Her companion who was with her until her death on April 4, 1836, and never left her, bore witness to her religious resignation in bearing her physical suffering caused chiefly by a chest complaint. She remained more or less unconscious for some months, but on the night before her end her mental faculties returned and she passed away peacefully. She was the first person to be buried in the Protestant cemetery which King Frederick William III had given to the evangelical congregation at Glatz.
A year before her death she had ordered a costly oak coffin. Clad in a white petticoat, a cap trimmed with pale blue ribbon on her head, her hands encased in white gloves, on one finger a ring which had belonged to her late husband and with his portrait on her breast, she lay as if asleep, an expression of peace upon her unchanged face. Several carriages, filled with her friends and acquaintances, followed the body to the grave, which was decorated with moss and flowers, and when the clergyman had finished his discourse, six poor boys and the same number of girls, to whom she had shown great kindness, sang a hymn in her honour. Instead of the sexton, the hands of friends and poor recipients of the dead woman’s charity filled in the grave and shaped the mound above it. It was a bitterly cold morning, and yet the cemetery could hardly contain the people who thronged it.
Thus Frau “Geheimräthin” Ursinus died in the odour of sanctity. Her many relatives, who greatly needed money, only received one-half of her fortune; the other half she parcelled out into various bequests and several pious institutions benefited; and we may thus fairly conclude that she desired to rehabilitate her accursed name by ostentatious deeds of charity. She left her gaoler, who had treated her considerately, five hundred thalers and his daughter a piano. Doctor Friedham, who had procured the royal favour through which she was liberated from the fortress, received a substantial legacy.
Another female poisoner in a lower sphere of life, whose lethal propensities were more strongly developed and more widespread, belongs to this period and the neighbouring kingdom of Bavaria. The woman, Anna Schönleben or Zwanziger—her married name—known in criminal history as the German Brinvilliers, was as noxious as a pestilence, and death followed everywhere in her footsteps. Never did any human being hunger more to kill, and revel more wantonly in the reckless and unscrupulous employment of the means that secret poisoning put at her disposal. Her extravagant fondness for it was “based upon the proud consciousness of possessing a power which enabled her to break through every restraint, to attain every object, to gratify every inclination and to determine the very existence of others. Poison was the magic wand with which she ruled those whom she outwardly obeyed, and which opened the way to her fondest hopes. Poison enabled her to deal out death, sickness and torture to all who offended her or stood in her way; it punished every slight; it prevented the return of unwelcome guests; it disturbed those social pleasures which it galled her not to share; it afforded her amusement by the contortions of the victims, and an opportunity of ingratiating herself by affected sympathy with their sufferings; it was the means of throwing suspicion upon innocent persons and of getting fellow servants into trouble. Mixing and giving poison became her constant occupation; she practised it in jest and in earnest, and at last with real passion for poison itself, without reference to the object for which it was given. She grew to love it from long habit, and from gratitude for its faithful services; she looked upon it as her truest friend and made it her constant companion. Upon her apprehension, arsenic was found in her pocket, and when it was laid before her at Culmbach to be identified, she seemed to tremble with pleasure and gazed upon the white powder with eyes beaming with rapture.”
We will take up her story when she was a widow of about fifty years old, resident at Pegnitz and bearing the name of Anna Schönleben. In 1808 she was received as housekeeper into the family of Justice Glaser, who had for some time previous been living apart from his wife. Shortly after the beginning of her service, however, a partial reconciliation took place, in a great measure effected through the exertions of Schönleben, and the wife returned to her husband’s house. But their reunion was of short duration, for in the course of four weeks after her return, she was seized with a sudden and violent illness, of which, in a day or two, she expired.
After this event, Schönleben quitted the service of Glaser and was received in the same capacity into the household of Justice Grohmann, who was then unmarried. Although only thirty-eight years of age, he was in delicate health and had suffered severely from gout, so that Schönleben soon gained his favour by the kindly attentions she bestowed upon his health. Her cares, however, were unavailing; her master fell sick in the spring of 1809, his disease being accompanied with violent internal pains of the stomach, dryness of the skin, vomiting, etc., and he died on the 8th of May after an illness of eleven days. Schönleben, who had nursed him with unremitting anxiety and solicitude during his illness and administered all his medicines with her own hand, appeared inconsolable for his loss and that of her situation. The high character, however, which she had acquired for her unflagging devotion and tenderness as a sick nurse, immediately procured her another post in the family of Herr Gebhard, whose wife was at that time on the point of being confined. This event took place on the 13th of May, shortly after the arrival of the new housekeeper, who made herself particularly useful. Mother and child were thought to be progressing extremely well when, on the third day after the birth, the lady was seized with spasms, high temperature, violent thirst, vomiting, etc. In the extremity of her agony, she frequently exclaimed that they had given her poison. Seven days after her confinement she expired.
Gebhard, the widower, bereaved and helpless in managing household affairs, thought it would be prudent to retain the housekeeper in his service who had been so zealous and assiduous during his wife’s illness. Some of his friends sought to dissuade him from keeping a servant who seemed by some fatality to bring death into every family with which she became connected. The objection arose from mere superstitious dread, for as yet no accusation had been hinted at, and Gebhard, a very matter of fact person, laughed at their apprehensions. Schönleben, who was very obliging, with a great air of honesty, humility and kindliness, remained in his house and was invested with almost unlimited authority.
During her residence in the Gebhard household, there were many circumstances which, although they excited little attention at the time, were subsequently remembered against her. They will be mentioned hereafter; for the present, let us follow the course of events and the gradual growth of suspicion. Gebhard had at last, by the importunity of his friends, been persuaded to part with his housekeeper and did so with many regrets. Schönleben received her dismissal without any remark beyond an expression of surprise at the suddenness of his decision. Her departure for Bayreuth was fixed for the next day, and she busied herself with arranging the rooms, and filled the salt box in the kitchen, remarking that it was the custom for one who went away to do this for her successor. On the next morning, as a token of her good-will, she made coffee for the maids, supplying them with sugar from a paper of her own. The coach which her master had been good-natured enough to procure for her was already at the door. She took his child, now twenty weeks old, in her arms, gave it a biscuit soaked in milk, caressed it and took her leave. Scarcely had she been gone half an hour when both the child and servants were seized with violent retching, which lasted some hours and left them extremely weak and ill. Suspicion being now at last fairly awakened, Gebhard had the salt box examined, which Schönleben had so officiously filled. The salt was found strongly impregnated with arsenic; in the salt barrel also, from which it had been taken, thirty grains of arsenic were found mixed with about three pounds of salt.
It was now clear to every one that the series of sudden deaths which had occurred in the families in which Schönleben had resided, had been due to arsenical poison, and it seemed extraordinary that this circumstance had been so long overlooked. It came to light now that while she was with Gebhard two friends who had dined with her master in August, 1809, were seized after dinner with the same symptoms of vomiting, convulsions, spasms and so forth, which had attacked the servants on the day of Schönleben’s departure, and again, had shown themselves in the condition of the unfortunate mistress when she died. Also Schönleben had on one occasion given a glass of white wine to a servant who had called with a message, which had produced similar effects; the attack was indeed so violent as to oblige him to remain in bed for several days. On another occasion she had taken a lad of nineteen, Johann Kraus, into the cellar, where she had offered him a glass of brandy which he tasted, but perceiving a white sediment in it, declined to swallow. And again, one of her fellow servants, Barbara Waldmann, with whom Schönleben had had frequent quarrels, after drinking a cup of coffee was seized with exactly the same symptoms as the others. Last of all, it was remembered that at a party which Judge Grohmann gave, he sent her to the cellar for some jugs of beer, and after partaking of it, he and all his guests—five in number—were almost immediately seized with the usual spasms.
The long interval which had elapsed since the death of most of these individuals rendered it improbable that an examination of the bodies would throw any light upon these dark transactions. It was resolved, however, to put the matter to the test, and the result of this tardy inspection was more decisive than might have been expected; all the bodies exhibited in a greater or less degree traces of arsenic. On the whole, the medical authorities felt themselves justified in stating that the deaths of at least two of the three individuals had been occasioned by poison.