When the pillage ended, the party hurried away to divide the booty. Any robber wounded and unable to move off was despatched on the spot; the greatest pains were taken to leave no one behind who might, if caught, be made to confess. At the sharing of the spoil, the captain received a double or triple portion, in addition to anything precious he had annexed at the first search. At the same time, if an ordinary robber withheld any valuables, his share was reduced one-half on detection. If the informer who had started the whole affair did not contrive to be present at the distribution, he was likely to get little or nothing. The robbers had a profound contempt for the creatures who followed the despised trade of spy.
A leading character among the many who became famous as brigand chiefs, such as Finck, Black Peter, Seibert and Zughetto, was the more notorious Schinderhannes, the youngest, boldest and most active robber of them all, who moved with great rapidity over a wide country and spread terror everywhere. He did not attempt to conceal himself, but showed openly at fairs and gatherings, risking capture recklessly; yet if ill-luck befell, no prison could hold him. He was an adept in the use of tools to aid escape, and unrivalled in his skill in breaking chains, forcing locks and cutting through solid walls.
This notorious criminal was born in the village of Muklen on the right bank of the Rhine. At an early age he was taught to steal sheep which he sold to a butcher. Later he became servant to the hangman of Barenbach, but being taken in the act of robbery, he was thrown into the gaol at Kirn and flogged. He subsequently escaped, however, and joined the band of Red Finck, which committed many highway robberies, chiefly upon Jews. He was again captured and locked up in the prison of Sarrebruck, from which he easily freed himself. After these beginnings, Schinderhannes embarked in the business on a larger scale, and having recruited several desperate companions, committed numberless crimes. He was a generous brigand who succoured the poor while he made war upon the rich, and he was credited with a strong desire to abandon his evil ways if pardoned and permitted to join a regiment in the field; but this was against the law.
He was finally arrested by the counsellor Fuchs, grand-bailiff of the electorate of Treves, who caught him on the high road near Wolfenhausen as he stole out, alone, from a field of corn. He was dressed as a sportsman, carried a gun and a long whip, but could not produce a passport and was forthwith arrested. After passing from place to place, closely guarded and watched, he was lodged at length in the prison of Mayence, where he was in due course put upon his trial, was eventually convicted and suffered the extreme penalty.
The earlier operations of this formidable ruffian were limited to highway robbery, but Schinderhannes soon adopted the practice of extortion by letter, demanding large sums for immunity from attack, and he issued safe conducts to all who paid blackmail. He dominated the whole country. Travellers did not dare to take the road. The news of the forcible entry and pillage of houses and farms spread like wildfire. For the most part, the robberies were effected upon rich Jews and others who possessed great stores of cash and valuables, and the plunder was enormous. The brigands lived royally and with ostentatious extravagance, appearing at all village fêtes and giving rein to the wildest self-indulgence.
When captured at length, this successful miscreant was subjected to a lengthy trial of eighteen months, the records of which filled five volumes. In the course of the trial it was proved that he had been guilty of fifty-three serious crimes, with or without the assistance of his sixty-seven associates, who were arraigned at the same time, and were headed by his father, the first John Buckler. Among these associates were many women. The sentences after conviction were various. Twenty-one were to be guillotined, including Schinderhannes, who asked with some apprehension whether he would be broken on the wheel, but was told to his great relief that this penalty had disappeared from the code. The capital convicts were to be taken to the scaffold clothed in red shirts, presumably to increase the ignominy. For the rest, various terms of imprisonment were imposed, ranging from six to twenty-four years in chains. Schinderhannes, having heard his own fate unmoved, expressed his gratitude to his judges for having spared the lives of his father and wife. He was quite at ease, telling the bystanders to stare as much as they pleased, for he would be on view for only two more days. The chaplain gave him the sacrament, and he accepted the consolation of the Church with very proper feeling. The convicts were taken to the place of execution in five carts, Schinderhannes beguiling the way with a full account of his misdeeds. He mounted the scaffold with a brisk step and closely examined the guillotine, asking whether it worked as easily and promptly as had been asserted. In his farewell speech, he admitted the justice of his sentence, but protested that ten of his companions were dying innocent men.
The sharp vindication of the law in the case of these brigands had a marked result in restoring tranquillity and effectually checked the operations of organised bands on a large scale. But the records of the times show many isolated instances of atrocious murders perpetrated on defenceless travellers. A peculiarly horrible case was the doing to death of the beautiful girl, Dorothea Blankenfeld, at the post-house of Maitingen near Augsburg by her travelling companions, who had accompanied her for many stages, ever thirsting for her blood, but constantly foiled for want of opportunity until the last night before arriving at their destination.
The victim was a native of Friedland, who started from Danzig in November, 1809, on her way to Vienna, where she was to join her intended husband, a war commissary in the French service. She had reached Dresden, but halted there until her friends could find a suitable escort for the rest of the journey. She was young, barely twenty-four years old, remarkably good looking, of gentle disposition and spotless character. The opportunity for which she awaited presented itself when two French military postilions arrived in Dresden and sought passports for Vienna. It was easy to add the Fräulein Blankenfeld’s name in the route paper, and she left Dresden with her escort, who had already doomed her to destruction.
The two postilions were really man and wife, for one was a woman in disguise. They gave their names as Antoine and Schulz, but they were really the two Antoninis. The man was a native of southern Italy, who as a boy had been captured by Barbary pirates and released by a French warship. He had been a drummer in a Corsican battalion, a laquais de place, a sutler and lastly a French army postilion. His criminal propensities were developed early; he had been frequently imprisoned, twice in Berlin and once in Mayence with his wife,—for he had married a woman named Marschall of Berlin,—and he had been constantly denounced as a thief and incendiary. At Erfurt he had broken prison and effected the escape of his fellow-prisoners. Theresa Antonini had been a wild, obstinate and vicious girl, who after marriage became a partner also in her husband’s evil deeds and shared his imprisonment. The pair were on their way south to Antonini’s native place in Messina, very short of money, and they took with them Carl Marschall, the woman’s brother, a boy barely fifteen years of age.
Dorothea Blankenfeld was a tempting bait to their cupidity. She was fashionably dressed, her trunk was full of linen and fine clothes, and she really carried about two thousand thalers sewed in her stays, a fact then unknown to her would-be murderers.