Originally published in Howitt's Journal (William Lovett) vol.1 #19 (08 May 1847).
Such is the startling title of a little book, professing to be published at Paris, but supposed to be printed in Switzerland, and to this hour most rigorously proscribed in Baden. Thereby hangs a tale, and a most strange tale, yet little known, and never published in England.
Our readers will well recollect the Life of Caspar Hauser, published in London by Simpkin and Marshall in 1833. It was a translation of the account drawn up from legal documents by Anselm von Feuerbach, the criminal judge, and one of the very commissioners appointed in Bavaria to inquire into the facts connected with the life, the discovery, and the murder of Hauser. There was also a little book published about him by the Earl Stanhope, who patronized and adopted Hauser while alive, but after his death, having been on a visit to the court of Baden, professed to have discovered that Hauser was an impostor. So far, however, from Hauser having been discovered to be an impostor, all the circumstances of his life are utterly opposed to such a possibility; and the circumstances of both his life and death, the more they are reflected upon by the German public, the more firmly do they fix themselves in its mind, as connected with some great state mystery and crime. The very fact, that this youth was for seventeen years shut up in a hidden cell; that he was tended by a man in disguise; that when he was supposed to have lost all recollection of his origin, and all power of communicating aught respecting his life except one long and great blank, he was sent out into the world, with a letter in his hand, purporting him to be the son of a poor girl; but, when it was found that, having acquired the power of speech, he began to put one thing to another, and to draw forth from the strange mystery of his life indications which might eventually furnish a clue to his real origin, that then "The Man," as Hauser always called him—the man in disguise who had kept him prisoner, should suddenly appear, and attempt his life: should again appear, and stab him to death. These circumstances were to the German public convincing proofs that no poor girl was the mother, no priest, as asserted, the father of this youth; but that more wealthy, more powerful, and more worldly exalted personages were implicated in the parentage, and in the crimes perpetrated on this unfortunate person.
These things have made Caspar Hauser the very Perkin Warbeck of Germany. That he had, however, a more real claim to a lofty origin is strongly attested by the secret firmness which the faith in his right to the title indicated in the heading of our article, is held by a vast body, not only of the people, but of the most intelligent classes in Germany; and still more so by the active and rigid vigilance with which all publications, all talk, and even all whispers of this faith in Baden are suppressed. Let but a copy of the book or pamphlet he sent in the most secret manner into any town of Baden, and the police is instantly on the track of it; letters are intercepted in the post that mention it, and questions on the subject in ordinary conversation are touched with alarm.
Before going into the singular details which we mean now to give, in order to put the reader on the true ground for fully comprehending their bearings, it will be as well to give a concise history of Caspar Hauser, from the publications already referred to, and well known in England.
Kaspar, or Caspar Hauser, the Nuremberg foundling, was observed in the evening of Whit-Monday, the 26th of May, 1828, standing against the wall in the Unschlitt market-place. The citizen, an inhabitant of the market-place, who first observed him, was struck by his singular appearance. It was that of a peasant youth, clad in the peasant costume, and holding in his hand a letter addressed to the captain of the fourth squadron of the sixth regiment of light horse, lying there. Being conducted to him by this good citizen, and questioned by him who and what he was, it became evident that he was almost wholly incapable of speech, was thoroughly ignorant of everything in life, and strange in his behaviour. To all questions he answered, "From Regensburg," or "Joh woais nit," in the dialect of Bavaria, "I don't know;" and yet on pen and ink being put before him, he wrote in a tolerably legible hand, his name, "Kaspar Hauser." All endeavours to draw from him, however, whence he came, where he had lived, or any other matter connected with himself, were vain. He appeared to be from sixteen to seventeen years of age. He was of middle size, broad-shouldered, and of a perfect regularity of build. His skin was white and fine, his limbs were delicately moulded, his hands small and beautifully formed; and his feet, which were as soft in texture and finely shaped as his hands, bore not the slightest trace of having been compressed in shoes. He showed the utmost abhorrence of all food or drink, except dry bread and water. His speech was confined to a very few words or sentences in the old Bavarian dialect, as "Reuta wähn, wie met Votta Wähn is:" "I wish to be a trooper, as my father was." He exhibited the most utter unacquaintance with the commonest objects and most daily appearances of nature, and a total indifference to the comforts and necessities of life. In his wretched dress was found a handkerchief marked K.H.; and he had also in his pocket a manuscript Catholic prayer-book. The writer of the letter which he had brought in his hand professed to be a poor labourer, and the father of ten children, and said that the boy had been left by his unknown mother at his door; that he had taken him in, and brought him up secretly, teaching him reading, writing, and Christianity. The letter was dated 1828, from the Bavarian frontiers, but the place not named, Within it was another letter, purporting to be from the mother, and written in Roman characters, saying that the boy was born on the 30th of April, 1812; that his mother was a poor maiden, who could not support him, and his father a soldier in the 6th regiment of light horse, now dead. That she requested the labourer to keep him till he was seventeen, and then send him to the regiment.
The whole of the story was soon felt to hang very badly together. It was not likely that a mother, determining to expose her child, would lay it at the door of a poor labourer with ten children, and expect him to keep it seventeen years. It was less likely that any poor labourer in such circumstances could or would so faithfully support a burden of this kind for so many years, and then so punctually convey him to the place appointed. Besides, what motive could the man have for concealment? The mother might have, but what could the poor labourer have? If he had received the child, he would most likely have let him run about with his own ten. But to shut him up in a dark den, and there for seventeen years feed and visit him, was a piece of labour and mystery which no common labourer would subject himself to. There was evidently a nobler parentage, and another story, for which this was but a clumsy substitute.
He was handed over by the captain of horse to the police the very evening that he was found, and he was treated by them as a helpless person from some unknown place. The greatest curiosity was excited regarding him, as soon as the case was known, and the Bürgermeister Binder especially exerted himself to penetrate the mystery which surrounded him. The result of much inquiry, partly from himself, and partly from circumstantial evidence, was, that he had been kept from his childhood in a dark, subterranean place, where he could not once stretch himself properly, it was so small, and there he had remained, clad only in a shirt and trowsers, and fed on bread and water. Occasionally he found himself attacked with very heavy sleep, and on awaking from these peculiar sleeps he found that his clothes had been changed, his nails cut, and the place had been cleaned out. His only amusement was playing with two wooden horses. For some time, however, before he was carried off to Nuremberg, the man who tended him, but whose face he never saw, had come frequently into his cell, had guided his hand in writing with a pencil on paper, which had delighted him very much, and had taught him to say he would be a soldier as his father had been; that he was from Regensburg; and "I don't know." At length "the man," as he always called him, came one night, carried him out of his dungeon, made him try to walk, on which he fainted, and at last brought him to the gate of Nuremberg.
Every circumstance testified to the truth of these facts. He stumbled slowly forward in attempting to walk. He appeared to have no guidance or control of his limbs. His feet, which had never been used to boots, were now thrust into them, and evidently gave him the greatest torture. Walking occasioned him to groan and weep. His eyes could not bear the light, but became inflamed; and the formation of the bones and muscles of his legs demonstrated that he had sate all his life long. At first he had no idea whatever of the qualities of things; nor of distances. He was delighted with the flame of a candle, and put his finger into it. At the police office he exhibited no symptoms of interest in anything, of confusion, or of alarm. Feigned cuts were made at him, and thrusts, but he did not even wink in consequence, The sound of bells made no impression on him; but on drums beating near him he was thrown into convulsions.
From the police-office he was removed to the prison for vagabonds and beggars. Here the keeper at first regarded him as an impostor, but soon found him actually to be in the state of a little child; and the jailer's children played with him, and taught him to speak.
The public curiosity regarding him and his story grew, and numbers flocked from all sides to see him. They brought him toys. Von Feuerbach visited him after he had been considerably more than a month in Nuremberg, and found his room stuck all over with prints and pictures which had been given him, and money, playthings, and clothes lying about in regular order, which every night he packed up, and unpacked and arranged every morning. He complained that the people teazed him; that he had head-aches, which he never known in his cell.
On the 18th of July he was released from the prison, and given into the care of Professor Daumer, who undertook to bring him up and educate him; and an order was issued by the magistrates that he should not be interrupted by any more visitors. Here being shown a beautiful prospect from a window, he drew back in terror; and when afterwards he had learned to speak; and was asked why he did so, he said it was because a wooden shutter seemed to have been put close before his eyes, spattered all over with different colours. His sense of smell was most acute, and often gave him great agony. He could not bear to pass through or near a churchyard, because the effluvia, unperceived by others, affected him with horror. He was extremely amiable, and attached himself with the utmost affection to Professor and Mrs. Daumer. On the 17th of October he was found bleeding, and insensible, from a dreadful wound in the forehead, in a cellar. He was supposed to be dead; but he finally recovered, and stated that "the man" had entered the house in the absence of the family, having his face blacked, and had wounded him; how he got into the cellar he could not tell. In his delirium he had often said, "Man come—don't kill me. I love all men—do no one anything. Man, I love you too. Don't kill—why man kill?"
Strict official inquiry was made into the circumstances, but no further light was thrown upon them. It was evident, however, that some diabolical mystery hung over him. There were powerful enemies somewhere, and it was now evident that they had taken alarm, The public curiosity had spread far and wide the fame of this strange youth, and it was evident that he might yet recollect things which might lead to a detection of his origin. Amongst those who now became deeply interested in him was Lord Stanhope, who undertook the whole charge of his education, and removed him to Anspach. Here he was placed for awhile as clerk in the registrar's office of the Court of Appeal; and he was quietly performing his duties when Lord Stanhope began to talk of adopting him and bringing him to England. This most probably sealed his fate; for one evening, December 14, 1833, as he was returning from the office, a stranger accosted him in the Street, and on pretence of giving him news from Lord Stanhope, and intelligence regarding his origin, induced him to accompany him into the castle gardens, where he suddenly stabbed him in the left side. Hauser had strength enough to reach home, and to utter a few indistinct words, when he fainted. The police were instantly summoned, but before they arrived Kaspar Hauser was dead. No trace of the murderer could be found.
It is no wonder that a fate so melancholy upon a life so strange should rouse the public mind to an extraordinary degree. It was felt that the eyes of those who, for some unknown purpose, but as clearly from most important grounds, had thus treated this unfortunate youth—who had inflicted on him a treatment which Professor Feuerbach styled "a crime against the life of a soul"—had never been removed from him. It was evident that no ordinary persons, and no ordinary fears, were concerned. It became the subject of deep popular inquiry; and the public knowledge of certain strange events in a certain high quarter led gradually to a conviction which now exists with a wide and deep effect on the popular mind in Germany. We will proceed to state what this conviction is, and on what it rests, from a little volume entitled, "Einige Beiträge Zur Geschischte Caspar Hausers, nebst einer dramaturgischen Einleitung von Joseph Heinrich Garnier."
CASPAR HAUSER.
"The first prince was a murderer, and introduced the purple to conceal the stains of his deed in this blood colour."—
SCHILLER's Fiesco.
[The author, after glancing at some of the many rumours of the crimes of palaces which, spite of the censorship of the press and the swarming of police, still circulate in Germany, proceeds as follows:—]
To these princely family-histories I add, as no unfitting topstone, the singular fate of Caspar Hauser. In the territory of Baden the story runs from end to end, that the unfortunate Hauser was the true heir of the throne of Baden, a son of the Grand-Duke Karl and the adopted daughter of Napoleon, Stephanie Tascher. If this rumour stood nakedly and alone, we should hesitate to make it public; but it stands linked with such a train of facts, which we produce for our justification, that we entertain at least a doubt—a bitter doubt.
In the time of the French Revolution, in Baden ruled the Margrave Karl Frederick, a brave and able man, and one of the few sovereigns whom the public could honestly praise. At an already advanced age, he made a left-handed marriage with a lady of the court, Fräulein Geyer von Geyersberg. The fruit of this marriage were the three Margraves, formerly the Counts von Hochberg, of whom the eldest, through a singular concurrence of circumstances, yet sits on the grand-ducal throne.
(To be continued.)