_Nuremberg and the Thirty Years War_
Wallenstein--Gustavus Adolphus--Kaspar Hauser.
The Catholic Reaction was now in full swing. With the determination of
Catholicism to regain her ancient dominion came the Thirty Years War,
the last and cruellest of the religious wars, which deprived Germany of,
some say, half her population, and turned a comparatively rich and
prosperous country into a barren desert.
The violence of Duke Maximilian of Bavaria towards the town of
Donauwörth (1607), "which had been put under Ban of the Empire for some
fault on the part of the populace against a flaring Mass-procession
which had no business to be there," filled the free-towns and Protestant
communities with dark forebodings of approaching disturbance. An
Evangelical League, "The Union," was formed by the towns and princes for
the purposes of self-defence against any attacks on religious freedom.
Nuremberg joined it in 1610. This step was, of course, distasteful to
the Emperor, but Nuremberg was left no choice in the matter. For the
bishops of Bamberg and Eichstätt had forced the Nuremberg Evangelical
subjects, living in their dioceses, to revert to the old religion. The
Catholic communities formed a counter-league. Only a signal was wanted
to make the opposing parties draw swords; and in 1618 the Bohemian
resistance to the suppression of the Evangelical religion gave the
signal for that bloody war, in which Nuremberg was to endure her full
share of suffering. But, first, for a long time she endeavoured to
pursue her old policy of neutrality, keeping peace with both parties and
remaining subject to the Emperor. Meantime, as one after another of the
Catholic generals passed through, men were quartered on Nuremberg in
ceaseless relays, and she was bled of money and provisions. The treasury
was depleted; trade disorganised; and the peasantry suffered cruelly.
In 1629 Ferdinand II. thought the time had come to strike a determined
blow for Catholicism, and he published an Edict of Restitution, giving
back to the Roman Catholics all the ecclesiastical property and
institutions which had been handed over to the Evangelists by the Treaty
of Passau and the Peace of Augsburg. This brought matters to a crisis.
But even yet Nuremberg did not follow the example of Magdeburg and make
a firm stand against religious aggressions. Even when Gustavus Adolphus,
the Protestant champion, the Lion of the North, had landed on the
Pomeranian coast, and made secret proposals of union with her, she
turned a deaf ear to him, and received, with princely honours,
Wallenstein, Duke of Friedland, the Catholic General, when on his way to
Memmingen. But at a convention of the Evangelical communities at
Leipzig, called together by the Elector of Saxony, she did sign a
complaint to the Emperor with regard to religious oppression, and also
an agreement of the communities to help each other in case of need, and
to prevent the unbearable quartering of troops and other exactions of
the Emperor. Then in 1631 came the fall of Magdeburg. The subsequent
horrors of that two-days' sack struck terror into the hearts of
Protestant Germany. Nuremberg gave in at once to the demands of the
Emperor. She denounced the Leipzig Convention, dismissed her soldiers,
and paid the money required of her. In spite of these concessions, she
had reason to fear that the freedom of the town would be forfeited.
Tilly's defeat at Breitenfeld, however, prevented the Emperor from
carrying out his expressed intention. Inspired by that victory of the
Swedes, the Council plucked up courage to refuse almost all Imperial
contributions. If they had consulted the wishes of the citizens, they
would have joined Gustavus Adolphus forthwith. They still hankered after
neutrality, however, and even when Gustavus Adolphus informed them that
he would treat neutrals as enemies, they would only promise to be true
to the Evangelical faith. The Swedish King continued to press them, and,
still in the hope of being able to keep in favour with the Emperor, they
sent a sum of money. But Gustavus Adolphus demanded their full and open
support. They were still torn between the fear of offending the Emperor
and the desire of securing Gustavus' aid. A sharp and menacing letter
arrived. At last it was decided to send envoys to Würtzburg with
instructions to draw up a treaty, if there was no help for it. The
result was that Nuremberg and Bayreuth drew up a treaty with Gustavus
Adolphus (October 1631), in which money was promised, and it was
arranged that a special alliance should be concluded in two months'
time. They agreed to put their resources at his disposal, and to stand
by him to the last, whilst he on his side promised to succour them in
all danger, and to relieve them if besieged. In November they renounced
their allegiance to the Emperor, and lost not a moment in arming
themselves. It was not too soon, for the cloud of war which had long
been hanging over Franconia broke at last. Tilly took Rothenburg on
October 30th, and on the 8th of November Lichtenau surrendered.
Negotiations with him were opened by Nuremberg, to gain time, but, when
he found how strongly fortified and garrisoned the town was, he drew
off. He returned next year, but attempted nothing, for Gustavus Adolphus
was now drawing near, to whom Nuremberg, after much shilly-shallying,
was persuaded, by dint of threats, to send 1500 men with arms and
ammunition. In March 1632, the King, leaving his army near Fürth,
entered the town by the Spittlerthor amidst the heart-felt enthusiasm of
the people, who had never approved of the pusillanimous policy of the
Council. The Defender of the Protestants received a splendid and
affecting welcome. The Patricians rode out to meet him before the gates.
They presented him with four cannons and, amongst other works of art,
two silver globes supported by figures of Atlas and Hercules
respectively, which are still to be seen in the Museum at Stockholm.
"Tears of joy streamed down the cheeks of bearded men as they welcomed
the deliverer from the north, whose ready jest and beaming smile would
have gone straight to the popular heart even if his deserts had been
less. The picture of Gustavus was soon in every house, and a learned
citizen set to work at once to compose a pedigree by which he proved to
his own satisfaction that the Swedish King was descended from the old
hereditary Burggrafs of the town."[21] The same day, with further
reinforcements from Nuremberg, he went on his way south to deliver
Donauwörth.
Three months later Wallenstein, breaking up from Bohemia, directed his
whole force upon Nuremberg, which thus became the chief scene in that
drama immortalised by Schiller in his trilogy of plays. For no sooner
did Gustavus hear that Wallenstein with the Imperial army was marching
against her than, mindful of his pledge and eager not to sacrifice so
valued an ally, he summoned all his reinforcements and set out to the
relief of Nuremberg. Thus beneath her walls the Protestant King and the
inscrutable Catholic general were to be brought face to face at last.
The citizens had for some time past been anxiously increasing their
fortifications, storing provisions, and enlisting soldiers. Now, between
June 21st and July 6th, under the direction of Hans Olph, the Swedish
engineer, and with the aid of Gustavus' army, an entirely new ring of
earthworks was constructed enclosing the suburbs. Men and women,
soldiers, burghers and peasants, laboured night and day at these
entrenchments, which were provided with many small bastions and
redoubts, and defended by over 300 cannon. Round them was dug a moat
eight feet deep and twelve feet wide. Very few traces of these
fortifications, which were removed soon after 1806, can be found to-day.
In the Swedish camp lay some 20,000 veterans, for whom 14,000 pounds of
bread were supplied per diem. Within the city was a population of at
least 65,000, of whom 8000 were fighting men, 3000 of these being armed
citizens. Such were the resources with which Gustavus hoped to do battle
with Wallenstein's gigantic army of 60,000 men and 13,000 horse. His
preparations were not yet complete when Wallenstein appeared, July 1, at
Schwabach. Had he consulted the wishes of Gustavus or listened to the
advice of the Elector of Bavaria, Wallenstein would have attacked the
Swedes at once. But, though superior in numbers, he would not pit his
newly enrolled troops against the veterans of the Swedish King. He
preferred to entrench himself in a strong position on the hills above
Fürth, and to starve his enemy out. By the 6th of July he had completed
a camp, which, if not so skilfully engineered as that of the Swedes,
was, thanks to the natural advantages of the ground, almost impregnable.
This vast camp, nearly eight miles round, stretched from the left banks
of the Rednitz, from Stein, over the stream of the Biebert, and enclosed
the villages of Zierndorf, Altenberg, Unterasbach, and Kreutles. Every
house and village and advantage of the ground was turned to account and
utilised for defence. The ruin of an old _Burgstall_--the _Alte
Veste_--a castle which had been destroyed in 1388 during the great
_Städtekrieg_ by the Nurembergers, formed the most important outwork.
Here, where the hill is at its highest, was the northernmost point of
the camp, and from this fortress on the steep, wooded ridge across four
miles of clear plain, through which the little Rednitz winds its course,
Wallenstein gazed sternly on the climbing roofs and splendid mansions,
the gabled houses and innumerable turrets of the beleaguered city.
To-day, a modern tower, some eighty feet high, rears its head above the
woods that crown the hill, and the adjoining inn is a favourite place of
resort with the inhabitants of Fürth and Nuremberg. But some few traces
of the old fortress and of Wallenstein's entrenchments may yet be found,
and he who loves "to summon up remembrance of things past" will find
food enough for his imagination when he attempts to reconstruct the
scene of that terrible encampment.
For terrible it was both to besiegers and besieged. Gustavus was cut off
from his base of supplies in the Upper Danube and Rhine by this great
entrenched camp south-west of Nuremberg, and all the roads leading into
Franconia were scoured by Wallenstein's light Croatian cavalry. Though
provisions had at first been plentiful, the resources of the city were
soon strained to the uttermost by the influx of peasants who had fled
for refuge from the country. The mills and bakeries were unable to
supply bread fast enough to the starving inhabitants, so that mobs
fought outside the bakers' shops in their desperate haste for food.
Famine laid hold of the city first, then of the Swedish, and finally of
the Imperial camp. And in the path of famine followed, as ever,
pestilence. Pestilence in July, in a mediæval city, crowded with grim
soldiers, grown shrunken and meagre, with starving women and whitefaced
children--it would require the pen of a Flaubert or a Zola to describe.
Worse than all for Gustavus to bear, when want came to be felt in the
army, there came the relaxation of that discipline on which he had
prided himself. The citizens complained that his Swedish troops were
behaving like Austrian banditti. Sending for the chief Germans in his
service, the King rated them soundly in a famous oration. Never was his
Majesty seen before in such a rage.
"They are no Swedes who commit these crimes," he said truly enough,
"but you Germans yourselves. You princes, counts, lords, and
noblemen, are showing great disloyalty and wickedness on your own
fatherland, which you are ruining. You colonels and officers, from
the highest to the lowest, it is you who steal and rob everyone,
without making any exceptions.
"You plunder your own brothers in the faith. Had I known that you
had been a people so wanting in natural affection for your country,
I would never have saddled a horse for your sakes, much less
imperilled my life and my crown and my brave Swedes and Finns. It
is your inhumanity towards your mother-country that has tarnished
the glory of my victorious subjects. My heart is filled with gall
when I see anyone of you behaving thus villainously. For you cause
men to say openly, 'The King, our friend, does us more harm than
our enemies.' If you were real Christians you would consider what I
am doing for you, how I am spending my life in your service. I came
but to restore every man to his own, but this most accursed and
devilish robbing of yours doth much abate my purpose. I have given
up the treasures of my crown for your sake, and have not enriched
myself so much as by one pair of boots since my coming to Germany,
though I have had forty tons of gold passing through my hands.
"Enter into your hearts, and think how sad you are making me, so
that the tears stand in my eyes. You treat me ill with your evil
discipline; I do not say with your evil fighting: for in that you
have behaved like honourable gentlemen, and for that I am much
obliged to you. Take my warning to heart, and we will soon show our
enemies that we are honest men and honourable gentlemen."
Again when informed that a soldier had stolen a cow, he turned a deaf
ear to him as he pleaded for his life, for
"My son," he said, "it is better that thou shouldst expiate thy
offence by the sacrifice of life than that thy crime should draw
down the vengeance of the Almighty upon me and thy gallant
comrades; for though I consider every soldier in the light of a
child, yet I am destined to perform the duties of a judge, no less
than those of a parent."
So for two weary months plague, famine and wounds did their fell work
inside and out. The hospitals were full to overflowing. The graves could
not be dug fast enough to hold the dead. The countless victims of hunger
and pestilence lay for days in the trenches, poisoning the air. In the
streets were strewn the half-decayed bodies of men and horses, eaten of
pigs. But if the Protestants suffered so did the Imperialists. And
always Wallenstein sat implacable on the height refusing to join battle,
waiting grimly till starvation should have done its work and the sack of
Magdeburg could be repeated. For Gustavus must either attack Wallenstein
in his impregnable position or march away the city to its fate. The
arrival of reinforcements, which increased the King's army to 50,000
men, determined him to make a general assault on the Alte Veste and the
northern side of the camp. It will be clear to anyone who examines the
ground that this was an almost impossible undertaking, the forlornest of
forlorn hopes. What desperate courage could do was done. For ten hours
the Swedes stormed undaunted against fearful odds and with fearful
losses. Three times they got actual footing in the Burgstall itself;
three times they were hurled back. At last Gustavus, who had had a piece
of the sole of his right boot shot off, and had always been in the
thickest part of the fight, dragging the cannon to points of vantage and
aiming them with his own hands, was obliged to relinquish the desperate
enterprise. "We have done a stupid thing to-day," was his comment. For
the first time in his life, indeed, he was conquered, because he was not
conqueror. But Wallenstein's claws were cut: he had suffered little less
than Gustavus in the fight round the Alte Veste. Nuremberg was saved for
the present, for Wallenstein was in no condition to prosecute a siege.
After fifteen days, therefore (September 8), Gustavus, unable to stay
for lack of supplies, and failing to entice the enemy into battle on the
plain, marched away into Thuringia, and two months later, on the field
of Lutzen, he fell in the moment of victory when he had defeated his old
enemy. Before that, however, ten days after he had departed, and a week
after Wallenstein had broken up his camp, Gustavus came back to Fürth
and looked at what had been the enemy's position. It is said that he had
breakfast on the round stone table still to be found at the Alte Veste,
and known as the _Schweden Tisch_. Once more, in October, he returned,
drove the Imperial troops out of the Nuremberg territory, and took his
last farewell of the town.
The Treaty of Westphalia brought the Thirty Years War to an end in 1648,
but not before the interruption of commerce and the extraordinary
exertions she had made had reduced the resources of Nuremberg to a very
low ebb, and saddled her with a load of debt from which she never
recovered. When at last peace was announced, the festivals with which
she celebrated it reflected the last splendour of the once prosperous
city. Karl Gustav, as representative of the crown of Sweden, gave a
magnificent dinner--the "_Friedensmal_"--in the Rathaus to celebrate
this occasion. The Council ordered a Neptune with nymphs and dolphins,
designed by Christoph Ritter, and figures modelled by Georg Schweigger,
to be placed in the middle of the market-place. It was, for some reason,
placed in the Peünt-hof. It was sold in 1797 to Paul of Russia to raise
money.
Another incident which is recorded of these days of rejoicing is as
follows: When peace was proclaimed with France, Octavio Piccolomini was
staying in the Pellerhaus, and he gave a dance to the peasants. Now a
rumour was circulated that all the boys who appeared on hobby-horses
before his house on the following Sunday would get a silver coin. They
assembled accordingly, and when he heard the reason of this
extraordinary parade, he told them to come next Sunday, and then gave
them each a four-cornered medal--still to be seen in numismatic
collections--with a picture of a hobby-horse, and the date 1650 on it.
Through the peace of Westphalia Nuremberg with the other free towns
obtained full political equality with the princes of the Empire. Their
representatives, who before only had a voice in the discussions, now
enjoyed the full right of voting. But, in spite of this, the political
importance of Nuremberg began to disappear. Her sovereignty, her right
of peace and war, were recognised. But she became a quiet and obedient
attendant of the Reichstag in Regensburg, paying her quota of men and
money, and supporting the Hapsburg interests.
Her energy, in fact, had been exhausted. The census of her citizens in
1622 amounted to 40,000; in 1806 to 25,000. With the decrease in her
population, her prosperity decreased. The load of debt accumulated
during the Thirty Years War weighed her down. Her trade, like that of
Augsburg and all the other German towns, went from bad to worse.
Dislocated during the war, it could not recover now. Chief among the
causes of decay must be counted the circumnavigation of the Cape of Good
Hope. Prior to that, all merchandise from the East was obliged to travel
overland into Europe and came for distribution by way of Germany.
Nuremberg then naturally became the chief entrepôt. Now she suffered,
with Venice, from the discovery of this new channel of commerce. The
Venetians had boasted that thanks to them Nuremberg had come from
nothing to be the richest town in Germany. The Fondaco dei Tedeschi, the
German quarter in Venice since the days of the Crusades, still bears
witness to their connection with the German traders, and, in Nuremberg,
winged lions on many of the houses still record the same fact.
Other and more avoidable causes contributed to the decrease of Nuremberg
trade. She adopted an exaggerated system of protection, and levied
exorbitant taxes on goods brought into or through the country.
In the old days every good thing had been said to come out of Nuremberg
(Was gut sein sollte, wurde aus Nürnberg verschrieben); now the output
of her manufactures was foolishly limited by rules. In some trades, for
instance, only the son or the husband of a widow of a master might
become a master craftsman. Hence many failed to find employment, and set
up in the surrounding country as competitors. The selfish and misguided
prejudices of the trades led also to the exclusion of the Protestant
weavers who had been exiled from France or Flanders, and who, finding
asylum elsewhere, soon became rivals of the shortsighted Nurembergers.
The Council, too, suffered and aided the common degeneration. A narrow,
effete, and selfish oligarchy, it became more tyrannical as it became
more incompetent. The authors of libels and satires, criticising it,
were rewarded with lifelong imprisonment. More and more the patrician
families drew together and separated themselves from the common people.
They clung closer to their exclusive privileges as they became less
worthy of them. Endeavouring to become more like the landed nobility,
they began to abandon business, and withdrew from the State the capital
and brains which had formerly made it prosperous. They grew, indeed, in
their false pride, so ashamed of trade that they said that no Nuremberg
patrician had ever had to do with business! So a proud and poor nobility
came to take the place of rich and patriotic merchant princes. Some even
gave up their rights of citizenship and went to live on their property
outside Nuremberg, thus still further weakening the Council and
quarrelling with it over rights of taxation.
From war, also, Nuremberg suffered. Besides her own private bickerings
with the Markgraf, she felt the wars with France, the war of the
Austrian succession, and suffered still more in the Seven Years War.
In 1786 a fresh struggle arose between the Council and the town over a
new tax which it was sought to impose without consultation. The citizens
made a fruitless complaint to the Imperial Court. Then the Council
appealed to the Diet, saying that the town was overtaxed. An inquiry
into her finances showed that Nuremberg was heavily in debt and
practically bankrupt. There had been a large yearly deficit since 1763.
A commission to economise and to govern was appointed from both
Councils, and in 1794 an arrangement was confirmed by the Emperor by
which the larger Council was to consist of 250 members (70 of whom were
to be patricians), chosen by the smaller Council. The citizens, however,
were not contented, complaining that they were still not properly
represented.
Meanwhile an event had occurred which drove another nail into the coffin
of the free Imperial city. In 1791, Charles Alexander, Markgraf of
Brandenburg, Ansbach and Bayreuth, died childless, and the government of
his principalities passed to Prussia, together with the old claims of
the Franconian line of the Brandenburg house. A minister, Graf Karl
August von Hardenberg, the famous chancellor, was appointed to rule
these lands. In the name of the King of Prussia he asserted his right of
supremacy over all the territory up to the gates of the town itself. The
oldest claims of the _Burggräflichen_ times were reasserted by the
Prussians. Nuremberg was powerless to resist. Even so her troubles were
not yet ended. A Prussian army had occupied Fürth on July 4, 1796, and
in August a vanguard of the French victorious army, which was swarming
over South Germany, entered Nuremberg on the 9th of August. The scenes
of the Thirty Years War were repeated. The country was ravaged, and the
town called upon for contributions. It was impossible to comply at once
with these demands. Eighteen citizens were therefore taken away to
France as hostages. When, a few weeks later, the French army withdrew,
after the Archduke Karl's victory, a fresh contribution was demanded.
In despair the town almost unanimously decided to seek union with their
old enemy, the King of Prussia. But he refused this Grecian gift, for
the debt of the town was enormous. Then the Council turned to the
Emperor and offered to accept an Imperial commission, which introduced
some financial reforms. But the year 1800 brought more French troops
into Nuremberg, who were a further strain upon her resources.
Even after the Peace of Pressburg the long agony of the Imperial free
city was continued, till in 1806 by a decree of Napoleon, in the 17th
article of the Rheinbund Act, it was laid down that "the town and
territory of Nuremberg be united to Bavaria with full sovereignty and
possession." On the 6th of August 1806, Emperor Francis abdicated, and
the Holy Roman Empire, "which was a grand object once, but had gone
about in a superannuated and plainly crazy state for some centuries
back, was at last put out of pain and allowed to cease from the world."
Since then the story of Nuremberg is swallowed up in the history of
United Germany. She has shared and still shares in the growing
prosperity of the new Empire. The first railway in Germany was opened in
1835 between Nuremberg and Fürth. Her hops, her toys, her cakes, her
railway-carriages, her lead-pencils, are they not known the world over?
New buildings have sprung up on every side of her: the suburbs are
themselves great manufacturing towns. The population has grown to
170,000. These are all things on which she may most sincerely be
congratulated; but whatever her prosperity in the present or the future,
her golden age, we feel, is in the past. She is Albert Durer's and Hans
Sachs' city.
* * * * *
We began by hinting that the atmosphere of Nuremberg is mediæval, that
of a city of legend. We will close this account of her history with the
brief narration of her last, her nineteenth century myth. For we cannot
pass over in silence the curious case of Kaspar Hauser.
At a time when Europe was still dripping from the douche of
sentimentality in which it had been bathed by the sorrows of Werther and
the romanticism of Byron, Kaspar Hauser appeared suddenly in Nuremberg.
His astonishing story achieved a European celebrity. The history of this
impostor has recently been placed once more before the public by the
Duchess of Cleveland,[22] with the object of clearing her father from
imputations which would have been ridiculous if they had not been so
impudent. Charity, and the facts of the case, enable us to add with
regard to Kaspar himself, that if he was an impostor he was also half a
lunatic; for we can trace in the records of his career, among other
symptoms of a diseased brain, the mania of persecution, an over acute
and perverted sense of smell, a restless love of notoriety, and an
ineradicable habit of lying.
On Easter Monday, May 1828, a lad of seventeen, dressed like a
countryman, appeared outside the Neue Thor, and asked, in the low
Bavarian dialect, his way to the Neue Thor Strasse.
He had with him two letters in one envelope addressed to "The Captain of
the 4th Squadron of the Schmolischer Regiment, Neue Thor Strasse,
Nuremberg." They ran as follows, in handwriting exactly similar to
Kaspar's:--
"HONORED SIR,--I send you a lad who wishes to serve his King truly; this
lad was brought to me on Oct. 7, 1812. I am a poor day labourer, with
ten children of my own; I have enough to do to get on at all. His
mother asked me to bring up the boy. I asked her no questions, nor have
I given notice to the county police that I had taken the boy. I thought
I ought to take him as my son. I have brought him up as a good
Christian, and since 1812 I have never let him go a step away from the
house, so no one knows where he has been brought up, and he himself does
not know the name of my house or of the place; you may ask him, but he
can't tell you. I have taught him to read and to write; he can write as
well as myself. When we ask him what he would like to be, he says a
soldier, like his father. If he had parents (which he has not) he would
have been a scholar: only show him a thing and he can do it.
"Honoured Sir, you may question him, but he don't know where I live. I
brought him away in the middle of the night; he can't find his way
back."
Dated, "From the Bavarian Frontier; place not named."
The second letter ran thus:--
"The boy is baptized, his name is Kaspar; his other name you must give
him. I ask you to bring him up. His father was a Schmolischer (trooper).
When he is seventeen send him to Nuremberg to the 6th Schmolischer
Regiment; that is where his father was. I beg you to bring him up till
he is seventeen. He was born on April 30, 1812. I am so poor, I can't
keep the boy; his father is dead."
In answer to the Captain's questions the lad would only reply: "My
foster-father bade me say, 'I don't know, your honour.'" The result was
that he was placed in a prison cell in the castle. That was neither a
fair nor a judicious proceeding. The garbled story of a wild man, a
wronged man, quickly spread through the town. Feigning at first an
intense fear and animal stupidity, it seems probable that Kaspar picked
up from the visitors who discussed his history in his presence the
suggestion of the marvellous tale which he presently told, and which
made so tremendous a sensation. It was a tale demonstrably false on the
face of it--of a life spent in close and solitary confinement in a cell,
without knowledge of his kind or acquaintance with the outside world.
Here is his story as he told it to the Nuremberg magistrates, and as it
found acceptance in credulous quarters.
"All his life," he said, "had been spent in a cell 6 or 7 feet long, 4
feet wide, and 5 feet high, and always in a sitting posture; the only
change in which was that when awake he sat upright, but leant back on a
truss of straw when he slept. There were two small windows, but they
were both boarded up, and as it was always twilight he never knew the
difference between day and night. Nor did he ever feel hot or cold. He
saw no one, and no sound of any kind ever reached his ear. Each morning,
when he awoke, he found a pitcher of water and a loaf of rye bread by
his side. He was often thirsty, and when he had emptied his pitcher, he
used to watch to see whether the water would come again, as he had no
idea how it was brought there. Sometimes it tasted strangely and made
him feel sleepy. He had toys to play with--two wooden horses and a
wooden dog, and he spent his time in rolling them about, and dressing
them up with ribbons.
"One day a stool was placed across his knees, with a piece of paper upon
it: an arm was stretched out over his shoulder, a pencil put into his
hand, which was taken hold of, and guided over the paper. 'I never
looked round to see whom the arm belonged to. Why should I? I had no
conception of any other creature beside myself.' This proceeding was
repeated seven or eight times: the arm was then withdrawn, but the
stool and paper left behind. He tried to copy the letters he had been
made to trace, and pleased with this new occupation, persevered till he
had succeeded. Thus it was that he learned to write his name. About
three days afterwards--as far as he could judge--the man came again and
brought a little book (a prayer-book which was found on him). This was
placed on his knees and his hand laid upon it; then, pointing to one of
the wooden horses, the man kept on repeating the word 'Ross' (horse)
till he had learned to say it after him. According to his own account,
this was the first time in his life he had ever heard a sound of any
kind, as the man came and went noiselessly. Then, in the same fashion,
he was taught two sentences--'In the big village, where my father is, I
shall get a fine horse.' 'I want to be a trooper as my father
was'--which he repeated by rote, of course without understanding them.
When his lesson was learnt the man went away, and he began playing with
his toys, making so much noise that the man returned and gave him a
smart blow with a stick, which hurt him very much.
"'After that I was always quiet.' The last time the man came it was to
take him away. His clothes had been changed while he slept; a pair of
boots were now brought and put on; he was hoisted up on the man's
shoulders, and carried up a steep incline into the open air. It was
night-time and quite dark. He was laid down on the ground, and fell
asleep at once. When he awoke, he was lifted upon his feet, and placed
in front of the man, who, holding him under the arms, pushed forward his
legs with his own, and showed him how to walk. But the pain and fatigue
were very great, and he cried bitterly. The man said impatiently, 'Leave
off crying at once, or you shall not get that horse;' and he thereupon
obeyed. Then he was again lifted up and carried; again dropped asleep,
and again he woke to find himself lying on the ground. This was repeated
over and over again. There were the same painful attempts to walk; the
same floods of tears, checked by the same threat; and then the same rest
on the ground, with 'something soft' under his cheek. By degrees he
began to walk alone, supported by the man's arm, though at first only
six steps at a time. The sunshine and fresh air together dazzled and
bewildered him, and he scarcely took note where they went. They never
travelled on a beaten track, but generally on soft sand; never went up
or down hill, or crossed a stream. Sometimes he attempted to look about
him; then the man instantly desired him to hold his head down. His
clothes were once more changed; but the man, even while dressing him,
stood behind him, so that he might not see his face. The two sentences
he had learned were again and again impressed on his memory as he went
along, the man always adding impressively, 'Mind this well.'
"He also said, 'When you are a trooper like your father, I will come and
fetch you again.'
"The journey cannot have been a long one, as he only took food once; he
himself computed it had lasted a day and a night.
"Finally the letter was put into his hands with the words: 'Go
there--where the letter belongs;' and the man suddenly vanished from his
side. He found himself alone in the street of Nuremberg--having never
till then perceived that he had entered the town, or, in fact, seen it
at all. He was quite dazed and helpless, but someone kindly came and
took charge of him and his letter." ...
So great was the interest caused by this story, which easily roused the
sympathy of the illogical--people are always readier to sympathise than
to inquire--that Kaspar was (July 1828) formally adopted by the town of
Nuremberg. An annual sum of 300 florins was voted for his maintenance
and education. He became the idol of society. It was openly hinted that
he was the legitimate son of the reigning House of Baden, who stood in
the way of the next in succession, and would have been long since in his
grave had he not been rescued by a faithful retainer, who kept him in
close confinement to conceal him from his pursuers. In the course of a
year or so, however, the interest in him began to wane. His tutor, who
had at first been delighted with him, was beginning to find him out.
Kaspar, in fact, was both cunning and untruthful. One day a particularly
gross instance of his deceitfulness came to his tutor's knowledge. The
same morning Nuremberg was electrified by the news that Kaspar's life
had been attempted in broad daylight, and actually under his tutor's
roof. A man, he said, with a black handkerchief drawn across his face,
had suddenly confronted him, and aimed at him a blow with a heavy
woodman's knife, crying, "After all, you will have to die before you
leave Nuremberg." The voice was the voice of the man who had brought him
to the town. He described him accurately. But no such man could be
traced.
The wound was very slight. Almost certainly it was self-inflicted, with
the object of stimulating the flagging public interest by a new and
romantic incident. That at any rate was its effect. Pamphlets by the
dozen appeared, and in 1832 President von Feuerbach published his
"History of a Crime against a Human Soul," which moved all hearts by the
pathos and eloquence with which it pleaded the cause of the
mysteriously persecuted "Child of Europe."
But the Nurembergers were no longer eager to continue their allowance to
the boy, so Lord Stanhope, who had always befriended him, now came
forward, and made himself responsible for his education and maintenance.
The rest of Kaspar's life is somewhat dismal reading. He had to endure
the process of being found out by successive people at successive
places, for he had all the astuteness but also all the vanity of a
lunatic. Once again, it appears, he attempted to reawaken the flagging
interest of the public. At Ansbach he tried to repeat his Nuremberg
success, and to confirm the existence of the mysterious persecutor who
was supposed to haunt him. But this time he failed. Once more he got
stabbed, but instead of a slight, he inflicted on himself a deadly
wound. Now though he had taken much trouble to make the conditions of
the affair as mysterious and misleading as possible, a long judicial
investigation resulted in the irresistible conclusion that "no murder
was committed." At Ansbach stands the tomb of the poor deluded and
deluding "Child of Europe," a monument of folly not all his own.
"Hic jacet
CASPARUS HAUSER
Ænigma sui temporis
Ignota Nativitas
Occulta Mors,
1833."