The holy maid now laid hold of the iron wedge, drew her brother Caspar to her, and said, "Behold, the Evil One is striving to possess thy soul!" and thereupon she began to strike him on head and breast with the wedge. Caspar staggered back; she pursued him, striking him and cutting his head open, so that he was covered with blood. As he afterwards declared, he had not the smallest thought of resistance; the power to oppose her seemed to be taken from him. At length, half stunned, he fell to the ground, and was carried to his bed by his father and the maid Jäggli. The old man no more returned upstairs, consequently he was not present at the terrible scene that ensued. But he took no steps to prevent it. Not only so, but he warded off all interruption from without. Whilst he was below, someone knocked at the door. At that moment Susanna was in the room with him, and he bade her inquire who was without. The man gave his name as Elias Vogal, a mason, and asked leave to come in. Old Peter refused, as he said the surgeon was within. Elias endeavoured to push his way in but was resisted, and the door barred against him. Vogel went away, and meeting a policeman told him what had taken place, and added that he had noticed blood-stains on the sleeves of both old Peter and Susanna. The policeman, thinking that Peter's lie was truth, and that the surgeon was really in the house, and had been bleeding the half-crazy people there, took no further notice of what he had heard, and went his way.
Meanwhile, in the upper room the comedy had been changed into a ghastly tragedy. As soon as the wounded Caspar had been removed, the three sisters, Barbara, Magdalena, and Susanna left the room, the two latter, however, only for a short while. Then the holy Margaret said to those who remained with her, "To-day is a day of great events. The contest has been long and must now be decided. Blood must flow. I see the spirit of my mother calling to me to offer up my life." After a pause she said, "And you all are you ready to give your lives?" They all responded eagerly that they were. Then said Margaret, "No, no; I see you will not readily die. But I I must die."
Thereupon Elizabeth exclaimed, "I will gladly die for the saving of the souls of my brother and father. Strike me dead, strike me dead!" Then she threw herself on the bed and began to batter her head with a wooden mallet.
"It has been revealed to me," said Margaret, "that Elizabeth will sacrifice herself." Then taking up the iron hammer, she struck her sister on the head. At once a spiritual fury seized on all the elect souls, and seizing weapons they began to beat the poor girl to death. Margaret in her mania struck at random about her, and wounded both John Moser and Ursula Kündig. Then she suddenly caught the latter by the wrist and bade her kill Elizabeth with the iron wedge. Ursula shrank back, "I cannot! I love her too dearly!" "You must," screamed the saint; "it is ordained." "I am ready to die" moaned Elizabeth. "I cannot! I cannot!" cried Ursula. "You must," shouted Margaret. "I will raise my sister again, and I also will rise again after three days. May God strengthen your arm."
As though a demoniacal influence flowed out of the holy maid, and maddened those about her, all were again seized with frenzy. John Moser snatched the hammer out of her hand, and smote the prostrate girl with it again, and yet again, on head and bosom and shoulders. Susanna brought down a crow-bar across her body, the servant-man Heinrich belaboured her with a fragment of the floor planking, and Ursula, swept away by the current, beat in her skull with the wedge. Throughout the turmoil, the holy maid yelled: "God strengthen your arms! Ursula, strike home! Die for Christ, Elizabeth!" The last words heard from the martyred girl were an exclamation of resignation to the will of God, as expressed by her sister.
One would have supposed that when the life was thus battered out of the unfortunate victim, the murderers would have come to their senses and been filled with terror and remorse. But it was not so. Margaret sat beside the body of her murdered sister, the blaze of spiritual ecstasy in her eyes, the blood-stained hammer in her right hand, terrible in her inflexible determination, and in the demoniacal energy which was to possess her to the last breath she drew. Her bosom heaved, her body quivered, but her voice was firm and her tone authoritative, as she said, "More blood must flow. I have pledged myself for the saving of many souls. I must die now. You must crucify me." John Moser and Ursula, shivering with horror, entreated, "O do not demand that of us." She replied, "It is better that I should die than that thousands of souls should perish."
So saying she struck herself with the hammer on the left temple. Then she held out the weapon to John Moser, and ordered him and Ursula to batter her with it. Both hesitated for a moment.
"What!" cried Margaret turning to her favourite disciple, "will you not do this? Strike and may God brace your arm!" Moser and Ursula now struck her with the hammer, but not so as to stun her.
"And now," said she with raised voice, "crucify me! You, Ursula, must do the deed."
"I cannot! I cannot!" sobbed the wretched girl.
"What! will you withdraw your hand from the work of God, now the hour approaches? You will be responsible for all the souls that will be lost, unless you fulfil what I have appointed you to do."
"But O! not I !" pleaded Ursula.
"Yes you. If the police authorities had executed me, it would not have fallen to you to do this, but now it is for you to accomplish the work. Go, Susan, and fetch nails, and the rest of you make ready the cross."
In the meantime, Heinrich, the man-servant, frightened at what had taken place, and not wishing to have anything more to do with the horrible scene in the upper chamber, had gone quietly down into the wood-house, and was making stakes for the vines. There Susanna found him, and asked him for nails, telling him for what they were designed. He composedly picked her out nails of suitable length, and then resumed his work of making vine stakes. Susanna re-ascended to the upper room, and found Margaret extended on the bed beside the body of Elizabeth, with the arms, breast, and feet resting on blocks of wood, arranged, whilst Susanna was absent, by John Moser and Ursula, under her in the fashion of a cross.
Then began the horrible act of crucifixion, which is only conceivable as an outburst of religious mania, depriving all who took part in it of every feeling of humanity, and degrading them to the level of beasts of prey. At the subsequent trial, both Ursula and John Moser described their condition as one of spiritual intoxication.
The hands and feet of the victim were nailed to the blocks of wood. Then Ursula's head swam, and she drew back. Again Margaret called her to continue her horrible work. "Go on! go on! God strengthen your arm. I will raise Elizabeth from the dead, and rise myself in three days." Nails were driven through both elbows and also through the breasts of Margaret; not for one moment did the victim express pain, nor did her courage fail her. No Indian at the stake endured the cruel ingenuity of his tormentors with more stoicism than did this young woman bear the martyrdom she had invoked for herself. She impressed her murderers with the idea that she was endowed with supernatural strength. It could not be otherwise, for what she endured was beyond the measure of human strength. That in the place of human endurance she was possessed with the Berserker strength of the furor religiosus, was what these ignorant peasants could not possibly know. Conrad Moser could barely support himself from fainting, sick and horror-struck at the scene. He exclaimed, "Is not this enough?" His brother, John, standing at the foot of the bed, looked into space with glassy eyes. Ursula, bathed in tears, was bowed over the victim. Magdalena Moser had taken no active part in the crucifixion; she remained the whole time, weeping, leaning against a chest.
The dying woman smiled. "I feel no pain. Be yourselves strong," she whispered. "Now, drive a nail or a knife through my heart."
Ursula endeavoured to do as bidden, but her hand shook and the knife was bent. "Beat in my skull!" this was the last word spoken by Margaret. In their madness Conrad Moser and Ursula Kündig obeyed, one with the crowbar, the other with the hammer.
It was noon when the sacrifice was accomplished dinner-time. Accordingly, all descended to the sitting-room, where the meal that Margaret Jäggli had been in the meantime preparing was served and eaten.
They had scarce finished before a policeman entered with a paper for old Peter to sign, in which he made himself answerable to produce his daughters before the magistrates when and where required. He signed it with composure, "I declare that I will cause my daughters, if in good health, to appear before the Upper Amtsmann in Andelfingen when so required." Then the policeman departed without a suspicion that the two girls were lying dead in the room above. On Sunday the 16th, the servant Heinrich was sent on horseback to Illnau to summon Jacob Morf to come to Wildisbuch and witness a great miracle. Jacob came there with Heinrich, but was not told the circumstances of the crucifixion till he reached the house. When he heard what had happened, he was frightened almost out of his few wits, and when taken upstairs to see the bodies, he fainted away. Nothing no representations would induce him to remain for the miraculous resurrection, and he hastened back to Illnau, where he took to his bed. In his alarm and horror he sent for the pastor, and told him what he had seen.
But the rest of the holy community remained stead-fast in their faith. On the night of Sunday before Monday morning broke, Ursula Kündig and the servant man Heinrich went upstairs with pincers and drew out the nails that transfixed Margaretta. When asked their reason for so doing, at the subsequent trial, they said that they supposed this would facilitate Margaretta's resurrection. Sanctus furor had made way for sancta simplicitas.
The night of Monday to Tuesday was spent in prayer and Scripture-reading in the upper chamber, and eager expectation of the promised miracle, which never took place. The catastrophe could no longer be concealed. Something must be done. On Tuesday, old John Peter pulled on his jacket and walked to Trüllikon to inform the pastor that his daughter Elizabeth had died on the Saturday at 10 a.m., and his daughter Margaretta at noon of the same day.
We need say little more. On Dec. 3rd, 1823, the trial of all incriminated in this frightful tragedy took place at Zürich and sentence was pronounced on the following day. Ursula Kündig was sentenced to sixteen years' imprisonment, Conrad Moser and John Peter to eight years, Susanna Peter and John Moser to six years, Heinrich Ernst to four years, Jacob Morf to three, Margaret Jäggli to two years, Barbara Baumann and Casper Peter to one year, and Magdalena Moser to six months with hard labour. The house at Wildisbuch was ordered to be levelled with the dust, the plough drawn over the foundation, and that no house should again be erected on the spot.
Before the destruction, however, a pilgrimage of Pietists and believers in Margaret Peter had visited the scene of her death, and many had been the exclamations of admiration at her conduct. "Oh, that it had been I who had died!" "Oh, how many souls must she have delivered!" and the like. Magna est stultitia et prævalebit.
At a time like the present, when there is a wave of warm, mystic fever sweeping over the country, and carrying away with it thousands of ignorant and impetuous souls, it is well that the story repulsive though it be should be brought into notice, as a warning of what this spiritual excitement may lead to not, indeed, again, maybe, into bloodshed. It is far more likely to lead to, as it has persistently, in every similar outbreak, into moral disorders, the record of which, in the case of Margaretta Peter, we have passed over almost without a word.
Authority: Die Gekreuzigte von Wildisbuch, von J. Scherr, 2nd Edit., St. Gall. 1867. Scherr visited the spot, collected information from eye-witnesses, and made copious extracts from the records of the trial in the Zürich archives, where they are contained in Vol. 166, folio 1044, under the heading: "Akten betreffened die Gräuel Scenen in Wildisbuch."
A Northern Raphael
Here and there in the galleries of North Germany and Russia may be seen paintings of delicacy and purity, delicacy of colour and purity of design, the author of which was Gerhard von Kügelgen. The majority of his paintings are in private hands; but an Apollo, holding the dying Hyacinthus in his arms, is in the possession of the German Emperor; Moses on Horeb is in the gallery of the Academy of Fine Arts at Dresden; a St. Cæcilia and an Adonis, painted in 1794 and 1795, were purchased by the Earl of Bristol; a Holy Family is in the Gallery at Cassel; and some of the sacred subjects have found their way into churches.
In 1772, the wife of Franz Kügelgen, a merchant of Bacharach on the Rhine, presented her husband with twin sons, the elder of whom by fifteen minutes is the subject of this notice. His brother was named Karl. Their resemblance was so great that even their mother found a difficulty in their early childhood in distinguishing one from the other.
Bacharach was in the Electorate of Cologne, and when the Archbishop-Elector, Maximilian Franz, learned that the twins were fond of art, in 1791 he very liberally gave them a handsome sum of money to enable them to visit Rome and there prosecute their studies.
Gerhard was at once fascinated by the statuary in the Vatican, and by the pictures of Raphael. The ambition of his life thenceforward was to combine the beauty of modelling of the human form that he saw in the Græco-Roman statues with the beauty of colour that he recognised in Raphael's canvases. Karl, on the other hand, devoted himself to landscapes.
In 1795 the brothers separated, Gerhard that he might visit Munich. Thence, in the autumn, he went to Riga with a friend, and there he remained rather over two years, and painted and disposed of some fifty-four pictures. Then he painted in St. Petersburg and Revel, and finally settled into married life and regular work at Dresden in 1806. There he became a general favourite, not only on account of his artistic genius, but also because of the fascination of his modest and genial manner. He was honoured by the Court, and respected by everyone for his virtues. Orders flowed in on him, and his paintings commanded good prices. The king of Saxony ennobled him, that is to say, raised him out of the bürger-stand, by giving him the privilege of writing a Von before his patronymic.
Having received an order from Riga for a large altar picture, he bought a vineyard on the banks of the Elbe, commanding a charming prospect of the river and the distant blue Bohemian mountains. Here he resolved to erect a country house for the summer, with a large studio lighted from the north. The construction of this residence was to him a great pleasure and occupation. In November, 1819, he wrote to his brother, "My house shall be to us a veritable fairy palace, in which to dwell till the time comes, when through a little, narrow and dark door we pass through into that great habitation of the Heavenly Father in which are many mansions, and where our whole family will be re-united. Should it please God to call me away, then Lily (his wife) will find this an agreeable dower-house, in which she can supervise the education of the children, as the distance from the town is only an hour's walk."