The following year, 1633, pillage and violence continued ; and in 1634, reports the pastor, matters grew worse. In order to save his beds, his two cows, and the family clothes, he gave them in charge to a pastor who had not yet been invaded.
But immediately afterwards a number of soldiers were billeted upon him for winter quarters. "This cost me," he says, "in thirty-five weeks more than Soo crowns. Eleven persons, besides servants and maids, lodged in my house. It cannot be described what I, my wife, and my children had to endure from them."
Finally the pastor fled to two other villages in succession, where things were no better ; and becoming each day more ill and weak from starvation, he determined to return to Poppenhausen to die there.
In the dark nights he performed his journey to the miserable village, where he found his parishioners looking "like dead people" from hunger and want. Many had already died, and the rest had to run to hide themselves several times a day from the merciless soldiers.
They lived upon lentils and vetches, which they kept hidden in the graves and old coffins of the churchyard—sometimes even in the skulls that lay half buried. But even these stores of food were found and carried off; and it was determined at last that the few who were not themselves by this time buried the churchyard should fly from the village.
Alas ! only eight or nine were left to set forth on their wanderings.
The pastor was allowed to take possession of deserted parsonage in another village, Lindenau, which he was appointed by the Consistory. In the village he remained five years, but received no stipend, as no one had any money. He repaired the parsonage as best he could, for it threatened more than once to fall upon his head. He also undertook the parochial work at Heldburg. During these five years he received altogether less than to crowns. The rest of his income consisted of apple pears, cabbages, turnips, and wood, supplied by his parishioners when they had enough to spare.
In the last year of his life at Lindenau, the who country round was desolated by the encampment Swedish troops. One Sunday morning, at four o'clock a large body of imperial troops also arrived at Heldburg. The pastor and his wife were at that time staying in Heldburg, and awoke in the morning to see the whole street and the courtyard full of hors and cavalry soldiers.
"I and my wife," he writes, "were seized at least five times in an hour ; for as soon as we escape from one party another caught us." He therefore thought it best to give the soldiers the keys, and let them search the house and the cellar, to keep them from molesting the household.
After the search the soldiers departed, leaving the pastor so stupefied with terror, that he entirely forgot some money he had hidden ; and, taking wife and children, he fled to the nearest wood, where many of the townspeople, old and young, had hidden themselves. Here the only food to be had consisted of black juniper berries.
Now and then one of the townsmen ventured back to the town in search of food, or of valuables they still hoped to find. The pastor said to himself, "Ah! if I could get at my cash, I might keep my children from starving yet awhile." He therefore slipped back and passed the outer gate in safety. The inner gate was palisaded. Inside the palisades soldiers were on the watch, and "they sprang on me," relates the poor pastor, "as a cat springs on a mouse."
In a moment he was bound hand and foot, and commanded either to pay a good sum, or betray some rich townspeople. As the pastor could do neither one nor the other, he was ordered to groom and feed the horses, which gave him an opportunity of taking to his heels. He opened a little door of the stable yard, and rushed right into the arms of another detachment of soldiers.
Again he was bound with ropes, and driven at the point of the sword round the town, in order to tell the soldiers to whom each house belonged. When they came to his own house he saw, through the open door, the copper bucket in which he kept his cash—three hundred thalers. How he came by so large a sum remains unexplained. But to get at the bucket was impossible. His clerical cap was also lying or the ground, which a soldier happily put on the head of its owner, for scarcely had he done so, where another soldier struck the pastor on the head with a cutlass, so that the blood ran down over his face and only the felt cap saved his skull.
After wounding him several times with the cutlass the soldiers proceeded to pour down his throat some liquid manure from a dung heap, for which purpose they forced into his mouth a thick stick, which loosened many of his teeth.
Finally they dragged him to the bridge, threw him into the river, and still holding the ropes which were fastened to his left arm and his feet, gave him series of dips, holding him topsy-turvy in the water and when he caught at anything with his right hand in order to keep his head above water, they belaboured him with rakes, with which they thrust him down till the rakes were broken to splinters.
This sport was fatiguing even to those who enjoyed it, and at last, thinking the pastor mus be as good as dead, they let go the ropes, and left him to drown.
" But I whisked under the bridge like a frog," write the good man, " and there, searching in my pocket I found a clasp knife, with which I cut the ropes and sprang straightway down the fall of the river a good story high, to the water below, where were the wheels of the mill. The water half covered me and the rascals threw after me sticks, and bricks, an, clubs, in order to finish me.”
In vain the pastor tried to climb the steep bank to the miller's backdoor—his wet clothes dragged him down. Then falling over again and again in the stream, he reached the opposite side, where was a brewer's yard. The rabble perceived that he might possibly get out in this direction, and therefore calling their comrades from the streets, they lined the banks to wait for his appearance.
The pastor, however, did not appear. He had crept under a thick willow bush, where he remained standing in the water four or five hours, till night came, and the sounds of riot had ceased. Then half dead he crawled out, but so stiff and sore he could hardly catch his breath. He crept along the bank as far as a tanyard, into which he was about to venture, when he saw some one mowing the grass, and another man rooting up nettles. He had only time to slip into the tanning-shed, in which he remained during a great part of the night.
Then starting afresh he crept along the bank down the stream, and crossed it at last by climbing along the slanting stem of a willow. From this point he proceeded to his old home of Poppenhausen.
The road all the way was strewn with clothes, which the soldiers had lost or thrown away. But the pastor was too stiff to stoop, and could not pick them up, much as he needed them. No one was to be found in the village but a certain Claus, with his wife, and a baby six weeks old. This good woman cut off the clothes which were tightened round the pastor's swollen limbs, and put them to dry. Claus lent him a shirt meanwhile, and was filled with horror at the sight of the wounds and bruises which covered the pastor's body. However, when day came Claus commanded his guest to leave; for he feared he might get into trouble by harbouring him. He therefore arrayed him in his old clothes, still wet as they were, and the pastor again started on his travels.
By hiding in the bushes from time to time, he managed at last to reach Lindenau, and stole into garden which commanded a view of the village. He observed several people going into a house, and followed them, but the door was shut against him They were afraid to let him in. Someone, however, looking out of the window, recognized the pastor and opened the door.
He spent several days in this house, for one of the soldiers who occupied the village was an old parishioner, who did what he could to keep his pastor from harm.
But his troubles were not over. The friendly soldier one day escorted a party of the village people to the castle of Einod in the neighbouring wood that they might fetch some of their goods which they had concealed there. Meanwhile he left the pastor to take his place as sentinel on the church tower, in company with a justice and a smith.
Suddenly some horsemen galloped into the village and remarking three men on the tower, they proceeded there straightway, and mounted the stairs shouting loudly in a manner which proved them to have no friendly intentions.
" Stiff and sore as I was," writes the parson, " fear taught me to climb. I scrambled up into the clock tower, and hid like a cat behind the clock. But one of them speedily climbed after me, and dragged me down. My parishioners said I was their schoolmaster, but this did not save me from the blows of the soldiers. ' The schoolmaster must come clown,' they said." Down the stairs they went — first the justice — then a soldier — then the smith then another soldier lastly the pastor.
As they passed out through the church door the pastor quickly stepped back, shut the door, and bolted himself in. He then ran out by another door and crept into a hole in a turnip-field, where turnips were stored. There was only room to crawl in on all-fours, which was terribly painful, stiff and bruised as he was. After waiting there an hour he escaped.
The justice and the smith were taken to a mill, where they were ordered to fill sacks with flour for the soldiers.
Eight days before Whitsuntide the pastor arrived at Coburg, in company with many other fugitives.
He had performed this journey in a pair of old shoes, thoughtfully provided for him by a thief, who had stolen his good ones. The thief's shoes were unprovided with soles, so that they were in the habit of turning round with the toes behind, and the amusement furnished thereby to the rest of the party greatly discomposed Botzinger, who if he did not stand upon his soles still stood upon his
The citizens of Coburg were astonished to see the pastor, whose disappearance under the bridge had been reported to them. They had no doubt he was dead.
For four weeks he remained with them, and was kindly treated with his wife and children, who had also arrived there.
But the town of Coburg furnished a mournful spectacle. The miserable people from all the neighbouring towns and villages had fled there for refuge, and had no means of living but by begging or stealing. After a while the pastor returned with his wife and children to Poppenhausen, where all the money which had been given him by his Coburg friends was seized by the soldiers.
No food was in the house, and no means could be found for getting any. The clover fields had been spoilt ; there was nothing to sell. In the castle the lord of the manor was dying from doses of " Swedish drink," otherwise liquid manure, forced down his throat by the soldiers. He died a few days afterwards.
From this time the pastor led a wandering life, being called to one parish after another, everywhere living in terror, and nowhere finding a livelihood.
In the year 1647 lie at last settled down in the village of Fleubach, where he hoped that his peregrinations would end, although his wife complained bitterly of the rough life in this deserted village, where no servants were to be had.
No parsonage existed in the village, as it had formerly belonged to another parish. The pastor was allowed to live in a shooting-box, adjoining the house of the forester, whose rudeness and insolence were a continual affliction to him. The village was a wild, almost uninhabited place, and the people, used to a life of plundering and of being plundered, were little better than savages. A pastor was a most unwelcome acquisition to them.
In the parish register are still to be read the Latin verses, in which the pastor, to beguile the weary hours, described the insults and opposition he daily experienced. He lived in this dreary village for twenty-six years, and died there at the age of seventy-four.
His successor found in the registers, in Latin verse, various useful hints addressed to him by Pastor Botzinger, who thereby warned him "in brotherly love " against the " evil-minded forester and his wicked wife."
In his epitaph we read that "he spent his life after the manner of Job, being a well-plagued man."
Thus leaving the pages of history to tell the details of the Thirty Years' War, we can form some picture in our minds of life in Germany during that dismal period, when men, lands, wealth, and all means of living were again and again swept away. And yet more terrible was the consequence for those who remained—those brought up in utter lawlessness, killing and stealing for the dear life, unused to any peaceful employment, untaught in trades and agriculture, " hateful, and hating one another."
Nor can we measure the whole extent of the ruin, unless we remember that this disastrous war was carried on in the name of the Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church, which thus rose up with fire and sword to bring back Germany to the orthodox faith. The teaching of Luther, and yet more of Calvin, must be exterminated from the face of the land.
The history of the war need not here be related. Most of us remember how at last, in the year 1632, one town only remained in the whole of Germany, where the Protestant public worship was still carried on. The siege of Magdeburg must be classed with that of Jerusalem for horror and butchery.