Historic Oddities and Strange Events

by S. Baring-Gould

The Duke, still excited, suddenly felt himself unwell, ran into the antechamber, found no one there, staggered into a third, then a fourth room, tore open a window, and shouted into the great court for help; but his voice was drowned by the band in the illumined ball-room, playing a valse. Then giddiness came over the Duke, and he fell to the ground. The first to arrive was Neuffer, and he found him insensible. He drew his knife and lanced him. Blood flowed. The Duke opened his eyes and gasped, "What is the matter with me? I am dying!" He was placed in an armchair, and died instantly.

That night not a window in Stuttgart had shown light. The town was as a city of the dead. Everyone was in alarm as to what would ensue on the morrow, but in secret arms were being distributed among the citizens and guilds. They would fight for their constitution. Suddenly, at midnight, the news spread that the Duke was dead. At once the streets were full of people, laughing, shouting, throwing themselves into each other's arms, and before another hour the windows were illuminated with countless candles.[21]

Not a moment was lost. Duke Charles Rudolf of Würtemberg-Neuenstadt was invested with the regency, and on March 19, General Remchingen was arrested and deprived of his office.

For once Suess' cleverness failed him. Relying on his "absolutorium," he did not fly the country the moment he heard of the death of the Duke. He waited till he could place his valuables in safety. He waited just too long, for he was arrested and confined to his house. Then he did manage to escape, and got the start of his enemies by an hour, but was recognised and stopped by a Würtemberg officer, and reconducted to Stuttgart, where he was almost torn to pieces by the infuriated populace, and with difficulty rescued from their hands. On March 19, he was sent to the fortress of Hohenneuffen; but thence he almost succeeded in effecting his escape by bribing the guards with the diamonds he had secreted about his person.

At first Suess bore his imprisonment with dignity. He was confident, in the first place, that the "absolutorium" would not be impeached, and in the second, that there was no documentary evidence discoverable which could incriminate him. But as his imprisonment was protracted, and as he saw that the country demanded a victim for the wrongs it had suffered, his confidence and self-respect left him. Nevertheless, it was not till the last that he was convinced that his life as well as his ill-gotten gains would be taken from him, and then he became a despicable figure, entreating mercy, and eagerly seeking to incriminate others in the hopes of saving his own wretched life thereby.

There were plenty of others as guilty as Suess—nay, more so, for they were natives of Würtemberg, and he an alien in blood and religion. But these others had relations and friends to intercede for them, and all felt that Suess was the man to be made a scape-goat of, because he was friendless.

The mode of his execution was barbarous. His trial had been protracted for eleven months; at length, on February 4, 1738, he was led forth to execution—to be hung in an iron cage. This cage had been made in 1596, and stood eight feet high, and was four feet in diameter. It was composed of seventeen bars and fourteen cross-bars, and was circular. The gallows was thirty-five feet high. The wretched man was first strangled in the cage, hung up in it like a dead bird, and then the cage with him in it was hoisted up to the full height of the gallows-tree. His wealth was confiscated.

Hallwachs and the other rascals who had been confederated with him in plundering their country were banished, but were allowed to depart with all their plunder.

Remchingen also escaped; when arrested, he managed to get rid of all compromising papers, which were given by him to a chimney-sweep sent to him down the chimney by some of the agents of the Bishop of Würzburg.

Such is the tragic story of the life of Suess Oppenheim, a man of no ordinary abilities, remarkable shrewdness, but without a spark of principle. But the chief tragedy is to be found in the deterioration of the character of Duke Charles Alexander, who, as Austrian field-marshal and governor of Servia, had been the soul of honour, generous and beloved; who entered on his duchy not only promising good government, but heartily desiring to rule well for his people's good; and who in less than four years had forfeited the love and respect of his subjects, and died meditating an act which would have branded him as perjured—died without having executed one of his good purposes, and so hated by the people who had cheered him on his entry into the capital, that, by general consent, the mode of his death was not too curiously and closely inquired into.