(Statement of Christian Hauck, innkeeper, taken at the police
station at Perleburg, 25 November, 1809.)
May it please your honor, my name is Christian Hauck, and I keep
an inn at the sign of the Sword & Scepter, and have these past
fifteen years, and my father, and his father, before me, for the
past fifty years, and never has there been a complaint like this
against my inn. Your honor, it is a hard thing for a man who
keeps a decent house, and pays his taxes, and obeys the laws,
to be accused of crimes of this sort.
I know nothing of this gentleman, nor of his coach, nor his
secretary, nor his servants; I never set eyes on him before he
came bursting into the inn from the yard, shouting and raving
like a madman, and crying out, "Where the devil's that rogue of
an innkeeper?"
I said to him, "I am the innkeeper; what cause have you to
call me a rogue, sir?"
The stranger replied:
"You're not the innkeeper I did business with a few minutes ago,
and he's the rascal I want to see. I want to know what the devil's
been done with my coach, and what's happened to my secretary and
my servants."
I tried to tell him that I knew nothing of what he was talking
about, but he would not listen, and gave me the lie, saying that
he had been drugged and robbed, and his people kidnaped. He even
had the impudence to claim that he and his secretary had been
sitting at a table in that room, drinking wine, not fifteen
minutes before, when there had been four noncommissioned officers
of the Third Uhlans at that table since noon. Everybody in the
room spoke up for me, but he would not listen, and was shouting
that we were all robbers, and kidnapers, and French spies, and I
don't know what all, when the police came.
Your honor, the man is mad. What I have told you about this is the
truth, and all that I know about this business, so help me God.