SUFFERINGS OF THE BARONESS WARTZ. 65 daughter, as the child of a regicide; and she was commanded, under penalty of instant death, to declare where her husband had found a shelter. Her paroxysms of fright, astonishment, and grief answered for her ignorance of the dreadful catastrophe; and after leaving a strong escort in the castle, and planting another around it to prevent all possibility of his escape if there concealed, the officer sent on this expedition departed. Adelaide of Wartz had ceased to be a mother, and her affections as a wife nestled yet more strongly in her heart she had no link to bind her to life but that of wife, none to love but her husband. She deceived the vigilance of her guards, at the risk of her life made her way to the royal château, and, penetrating into the presence of the widowed empress Elizabeth and her daughter Agnes, threw herself at their feet imploring the life of her husband. Her prayer was sternly refused; she then begged a mitigation of his sufferings that also was denied; to share his prison each petition was fiercely rejected; and she was repulsed from the castle to wander around the dungeon which would so soon open to deliver that husband to an ignominious and frightful death. She was present during all the sickening details of his horrible sentence, supporting him through his agonies by the assurance of her unabated attachment, and belief in his innocence; and when the executioner had finished his fatal office, and one by one the silent multitude withdrew as night closed in, she crept under the wheel where he was left to die in lingering torments, the coup de grace, or final blow of mercy, by which the sufferings of the victim were usually finished when each limb was broken, having been expressly forbidden. Morning dawned on the miserable pair-Wartz was in the prime of life, of noble athletic form, and though each member was doubly fractured, his vital energy remained. Three nights and three days, without food, without sleep, she 'watched "in the valley of the shadow of death," suffering neither "the birds of the air to rest on him by day, nor the beasts of the field by night: " wiping from his dying brow the big drops of anguish that burst from every pore. Nature wrestled long with death; on the third evening he grew too faint to thank her for her love, and as the morning of the fourth day dawned, he died. Her earthly task was accomplished: she rose from her knees and directed her tottering steps to Klingenthal, whose prioress was the baron's sister. How she got there she could not tell: she fainted at the portal, and was carried in as an object of charity, so emaciated by famine, so changed by woe, that the prioress for some time had no recollection of her person. DEATH OF THE BARONESS AT KLINGENTHAL. 67 It was deemed so dangerous to show pity towards the miserable widow of a hapless man, thus punished for a crime never proved against him, that the rank of this sweet victim to conjugal love was not allowed to transpire till after her death, which did not take place before the expiration of two years; for grief, in despite of the wishes of the wretched, though it generally aims a sure blow, is seldom quick to kill. For more than a century after the recluses of Klingenthal removed their Penates to Little Bâsle, they held a high rank in the estimation of the country they had chosen for their retreat; and although in the primitive fervour of their incorporation, they never professed to practise such austerities as might sanction the hope of any fresh miracles to enlighten or instruct the Bâlois, they were believed to follow strictly the rules of their severe order; nor was there anything to draw attention to their conduct till about the year 1430, when their dissensions with the fathers of the Dominican monastery began to excite the warm displeasure of the monks, and attract public attention to both parties. In the middle ages, attached to almost every religious house, was a sort of intermediate appointment between advocate, protector, and agent, usually bestowed, with a large salary or equivalent advantages, on some layman of great personal importance, sworn, in return, to defend the privileges and immu nities of the establishment, as well as receive the revenues of distant estates, repel aggressions, and watch generally over its interior interests and exterior arrangements. The possession of this important appointment, denominated advocatus, or advocate*, was a dignity often sought by nobles of the highest rank; and if the monastery were one of great importance, even royalty did not disdain its investiture, since it secured the support of the superior, and the many vassals belonging to the numerous fiefs with which piety or superstition had endowed it. It appears that when the nuns of Klingenthal settled at Bâsle, this honourable and responsible office was either left in abeyance, or that, out of gratitude for the permission to erect their convent within the jurisdiction of the Dominican brothers already domiciled there, the prior had been tacitly allowed to enjoy it. "No title was more tempting to an ambitious chief, than that of Advocate to a convent. That specious name conveyed with it a kind of indefinite guardianship, and right of interference, which frequently ended in reversing the * On appelait l'avoué d'un couvent, un laïque qui originairement en soignait l'economie et les revenus, et qui ensuite devait le défendre soit devant les tribunaux, soit par les armes: un serment solennel l'attachait aux intérêts du monastère, dont il était le protecteur. Dans le moyen âge, la plupart des abbayes de la Suisse avaient pour avoués des comtes ou des barons, dans la famille desquels cette charge devint héréditaire.— Sismondi. COMMENCEMENT OF HOSTILITIES. 69 condition of the ecclesiastical sovereign and its vassal."* As belonging to the same order, they were likewise obliged to obey their male confrères on material points of discipline; and under these circumstances the monks found it quite natural that they should exercise unlimited control over the affairs of their cloistered sisters. At first their government was either less despotic, or the latter. felt themselves too weak to resist it; for the harmony which ought to subsist between communities so closely connected, experienced no considerable diminution till a few years before this period, when the nuns, flanked by a long line of dignified relations, determined to resist this onerous supervision. The monks, soon aware of their intention, were equally resolved not to yield, and had their feminine antagonists been members of less illustrious families they would doubtless in this, as in many other instances where they displayed their thirst of dominion, have succeeded. For some time both parties were polite, but active and vigilant; each secretly afraid of the power of the other, smothered their animosity, and made that sort of war which irritates without bringing anything to a conclusion. The nuns cautiously eluded inquiries, closed their ears to advice, and kept as much as possible their concerns, spiritual and * Hallam. |