves unexpectedly before the Duke at ten o'clock at night, as he was retiring to rest from a ball that had been given. Dancing was still going on in one of the wings, and the strains of music entered the chamber when the old notables of Würtemberg, men of venerable age and high character, forced their way into the Duke's presence.
Charles Alexander had but just come away from the ball-room, seated himself in an arm-chair, and drunk a powerful medicine presented him by his chamberlain, Neuffer, in a silver bowl. Neuffer belonged to a family which had long been influential in Würtemberg, honourable and patriotic. Scarce had the Duke swallowed this draught when the deputation appeared. He became livid with fury, and though the interview took place with closed doors the servants without heard a violent altercation, and the Duke's voice raised as if he were vehemently excited. Presently the doors opened and the deputation came forth, greatly agitated, one of the old men in his hurry forgetting to take his cap away with him. Scarcely were they gone when Neuffer dismissed the servants, and himself went to a further wing of the palace.
The Duke, still excited, suddenly felt himself unwell, ran into the antechamber, found no one there, staggered into a third, then a fourth room, tore open a window, and shouted into the great court for help; but his voice was drowned by the band in the illumined ball-room, playing a valse. Then giddiness came over the Duke, and he fell to the ground. The first to arrive was Neuffer, and he found him insensible. He drew his knife and lanced him. Blood flowed. The Duke opened his eyes and gasped, "What is the matter with me? I am dying!" He was placed in an armchair, and died instantly.
That night not a window in Stuttgart had shown light. The town was as a city of the dead. Everyone was in alarm as to what would ensue on the morrow, but in secret arms were being distributed among the citizens and guilds. They would fight for their constitution. Suddenly, at midnight, the news spread that the Duke was dead. At once the streets were full of people, laughing, shouting, throwing themselves into each other's arms, and before another hour the windows were illuminated with countless candles.[21]
Not a moment was lost. Duke Charles Rudolf of Würtemberg-Neuenstadt was invested with the regency, and on March 19, General Remchingen was arrested and deprived of his office.
For once Suess' cleverness failed him. Relying on his "absolutorium," he did not fly the country the moment he heard of the death of the Duke. He waited till he could place his valuables in safety. He waited just too long, for he was arrested and confined to his house. Then he did manage to escape, and got the start of his enemies by an hour, but was recognised and stopped by a Würtemberg officer, and reconducted to Stuttgart, where he was almost torn to pieces by the infuriated populace, and with difficulty rescued from their hands. On March 19, he was sent to the fortress of Hohenneuffen; but thence he almost succeeded in effecting his escape by bribing the guards with the diamonds he had secreted about his person.
At first Suess bore his imprisonment with dignity. He was confident, in the first place, that the "absolutorium" would not be impeached, and in the second, that there was no documentary evidence discoverable which could incriminate him. But as his imprisonment was protracted, and as he saw that the country demanded a victim for the wrongs it had suffered, his confidence and self-respect left him. Nevertheless, it was not till the last that he was convinced that his life as well as his ill-gotten gains would be taken from him, and then he became a despicable figure, entreating mercy, and eagerly seeking to incriminate others in the hopes of saving his own wretched life thereby.
There were plenty of others as guilty as Suess—nay, more so, for they were natives of Würtemberg, and he an alien in blood and religion. But these others had relations and friends to intercede for them, and all felt that Suess was the man to be made a scape-goat of, because he was friendless.
The mode of his execution was barbarous. His trial had been protracted for eleven months; at length, on February 4, 1738, he was led forth to execution—to be hung in an iron cage. This cage had been made in 1596, and stood eight feet high, and was four feet in diameter. It was composed of seventeen bars and fourteen cross-bars, and was circular. The gallows was thirty-five feet high. The wretched man was first strangled in the cage, hung up in it like a dead bird, and then the cage with him in it was hoisted up to the full height of the gallows-tree. His wealth was confiscated.
Hallwachs and the other rascals who had been confederated with him in plundering their country were banished, but were allowed to depart with all their plunder.
Remchingen also escaped; when arrested, he managed to get rid of all compromising papers, which were given by him to a chimney-sweep sent to him down the chimney by some of the agents of the Bishop of Würzburg.
Such is the tragic story of the life of Suess Oppenheim, a man of no ordinary abilities, remarkable shrewdness, but without a spark of principle. But the chief tragedy is to be found in the deterioration of the character of Duke Charles Alexander, who, as Austrian field-marshal and governor of Servia, had been the soul of honour, generous and beloved; who entered on his duchy not only promising good government, but heartily desiring to rule well for his people's good; and who in less than four years had forfeited the love and respect of his subjects, and died meditating an act which would have branded him as perjured—died without having executed one of his good purposes, and so hated by the people who had cheered him on his entry into the capital, that, by general consent, the mode of his death was not too curiously and closely inquired into.