FREAKS OF FANATICISM
AND
OTHER STRANGE EVENTS
FREAKS OF FANATICISM
AND
OTHER STRANGE EVENTS
BY
S. BARING-GOULD, M.A.
AUTHOR OF "MEHALAH," "OLD COUNTRY LIFE," "HISTORIC ODDITIES,"
"SONGS OF THE WEST," ETC.
Methuen & Co.
18, BURY STREET, LONDON, W.C.
1891
PREFACE.
This Volume, that originally appeared as a Second Series to
"Historic Oddities and Strange Events," is now issued under a new
title which describes the peculiar nature of the majority of its
contents. Several of the articles are concerned with the history of
mysticism, a phase of human nature that deserves careful and close
study. Mysticism is the outbreak in man of a spiritual element
which cannot be ignored, cannot be wholly suppressed, and is man's
noblest element when rightly directed and balanced. It is capable
of regulation, but unregulated, it may become even a mischievous
faculty.
When the Jews are being expelled from Russia, and are regarded with
bitter hostility in other parts of Eastern Europe, the article on
the accusations brought against them may prove not uninstructive
reading.
There is political as well as religious and racial fanaticism, and
the story of the "Poisoned Parsnips" illustrates the readiness
with which false accusations against political enemies are made
and accepted without examination. "Jean Aymon" exhibits the same
unscrupulousness where religious passions are concerned. The curious
episode to "The Northern Raphael" shows the craving after notoriety
that characterises so much of sentimental, hysterical piety.
S. BARING GOULD.
LEW TRENCHARD, DEVON,
_September 1st, 1891_.
CONTENTS.
PAGE
A SWISS PASSION PLAY 1
A NORTHERN RAPHAEL 39
THE POISONED PARSNIPS 67
THE MURDER OF FATHER THOMAS IN DAMASCUS 86
SOME ACCUSATIONS AGAINST JEWS 107
THE COBURG MAUSOLEUM 120
JEAN AYMON 129
THE PATARINES OF MILAN 146
THE ANABAPTISTS OF MÜNSTER 195
FREAKS OF FANATICISM.
A Swiss Passion Play.
We are a little surprised, and perhaps a little shocked, at the
illiberality of the Swiss Government, in even such Protestant
cantons as Geneva, Zürich, and Berne, in forbidding the performances
on their ground of the "Salvation Army," and think that such
conduct is not in accordance with Protestant liberty of judgment
and democratic independence. But the experiences gone through in
Switzerland as in Germany of the confusion and mischief sometimes
wrought by fanaticism, we will not say justify, but in a measure
explain, the objection the Government has to a recrudescence of
religious mysticism in its more flagrant forms. The following story
exemplifies the extravagance to which such spiritual exaltation runs
occasionally--fortunately only occasionally.
About eight miles from Schaffhausen, a little way on one side of
the road to Winterthür, in a valley, lies the insignificant hamlet
of Wildisbuch, its meadows overshadowed by leafy walnut trees. The
hamlet is in the parish of Trüllikon. Here, at the beginning of this
century, in a farmhouse, standing by itself, lived John Peter, a
widower, with several of his children. He had but one son, Caspar,
married in 1812, and divorced from his wife; he was, however,
blessed with five daughters--Barbara, married to a blacksmith in
Trüllikon; Susanna, Elizabeth, Magdalena married to John Moser, a
shoemaker; and Margaretta, born in 1794, his youngest, and favourite
child. Not long after the birth of Margaretta, her mother died,
and thenceforth the child was the object of the tenderest and most
devoted solicitude to her sisters and to her father. Margaretta grew
up to be a remarkable child. At school she distinguished herself by
her aptitude in learning, and in church by the devotion with which
she followed the tedious Zwinglian service. The pastor who prepared
her for confirmation was struck by her enthusiasm and eagerness to
know about religion. She was clearly an imaginative person, and to
one constituted as she was, the barnlike church, destitute of every
element of beauty, studiously made as hideous as a perverse fancy
could scheme, and the sacred functions reduced to utter dreariness,
with every element of devotion bled out of them, were incapable of
satisfying the internal spiritual fire that consumed her.
There is in every human soul a divine aspiration, a tension after
the invisible and spiritual, in some more developed than in others,
in certain souls existing only in that rudimentary condition in
which, it is said, feet are found in the eel, and eyes in the
oyster, but in others it is a predominating faculty, a veritable
passion. Unless this faculty be given legitimate scope, be
disciplined and guided, it breaks forth in abnormal and unhealthy
manifestations. We know what is the result when the regular action
of the pores of the skin is prevented, or the circulation of the
blood is impeded. Fever and hallucination ensue. So is it with the
spiritual life in man. If that be not given free passage for healthy
discharge of its activity, it will resolve itself into fanaticism,
that is to say it will assume a diseased form of manifestation.
Margaretta was far ahead of her father, brother and sisters in
intellectual culture, and in moral force of character. Susanna,
the second daughter of John Peter, was an amiable, industrious,
young woman, without independence of character. The third daughter,
Elizabeth, was a quiet girl, rather dull in brain; Barbara was
married when Margaretta was only nine, and Magdalena not long after;
neither of them, however, escaped the influence of their youngest
sister, who dominated over their wills almost as completely as she
did over those of her two unmarried sisters, with whom she consorted
daily.
How great her power over her sisters was may be judged from what
they declared in after years in prison, and from what they endured
for her sake.
Barbara, the eldest, professed to the prison chaplain in Zürich, in
1823, "I am satisfied that God worked in mighty power, and in grace
through Margaret, up to the hour of her death." The father himself
declared after the ruin of his family and the death of two of his
daughters, "I am assured that my youngest daughter was set apart by
God for some extraordinary purpose."
When Margaret was six, she was able to read her Bible, and would
summon the family about her to listen to her lectures out of the
sacred volume. She would also at the same time pray with great
ardour, and exhort her father and sisters to lead God-fearing
lives. When she read the narrative of the Passion, she was unable
to refrain from tears; her emotion communicated itself to all
assembled round her, and the whole family sobbed and prayed aloud.
She was a veritable "ministering child" to her household in all
things spiritual. As she had been born at Christmas, it was thought
that this very fact indicated some special privilege and grace
accorded to her. In 1811, when aged seventeen, she received her
first communion and edified all the church with the unction and
exaltation of soul with which she presented herself at the table.
In after years the pastor of Trüllikon said of her, "Unquestionably
Margaretta was the cleverest of the family. She often came to thank
me for the instructions I had given her in spiritual things. Her
promises to observe all I had taught her were most fervent. I had
the best hopes for her, although I observed somewhat of extravagance
in her. Margaretta speedily obtained an absolute supremacy in her
father's house. All must do what she ordered. Her will expressed by
word of mouth, or by letter when absent, was obeyed as the will of
God."
In personal appearance Margaretta was engaging. She was finely
moulded, had a well-proportioned body, a long neck on which her head
was held very upright; large, grey-blue eyes, fair hair, a lofty,
well-arched brow. The nose was well-shaped, but the chin and mouth
were somewhat coarse.
In 1816, her mother's brother, a small farmer at Rudolfingen,
invited her to come and manage his house for him. She went, and was
of the utmost assistance. Everything prospered under her hand. Her
uncle thought that she had brought the blessing of the Almighty on
both his house and his land.
Whilst at Rudolfingen, the holy maiden was brought in contact with
the Pietists of Schaffhausen. She attended their prayer-meetings and
expositions of Scripture. This deepened her religious convictions,
and produced a depression in her manner that struck her sisters
when she visited them. In answer to their inquiries why she was
reserved and melancholy, she replied that God was revealing Himself
to her more and more every day, so that she became daily more
conscious of her own sinfulness. If this had really been the case
it would have saved her from what ensued, but this sense of her own
sinfulness was a mere phrase, that meant actually an overweening
self-consciousness. She endured only about a twelve month of the
pietistic exercises at Schaffhausen, and then felt a call to preach,
testify and prophesy herself, instead of sitting at the feet of
others. Accordingly, she threw up her place with her uncle, and
returned to Wildisbuch, in March, 1817, when she began operations as
a revivalist.
The paternal household was now somewhat enlarged. The old farmer had
taken on a hand to help him in field and stable, called Heinrich
Ernst, and a young woman as maid called Margaret Jäggli. Ernst was a
faithful, amiable young fellow whom old Peters thoroughly trusted,
and he became devoted heart and soul to the family. Margaret
Jäggli was a person of very indifferent character, who, for her
immoralities, had been turned out of her native village. She was
subject to epileptic fits, which she supposed were possession by the
devil, and she came to the farm of the Peter's family in hopes of
being there cured by the prayers of the saintly Margaretta.
Another inmate of the house was Ursula Kündig, who entered it at the
age of nineteen, and lived there as a veritable maid-of-all-work,
though paid no wages. This damsel was of the sweetest, gentlest
disposition. Her parish pastor gave testimony to her, "She was
always so good that even scandal-mongers were unable to find
occasion for slander in her conduct." Her countenance was full of
intelligence, purity, and had in it a nobility above her birth and
education. Her home had been unhappy; she had been engaged to be
married to a young man, but finding that he did not care for her,
and sought only her small property, she broke off the engagement,
to her father's great annoyance. It was owing to a quarrel at home
relative to this, that she went to Wildisbuch to entreat Margaretta
Peter to be "her spiritual guide through life into eternity."
Ursula had at first only paid occasional visits to Wildisbuch, but
gradually these visits became long, and finally she took up her
residence in the house. The soul of the unhappy girl was as wax in
the hands of the saint, whom she venerated with intensest admiration
as the Elect of the Lord; and she professed her unshaken conviction
"that Christ revealed Himself in the flesh through her, and that
through her many thousands of souls were saved." The house at
Wildisbuch became thenceforth a great gathering place for all the
spiritually-minded in the neighbourhood, who desired instruction,
guidance, enlightenment, and Margaretta, the high priestess of
mysticism to all such as could find no satisfaction for the deepest
hunger of their souls in the Zwinglian services of their parish
church.
Man is composed of two parts; he has a spiritual nature which he
shares with the angels, and an animal nature that he possesses in
common with the beasts. There is in him, consequently, a double
tendency, one to the indefinite, unconfined, spiritual; the other
to the limited, sensible and material. The religious history of
all times shows us this higher nature striving after emancipation
from the law of the body, and never succeeding in accomplishing
the escape, always falling back, like Dædalus, into destruction,
when attempting to defy the laws of nature and soar too near to
the ineffable light. The mysticism of the old heathen world, the
mysticism of the Gnostic sects, the mysticism of mediæval heretics,
almost invariably resolved itself into orgies of licentiousness. God
has bound soul and body together, and an attempt to dissociate them
in religion is fatally doomed to ruin.
The incarnation of the Son of God was the indissoluble union of
Spirit with form as the basis of true religion. Thenceforth, Spirit
was no more to be dissociated from matter, authority from a visible
Church, grace from a sacramental sign, morality from a fixed law.
All the great revolts against Catholicism in the middle-ages, were
more or less revolts against this principle and were reversions to
pure spiritualism. The Reformation was taken advantage of for the
mystic aspirations of men to run riot. Individual emotion became
the supreme and sole criticism of right and wrong, of truth and
falsehood, and sole authority to which submission must be tendered.
In the autumn of 1817, Margaretta of Wildisbuch met a woman who
was also remarkable in her way, and the head of another revivalist
movement. This was Julianne von Krüdner; about whom a word must now
be said.
Julianne was born in 1766, at Riga, the daughter of a noble and
wealthy family. Her father visited Paris and took the child with
him, where she made the acquaintance of the rationalistic and
speculative spirits of French society, before the Revolution.
In a Voltairean atmosphere, the little Julianne grew up without
religious faith or moral principle. At the age of fourteen she was
married to a man much older than herself, the Baron von Krüdner,
Russian Ambassador at Venice. There her notorious immoralities
resulted in a separation, and Julianne was obliged to return to her
father's house at Riga. This did not satisfy her love of pleasure
and vanity, and she went to St. Petersburg and then to Paris,
where she threw herself into every sort of dissipation. She wrote
a novel, "Valérie," in which she frankly admitted that woman, when
young, must give herself up to pleasure, then take up with art, and
finally, when nothing else was left her, devote herself to religion.
At the age of forty she had already entered on this final phase.
She went to Berlin, was admitted to companionship with the Queen,
Louise, and endeavoured to "convert" her. The sweet, holy queen
required no conversion, and the Baroness von Krüdner was obliged to
leave Berlin. She wandered thenceforth from place to place, was now
in Paris, then in Geneva, and then in Germany. At Karlsruhe she met
Jung-Stilling; and thenceforth threw herself heart and soul into the
pietistic revival. Her mission now was--so she conceived--to preach
the Gospel to the poor. In 1814 she obtained access to the Russian
Court, where her prophecies and exhortations produced such an effect
on the spirit of the Czar, Alexander I., that he entreated her to
accompany him to Paris. She did so, and held spiritual conferences
and prayer meetings in the French capital. Alexander soon tired of
her, and she departed to Basel, where she won to her the Genevan
Pastor Empeytaz and the Basel Professor Lachenal. Her meetings for
revival, which were largely attended, caused general excitement,
but led to many domestic quarrels, so that the city council gave
her notice to leave the town. She then made a pilgrimage along the
Rhine, but her proceedings were everywhere objected to by the police
and town authorities, and she was sent back under police supervision
first to Leipzig, and thence into Russia.
Thence in 1824 she departed for the Crimea, where she had resolved
to start a colony on the plan of the Moravian settlements, and there
died before accomplishing her intention.
It was in 1817, when she was conducting her apostolic progress along
the Rhine, that she and Margaretta of Wildisbuch met. Apparently the
latter made a deeper impression on the excitable baroness than had
the holy Julianne on Margaretta. The two aruspices did not laugh
when they met, for they were both in deadly earnest, and had not
the smallest suspicion that they were deluding themselves first, and
then others.
The meeting with the Krüdner had a double effect. In the first
place, the holy Julianne, when forced to leave the neighbourhood
by the unregenerate police, commended her disciples to the blessed
Margaret; and, in the second place, the latter had the shrewdness
to perceive, that, if she was to play anything like the part of
her fellow-apostle, she must acquire a little more education.
Consequently Margaret took pains to write grammatically, and to
spell correctly.
The result of the commendation by Saint Julianne of her disciples
to Margaret was that thenceforth a regular pilgrimage set in to
Wildisbuch of devout persons in landaus and buggies, on horse and on
foot.
Some additional actors in the drama must now be introduced.
Magdalena Peter, the fourth daughter of John Peter, was married to
the cobbler, John Moser. The influence of Margaret speedily made
itself felt in their house. At first Moser's old mother lived with
the couple, along with Conrad, John Moser's younger brother. The
first token of the conversion of Moser and his wife was that they
kicked the old mother out of the house, because she was worldly and
void of "saving grace." Conrad was a plodding, hard-working lad,
very useful, and therefore not to be dispensed with. The chosen
vessels finding he did not sympathise with them, and finding him too
valuable to be done without, starved him till he yielded to their
fancies, saw visions, and professed himself "saved." Barbara, also,
married to the blacksmith Baumann, was next converted, and brought
all her spiritual artillery to bear on the blacksmith, but in vain.
He let her go her own way, but he would have nothing himself to say
to the great spiritual revival in the house of the Peters. Barbara,
not finding a kindred soul in her husband, had taken up with a man
of like soaring piety, a tailor, named Hablützel.
Another person who comes into this story is Jacob Ganz, a tailor,
who had been mixed up with the movement at Basel under Julianne the
Holy.
Margaret's brother Caspar was a man of infamous character; he was
separated from his wife, whom he had treated with brutality; had
become the father of an illegitimate child, and now loafed about the
country preaching the Gospel.
Ganz, the tailor, had thrown aside his shears, and constituted
himself a roving preacher. In one of his apostolic tours he had made
the acquaintance of Saint Margaret, and had been deeply impressed by
her. He had an elect disciple at Illnau, in the Kempthal, south of
Winterthür. This was a shoemaker named Jacob Morf, a married man,
aged thirty; small, with a head like a pumpkin. To this shoemaker
Ganz spoke with enthusiasm of the spiritual elevation of the holy
Margaret, and Morf was filled with a lively desire of seeing and
hearing her.
Margaretta seems after a while to have wearied of the monotony of
life in her father's house, or else the spirit within her drove her
abroad to carry her light into the many dark corners of her native
canton. She resolved to be like Ganz, a roving apostle. Sometimes
she started on her missionary journeys alone, sometimes along with
her sister Elizabeth, who submitted to her with blind and stanch
obedience, or else with Ursula Kündig. These journeys began in 1820,
and extended as far Zürich and along the shores of that lovely lake.
In May of the same year she visited Illnau, where she was received
with enthusiasm by the faithful, who assembled in the house of a
certain Ruegg, and there for the first time she met with Jacob Morf.
The acquaintance then begun soon quickened into friendship. When
a few weeks later he went to Schaffhausen to purchase leather, he
turned aside to Wildisbuch. After this his visits there became not
only frequent, but were protracted.
Margaret was the greatest comfort to him in his troubled state of
soul. She described to him the searchings and anxieties she had
undergone, so that he cried "for very joy that he had encountered
one who had gone through the same experience as himself."
In November, 1820, Margaret took up her abode for some time in the
house of a disciple, Caspar Notz, near Zürich, and made it the
centre whence she started on a series of missionary excursions. Here
also gathered the elect out of Zürich to hear her expound Scripture,
and pray. And hither also came the cobbler Morf seeking ease for his
troubled soul, and on occasions stayed in the house there with her
for a week at a time. At last his wife, the worthy Regula Morf, came
from Illnau to find her husband, and persuaded him to return with
her to his cobbling at home.
At the end of January in 1821, Margaret visited Illnau again, and
drew away after her the bewitched Jacob, who followed her all the
way home, to Wildisbuch, and remained at her father's house ten days
further.
On Ascension Day following, he was again with her, and then she
revealed to him that it was the will of heaven that they should
ascend together, without tasting death, into the mansions of the
blessed, and were to occupy one throne together for all eternity.
Throughout this year, when the cobbler, Jacob, was not at
Wildisbuch, or Saint Margaretta at Illnau, the pair were writing
incessantly to each other, and their correspondence is still
preserved in the archives of Zürich. Here is a specimen of the style
of the holy Margaret. "My dear child! your dear letter filled me
with joy. O, my dear child, how gladly would I tell you how it fares
with me! When we parted, I was forced to go aside where none might
see, to relieve my heart with tears. O, my heart, I cannot describe
to you the distress into which I fell. I lay as one senseless for
an hour. For anguish of heart I could not go home, such unspeakable
pains did I suffer! My former separation from you was but a shadow
of this parting. O, why are you so unutterably dear to me, &c.," and
then a flow of sickly, pious twaddle that makes the gorge rise.
Regula Morf read this letter and shook her head over it. She had
shaken her head over another letter received by her husband a month
earlier, in which the holy damsel had written: "O, how great is my
love! It is stronger than death. O, how dear are you to me. I could
hug you to my heart a thousand times." And had scribbled on the
margin, "These words are for your eye alone." However, Regula saw
them, shook her head and told her husband that the letter seemed
to her unenlightened mind to be very much like a love-letter.
"Nothing of the sort," answered the cobbler, "it speaks of spiritual
affection only."
We must now pass over a trait in the life of the holy maid which
is to the last degree unedifying, but which is merely another
exemplification of that truth which the history of mysticism
enforces in every age, that spiritual exaltation runs naturally,
inevitably, into licentiousness, unless held in the iron bands of
discipline to the moral law. A mystic is a law to himself. He bows
before no exterior authority. However much he may transgress the
code laid down by religion, he feels no compunction, no scruples,
for his heart condemns him not. It was so with the holy Margaret.
Her lapse or lapses in no way roused her to a sense of sin, but
served only to drive her further forward on the mad career of
self-righteous exaltation.
She had disappeared for many months from her father's house, along
with her sister Elizabeth. The police had inquired as to their
whereabouts of old John Peter, but he had given them no information
as to where his daughters were. He professed not to know. He was
threatened unless they were produced by a certain day that he would
be fined. The police were sent in search in every direction but the
right one.
Suddenly in the night of January 11th, 1823, the sisters
re-appeared, Margaret, white, weak, and prostrate with sickness.
A fortnight after her return, Jacob Morf was again at Wildisbuch,
as he said afterwards before court, "led thither because assured by
Margaret that they were to ascend together to heaven without dying."
From this time forward, Margaretta's conduct went into another
phase. Instead of resuming her pilgrim's staff and travelling round
the country preaching the Gospel, she remained all day in one room
with her sister Elizabeth, the shutters closed, reading the Bible,
meditating, and praying, and writing letters to her "dear child"
Jacob. The transgressions she had committed were crosses laid on her
shoulder by God. "Oh! why," she wrote in one of her epistles, "did
my Heavenly Father choose _that_ from all eternity in His providence
for me? There were thousands upon thousands of other crosses He
might have laid on me. But He elected that one which would be
heaviest for me, heavier than all the persecutions to which I am
subjected by the devil, and which all but overthrow me. From the
foundation of the world He has never so tried any of His saints as
He has us. It gives joy to all the host of heaven when we suffer to
the end." Again, "the greater the humiliation and shame we undergo,
and have to endure from our enemies here below"--consider, brought
on herself by her own scandalous conduct--"the more unspeakable our
glorification in heaven."
In the evening, Margaretta would come downstairs and receive
visitors, and preach and prophesy to them. The entire house
was given over to religious ecstasy that intensified as Easter
approached. Every now and then the saint assembled the household
and exhorted them to watch and pray, for a great trial of their
faith was at hand. Once she asked them whether they were ready to
lay down their lives for Christ. One day she said, in the spirit of
prophecy, "Behold! I see the host of Satan drawing nearer and nearer
to encompass me. He strives to overcome me. Let me alone that I may
fight him." Then she flung her arms about and struck in the air with
her open hands.
The idea grew in her that the world was in danger, that the devil
was gaining supremacy over it, and would carry all souls into
captivity once more, and that she--and almost only she--stood in his
way and was protecting the world of men against his power.
For years she had exercised her authority, that grew with every
year, over everyone in the house, and not a soul there had thought
of resisting her, of evading the commands she laid on them, of
questioning her word.
The house was closed against all but the very elect. The pastor of
the parish, as "worldly," was not suffered to cross the threshold.
At a tap, the door was opened, and those deemed worthy were
admitted, and the door hastily barred and bolted behind them.
Everything was viewed in a spiritual light. One evening Ursula
Kündig and Margaretta Jäggli were sitting spinning near the stove.
Suddenly there was a pop. A knot in the pine-logs in the stove had
exploded. But up sprang Jäggli, threw over her spinning-wheel, and
shrieked out--"Hearken! Satan is banging at the window. He wants
me. He will fetch me!" She fell convulsed on the floor, foaming
at the mouth. Margaret, the saint, was summoned. The writhing
girl shrieked out, "Pray for me! Save me! Fight for my soul!" and
Margaretta at once began her spiritual exercises to ban the evil
spirit from the afflicted and possessed servant maid. She beat with
her hands in the air, cried out, "Depart, thou murderer of souls,
accursed one, to hell-fire. Wilt thou try to rob me of my sheep that
was lost? My sheep--whom I have pledged myself to save?"
One day, the maid had a specially bad epileptic fit. Around her bed
stood old John Peter, Elizabeth and Susanna, Ursula Kündig, and John
Moser, as well as the saint. Margaret was fighting with the Evil One
with her fists and her cries, when John Moser fell into ecstasy and
saw a vision. His account shall be given in his own words: "I saw
Christ and Satan, and the latter held a book open before Christ and
bade Him see how many claims he had on the soul of Jäggli. The book
was scored diagonally with red lines on all the pages. I saw this
distinctly, and therefore concluded that the account was cancelled.
Then I saw all the saints in heaven snatch the book away, and tear
it into a thousand pieces that fell down in a rain."
But Satan was not to be defeated and driven away so easily. He
had made himself a nest, so Margaret stated, under the roof of
the house, and only a desperate effort of faith and contest with
spiritual arms could expel him. For this Armageddon she bade all
prepare. It is hardly necessary to add that it could not be fought
without the presence of the dearly beloved Jacob. She wrote to him
and invited him to come to the great and final struggle with the
devil and all his host, and the obedient cobbler girded his loins
and hastened to Wildisbuch, where he arrived on Saturday the 8th
March, 1823.
On Monday, in answer, probably, to her summons, came also John Moser
and his brother Conrad. Then also Margaret's own and only brother,
Caspar.
Before proceeding to the climax of this story we may well pause to
ask whether the heroine was in her senses or not; whether she set
the avalanche in motion that overwhelmed herself and her house,
with deliberation and consciousness as to the end to which she was
aiming. The woman was no vulgar impostor; she deceived herself to
her own destruction. In her senses, so far, she had set plainly
before her the object to which she was about to hurry her dupes, but
her reason and intelligence were smothered under her overweening
self-esteem, that had grown like a great spiritual cancer, till
it had sapped common-sense, and all natural affection, even the
very instinct of self-preservation. Before her diseased eyes, the
salvation of the whole world depended on herself. If she failed in
her struggle with the evil principle, all mankind fell under the
bondage of Satan; but she could not fail--she was all-powerful,
exalted above every chance of failure in the battle, just as she was
exalted above every lapse in virtue, do what she might, which to
the ordinary sense of mankind is immoral. Every mystic does not go
as far as Margaret Peter, happily, but all take some strides along
that road that leads to self-deification and _anomia_. In Margaret's
conduct, in preparation for the final tragedy, there was a good
deal of shrewd calculation; she led up to it by a long isolation
and envelopment of herself and her doings in mystery; and she
called her chosen disciples to witness it. Each stage in the drama
was calculated to produce a certain effect, and she measured her
influence over her creatures before she advanced another step. On
Monday all were assembled and in expectation; Armageddon was to be
fought, but when the battle would begin, and how it would be carried
through, were unknown. Tuesday arrived; some of the household went
about their daily work, the rest were gathered together in the room
where Margaret was, lost in silent prayer. Every now and then the
hush in the darkened room was broken by a wail of the saint: "I am
sore straitened! I am in anguish!--but I refresh my soul at the
prospect of the coming exaltation!" or, "My struggle with Satan is
severe. He strives to retain the souls which I will wrest from his
hold; some have been for two hundred, even three hundred years in
his power."
One can imagine the scene--the effect produced on those assembled
about the pale, striving ecstatic. All who were present afterwards
testified that on the Tuesday and the following days they hardly
left the room, hardly allowed themselves time to snatch a hasty
meal, so full of expectation were they that some great and awful
event was about to take place. The holy enthusiasm was general, and
if one or two, such as old Peter and his son, Caspar, were less
magnetised than the rest, they were far removed from the thought
of in any way contesting the will of the prophetess, or putting
the smallest impediment in the way of her accomplishing what she
desired.
When evening came, she ascended to an upper room, followed by the
whole company, and there she declared, "Lo! I see Satan and his
first-born floating in the air. They are dispersing their emissaries
to all corners of the earth to summon their armies together."
Elizabeth, somewhat tired of playing a passive part, added, "Yes--I
see them also." Then the holy maid relapsed into her mysterious
silence. After waiting another hour, all went to bed, seeing that
nothing further would happen that night. Next day, Wednesday, she
summoned the household into her bedroom; seated on her bed, she bade
them all kneel down and pray to the Lord to strengthen her hands for
the great contest. They continued striving in prayer till noon, and
then, feeling hungry, all went downstairs to get some food. When
they had stilled their appetites, Margaret was again seized by the
spirit of prophecy, and declared, "The Lord has revealed to me what
will happen in the latter days. The son of Napoleon" (that poor,
feeble mortal the Duke of Reichstadt) "will appear before the world
as anti-Christ, and will strive to bring the world over to his side.
He will undergo a great conflict; but what will be the result is
not shown me at the present moment; but I am promised a spiritual
token of this revelation." And the token followed. The dearly-loved
Jacob, John Moser, and Ursula Kündig cried out that they saw two
evil spirits, one in the form of Napoleon, pass into Margaret
Jäggli, and the other, in that of his son, enter into Elizabeth.
Whereupon Elizabeth, possessed by the spirit of that poor, little,
sickly Duke of Reichstadt, began to march about the room and assume
a haughty, military air. Thereupon the prophetess wrestled in spirit
and overcame these devils and expelled them. Thereat Elizabeth gave
up her military flourishes.
From daybreak on the following day the blessed Margaret "had
again a desperate struggle," but without the assistance of the
household, which was summoned to take their share in the battle in
the afternoon only. She bade them follow her to the upper chamber,
and a procession ascended the steep stairs, consisting of Margaret,
followed by Elizabeth and Susanna Peter, Ursula Kündig and Jäggli,
the old father and his son, Caspar, the serving-man, Heinrich Ernst,
then Jacob Morf, John Moser, and the rear was brought up by the
young Conrad. As soon as the prophetess had taken her seat on the
bed, she declared, "Last night it was revealed to me that you are
all of you to unite with me in the battle with the devil, lest he
should conquer Christ. I must strive, lest your souls and those
of so many, many others should be lost. Come, then! strive with
me; but first of all, kneel down, lay your faces in the dust and
pray." Thereupon, all prostrated themselves on the floor and prayed
in silence. Presently the prophetess exclaimed from her throne on
the bed, "The hour is come in which the conflict must take place,
so that Christ may gather together His Church, and contend with
anti-Christ. After Christ has assembled His Church, 1260 days will
elapse, and then anti-Christ will appear in human form, and with
sweet and enticing words will strive to seduce the elect; but all
true Christians will hold aloof." After a pause, she said solemnly,
"In verity, anti-Christ is already among us."
Then with a leap she was off the bed, turning her eyes about,
throwing up her hands, rushing about the room, striking the chairs
and clothes-boxes with her fists, crying, "The scoundrel, the
murderer of souls!" And, finding a hammer, she began to beat the
wall with it.
The company looked on in breathless amaze. But the epileptic Jäggli
went into convulsions, writhed on the ground, groaned, shrieked and
wrung her hands. Then the holy Margaretta cried, "I see in spirit
the old Napoleon gathering a mighty host, and marching against me.
The contest will be terrible. You must wrestle unto blood. Go! fly!
fetch me axes, clubs, whatever you can find. Bar the doors, curtain
all the windows in the house, and close every shutter."
Whilst her commands were being fulfilled in all haste, and the
required weapons were sought out, John Moser, who remained behind,
saw the room "filled with a dazzling glory, such as no tongue could
describe," and wept for joy. The excitement had already mounted to
visionary ecstasy. It was five o'clock when the weapons were brought
upstairs. The holy Margaretta was then seated on her bed, wringing
her hands, and crying to all to pray, "Help! help! all of you, that
Christ may not be overcome in me. Strike, smite, cleave--everywhere,
on all sides--the floor, the walls! It is the will of God! smite on
till I bid you stay. Smite and lose your lives if need be."
It was a wonder that lives were not lost in the extraordinary scene
that ensued; the room was full of men and women; there were ten of
them armed with hatchets, crowbars, clubs, pick-axes, raining blows
on walls and floors, on chairs, tables, cupboards and chests. This
lasted for three hours. Margaret remained on the bed, encouraging
the party to continue; when any arm flagged she singled out the
weary person, and exhorted him, as he loved his soul, to fight more
valiantly and utterly defeat and destroy the devil. "Strike him!
cut him down! the old adversary! the arch-fiend! whoso loseth his
life shall find it. Fear nothing! smite till your blood runs down
as sweat. There he is in yonder corner; now at him," and Elizabeth
served as her echo, "Smite! strike on! He is a murderer, he is the
young Napoleon, the coming anti-Christ, who entered into me and
almost destroyed me."
This lasted, as already said, for three hours. The room was full
of dust. The warriors steamed with their exertions, and the sweat
rolled off them. Never had men and women fought with greater
enthusiasm. The battle of Don Quixote against the wind-mills was
nothing to this. What blows and wounds the devil and the young
Duke of Reichstadt obtained is unrecorded, but walls and floor and
furniture in the room were wrecked; indeed pitchfork and axe had
broken down one wall of the house and exposed what went on inside to
the eyes of a gaping crowd that had assembled without, amazed at the
riot that went on in the house that was regarded as a very sanctuary
of religion.
No sooner did the saint behold the faces of the crowd outside than
she shrieked forth, "Behold them! the enemies of God! the host of
Satan, coming on! But fear them not, we shall overcome."
At last the combatants were no longer able to raise their arms or
maintain themselves on their feet. Then Margaret exclaimed, "The
victory is won! follow me!" She led them downstairs into the common
sitting-room, where close-drawn curtains and fastened shutters
excluded the rude gaze of the profane. Here a rushlight was kindled,
and by its light the battle continued with an alteration in the
tactics.
In complete indifference to the mob that surrounded the house and
clamoured at the door for admission, the saint ordered all to throw
themselves on the ground and thank heaven for the victory they had
won. Then, after a pause of more than an hour the same scene began
again, and that it could recommence is evidence how much a man can
do and endure, when possessed by a holy craze.
It was afterwards supposed that the whole pious community was drunk
with schnaps; but with injustice. Their stomachs were empty; it was
their brains that were drunk.
The holy Margaret, standing in the midst of the prostrate
worshippers, now ordered them to beat themselves with their fists
on their heads and breasts, and they obeyed. Elizabeth yelled, "O,
Margaret! Do thou strike me! Let me die for Christ."
Thereupon the holy one struck her sister repeatedly with her
fists, so that Elizabeth cried out with pain, "Bear it!" exclaimed
Margaret; "It is the wrath of God!"
The prima-donna of the whole comedy in the meanwhile looked well
about her to see that none of the actors spared themselves. When
she saw anyone slack in his self-chastisement, she called to him to
redouble his blows. As the old man did not exhibit quite sufficient
enthusiasm in self-torture, she cried, "Father, you do not beat
yourself sufficiently!" and then began to batter him with her own
fists. The ill-treated old man groaned under her blows, but she
cheered him with, "I am only driving out the old Adam, father! It
does not hurt you," and redoubled her pommelling of his head and
back. Then out went the light.
All this while the crowd listened and passed remarks outside. No
one would interfere, as it was no one's duty to interfere. Tidings
of what was going on did, however, reach the amtmann of the parish,
but he was an underling, and did not care to meddle without higher
authority, so sent word to the amtmann of the district. This latter
called to him his secretary, his constable and a policeman, and
reached the house of the Peter's family at ten o'clock. In his
report to the police at Zürich he says: "On the 13th about 10
o'clock at night I reached Wildisbuch, and then heard that the noise
in the house of the Peter's family had ceased, that all lights were
out, and that no one was stirring. I thought it advisable not to
disturb this tranquillity, so left orders that the house should
be watched," and then he went into the house of a neighbour. At
midnight, the policeman who had been left on guard came to announce
that there was a renewal of disturbance in the house of the Peters.
The amtmann went to the spot and heard muffled cries of "Save us!
have mercy on us! Strike away! he is a murderer! spare him not!"
and a trampling, and a sound of blows, "as though falling on soft
bodies." The amtmann knocked at the window and ordered those within
to admit him. As no attention was paid to his commands, he bade
the constable break open the house door. This was done, but the
sitting-room door was now found to be fast barred. The constable
then ascended to the upper room and saw in what a condition of
wreckage it was. He descended and informed the amtmann of what he
had seen. Again the window was knocked at, and orders were repeated
that the door should be opened. No notice was taken of this;
whereupon the worthy magistrate broke in a pane of glass, and thrust
a candle through the window into the room.
"I now went to the opened window, and observed four or five men
standing with their backs against the door. Another lay as dead on
the floor. At a little distance was a coil of human beings, men and
women, lying in a heap on the floor, beside them a woman on her
knees beating the rest, and crying out at every blow, 'Lord, have
mercy!' Finally, near the stove was another similar group."
The amtmann now ordered the sitting-room door to be broken open.
Conrad Moser, who had offered to open to the magistrate, was rebuked
by the saint, who cried out to him: "What, will you give admission
to the devil?"
"The men," says the magistrate in his report, "offered resistance
excited thereto by the women, who continued screaming. The holy
Margaret especially distinguished herself, and was on her knees
vigorously beating another woman who lay flat on the floor on her
face. A second group consisted of a coil of two men and two women
lying on the floor, the head of one woman on the body of a man,
and the head of a man on that of a girl. The rest staggered to
their feet one after another. I tried remonstrances, but they were
unavailing in the hubbub. Then I ordered the old Peter to be removed
from the room. Thereupon men and women flung themselves upon him,
in spite of all our assurances that no harm would be done him. With
difficulty we got him out of the room, with all the rest hanging
on him, so that he was thrown on the floor, and the rest clinging
to him tumbled over him in a heap. I repeated my remonstrance, and
insisted on silence, but without avail. When old Peter prepared to
answer, the holy Margaret stayed him with, 'Father, make no reply.
Pray!' All then recommenced the uproar. Margaret cried out: 'Let us
all die! I will die for Christ!' Others called out, 'Lord, save us!'
and others, 'Have mercy on us!'"
The amtmann gave orders that the police were to divide the party
and keep guard over some in the kitchen, and the rest in the
sitting-room, through the night, and not to allow them to speak to
each other. The latter order was, however, more than the police
could execute. In spite of all their efforts, Margaretta and the
others continued to exhort and comfort one another through the night.
Next morning each was brought before the magistrate and subjected
to examination. All were sullen, resolute, and convinced that they
were doing God's will. As the holy Margaretta was led away from
examination, she said to Ursula and the servant Heinrich, "The world
opposes, but can not frustrate my work."
Her words came true, the world was too slow in its movements. The
amtmann did not send in his report to the authorities of Zürich till
the 16th, whereupon it was taken into consideration, and orders were
transmitted to him that Margaret and Elizabeth were to be sent to an
asylum. It was then too late.
After the investigation, the amtmann required the cobbler, John
Morf, to march home to Illnau, John and Conrad Moser to return to
their home, and Ursula Kündig to be sent back to her father. This
command was not properly executed. Ursula remained, and though
John Moser obeyed, he was prepared to return to the holy Margaret
directly he was summoned.
As soon as the high priestess had come out of the room where she had
been examined by the amtmann, she went to her own bed-chamber, where
boards had been laid over the gaps between the rafters broken by the
axes and picks, during the night. Elizabeth, Susanna, Ursula, and
the maid sat or stood round her and prayed.
At eight o'clock, the father and his son, Caspar, rejoined her, also
her eldest sister, Barbara, arrived from Trüllikon. The servant,
Heinrich, formed one more in the re-assembled community, and the
ensuing night was passed in prayer and spiritual exercises. These
were not conducted in quiet. To the exhortations of Margaret,
both Elizabeth and the housemaid entreated that the devil might be
beaten out of them. But now Ursula interfered, as the poor girl
Elizabeth had been badly bruised in her bosom by the blows she had
received on the preceding night. When the Saturday morning dawned,
Margaret stood up on her bed and said, "I see the many souls seeking
salvation through me. They must be assisted; would that a sword were
in my hand that I might fight for them." A little later she said,
with a sigh of relief, "The Lamb has conquered. Go to your work."
Tranquillity lasted for but a few hours. Magdalena, Moser's wife,
had arrived, together with her husband and Conrad. The only one
missing was the dearly beloved Jacob, who was far on his way
homeward to Illnau and his hardly used wife, Regula.
At ten o'clock, the old father, his five daughters, his son, the two
brothers, John and Conrad Moser, Ursula Kündig, the maid Jäggli, and
the man Heinrich Ernst, twelve in all, were assembled in the upper
room.
Margaret and Elizabeth sat side by side on the bed, the latter
half stupified, looking fixedly before her, Margaret, however, in
a condition of violent nervous surrexitation. Many of the weapons
used in wrecking the furniture lay about; among these were the
large hammer, and an iron wedge used for splitting wood. All there
assembled felt that something extraordinary was about to happen.
They had everyone passed the line that divides healthy common-sense
from mania.
Margaretta now solemnly announced, "I have given a pledge for many
souls that Satan may not have them. Among these is the soul of my
brother Caspar. But I cannot conquer in the strife for him without
the shedding of blood." Thereupon she bade all present recommence
beating themselves with their fists, so as to expel the devil, and
they executed her orders with wildest fanaticism.