The day before his tragic death he gave to a fellow-prisoner, Count B——, the last memento he possessed of the lady who had been the first innocent cause of his sufferings, a tortoise-shell box with the portrait of the Princess Amelia. The 9th Thermidor saved the count, and the box was long preserved in his family.
CHAPTER III
NOTORIOUS POISONERS
Famous female poisoners—This crime not so prevalent in Germany as in southern countries—Frau Ursinus—Her early history—Mysterious deaths of her husband and aunt—Attempted murder of her man-servant—Arrested and sentenced to imprisonment for life in the fortress of Glatz—Anna Schönleben or Zwanziger—Deaths followed her advent into different families—Arrested at Bayreuth, confessed her guilt and was condemned to death.
In the early decades of the nineteenth century, when the Napoleonic wars caused constant conflict and change, crime flourished with rank growth in most European countries and nowhere more than in the German states,—both those that remained more or less independent and those brought into subjection to the French Empire. Whole provinces were ravaged by organised bands of brigands, such as that which obeyed the notorious Schinderhannes; travelling was unsafe by all ordinary roads and communications; thieves and depredators abounded; murderers stalked rampant through the land; the most atrocious homicides, open and secret, were constantly planned and perpetrated; swindling and imposture on a large scale were frequently practised, and crimes of every kind were committed by all kinds of people in all classes of society.
Poisoning was not unknown as a means of removal, although it never prevailed to the same extent as among people of warmer blood. It never grew into an epidemic affecting whole groups and associations, but it occurred in individual cases, exhibiting the same features as elsewhere. This form of feloniously doing to death has ever commended itself to the female sex. Women are so circumstanced as wives, nurses and in domestic service that they possess peculiar facilities for the administration of poison, and so the most prominent poisoners in criminal history have been women.
A curious instance is to be found in the German records, and the story may be told in this place as belonging to this period. The murderess was a certain Frau Ursinus, widow of a privy counsellor who was also president of a government board. Ursinus was a highly esteemed member of the upper classes of Berlin. Deep interest attached to this case of Frau Ursinus from the prominent position occupied by her late husband, her considerable fortune, her prepossessing person and spotless reputation, as well as her cultured mind which made her conspicuous in the society of the Prussian capital. The news, therefore, of her sudden and unexpected arrest on a criminal charge, caused great consternation and surprise.
Early in May, Frau Ursinus was at a party, playing whist, when a footman, evidently greatly perturbed, came in and said that several police officials were in the anteroom and wished to speak to her. She rose without manifesting any emotion, put down her cards, excused herself to her fellow-players for this slight interruption, doubtless caused by a mistake which would soon be accounted for, and adding that she hoped soon to return, left the room. She did not, however, come back to resume her game, and after a few moments of strained expectation it became known that she had been arrested and taken to prison on a criminal charge.
Her servant, Benjamin Klein, had complained of not feeling well one day toward the end of the previous February. His mistress had accordingly given him a cup of broth and a few days later some currants. These remedies were of no avail, and he became worse. When, on February 28th, Frau Ursinus offered him some rice, he refused it, whereupon she threw it away, a singular proceeding on her part, as he thought, and his suspicions were aroused that the food she had previously administered to him had contained something deleterious. He made a strict search in consequence through his mistress’s apartments, and presently discovered a powder labelled arsenic in one of the cupboards. This happened on March 21st. On the following day, Frau Ursinus offered him some plums, which he accepted but prudently did not taste. Then he confided the result of his search and his fears to his mistress’s maid, Schley, who took the plums to her brother, an apprentice in a chemist’s shop, where they were analysed. The plums were found to contain arsenic and the master of the establishment immediately laid the information before the authorities; an inquiry was set on foot, the principal witnesses were examined, and in the end Frau Ursinus was taken into custody. These facts came out after the arrest and a good deal more was assumed. It was rumoured that she had not only poisoned her deceased husband three years previously, but also her aunt, a spinster called Witte as well, and a Dutch officer of the name of Rogay. These deaths had occurred in sequence after that of the privy counsellor.
Frau Ursinus persistently denied all the earlier charges of administering poison, but admitted the attempts upon her servant, Klein. A thorough investigation followed, and a number of damning facts in her past and present life were brought to light.