they had been committed in populous cities, in the maturity of his skill, would not, he conceived, make him amenable to the penalty of death, as in the case of robberies in the open country.

From this time he counted on a sentence of sixteen years labour in chains, and gave an explicit statement of all transactions within that maximum of punishment. As he had been accustomed, through his whole career, to devise schemes of pillage, the execution of which he left to his companions, always declining any service of danger, and making his own safety his first care, so, in the present emergency, he was true to his previous character. The authorities were induced by his declarations, to summon many of his associates from remote parts of France and Germany; he betrayed a large number of them, and informed, without the least compunction, against all the functionaries of justice, who had at any time violated their duty, by conniving at his escape. So long as his head seemed to be in danger, he was fixed in his resolve to quit for ever the career of crime; but before the commencement of the criminal assizes, all these plans and purposes were scattered, like straws before the wind, and his whole thoughts were devoted to contrivances for effecting an escape during the approaching transport to a place of punishment.

Playing off the manners of a reckless student, he entered the hall of trial, and during the first sitting, attacked a police agent from Frankfort with unsurpassed effrontery. He seemed rather flattered than otherwise by the gaze of curiosity which was directed upon him, though he had declined to take the foremost place on the elevated prisoners' bench; his motive being, as was supposed, to repudiate the character of a chief of robbers. It was with a savage irony that he reiterated his statements against those men who had, on various occasions, harboured and concealed him, and to whom he could not forgive their overreaching spirit as purchasers of stolen goods. He could not suppress his confident expectations of a speedy deliverance by flight, and pledged himself to give the witnesses who had spoken against him a speedy visit. The advocate who conducted his defence was promised forty louis from the proceeds of his next adventure— a strange, and certainly not very creditable fee. In prison he indulged his appetite as a gourmand, and gave way to the most exuberant delight at the prospect of freedom.

One of the advocates for the prisoner having remarked to him that he was not engaged in a well-known adventure at Geneva, where the plunder was enormous,- "That is true," was the answer; "but I have taken part in not less than

sixty affairs of equal importance, and in a hundred more of which nobody knows anything."

He jeered at his fellow-prisoners, only sparing those who knew too much of his latter proceedings. It was particularly edifying to observe the zeal with which Hessel counteracted the efforts of several wealthy receivers to purchase the silence of his late confederates.

When the judgment of the court was on the point of being delivered, the female spectators were ordered to withdraw-so as to avoid any undue violence to their sensitive feelings: soldiers, with drawn sabres, were stationed near the criminals, with a view to the preservation of the decorum suitable at that awful moment. Hessel's audacity did not forsake him; he endeavoured, by signs, to comfort Weiler with the assurance that they were safe, the first capital sentence having been followed by several impositions of the lesser penalties; but scarcely had his ear caught the terrible sound "Death!" than his courage was gone ;-he stared wildly about him, tottered, and fell senseless to the ground, as if struck by a thunderbolt. On being restored to consciousness, he gave way to the transports of despair, and wore out the night with curses and lamentations. The next morning, he desired the attendance of a Rabbi, intending, he said, to die

in the profession of the Jewish faith. Somewhat later, he appeared to be collecting, with a strong effort, the resolution to meet his fate manfully, and reiterated, with blasphemous imprecations, a vow, that "if there was another state of being, he would visit the Judge of Instruction the same night, and vex him with the torments of hell!" At intervals, he expatiated, with great solemnity, on what he called the "law of nature," according to the dictates of which he had lived, and would die; adding a quantity of senseless gabble about "fatalism" and "prior appointment." This sort of bravado was continued to within a few minutes

of the closing scene. On arriving in sight of the fatal car, he was silent; a sudden stupor overpowered all his faculties, and not another sound was heard from his lips. Motionless, altogether unconscious, and scarcely breathing, he was lifted up the steps of the scaffold in a few moments the guilty head of this despicable criminal rolled in the dust.

KARL HECKMANN.

The public criminal records afford but scanty particulars respecting the origin and early life of this celebrated robber chief. The detail is here confined to an adventure which, after a long series of fruitless endeavours to avert his extraordinary and formidable career, was at last the occasion of

his capture, and of his well-deserved exit under the axe of the guillotine. Some mention has been made of Heckmann in the account of the remarkable outrage at the parsonage of Mülheim.

Heckmann's usual residence was Dendy, opposite to Cologne. In the spring of 1801, a certain Matthew Spedman arrived at the former place, and proposed an attack on the house of a wealthy proprietor at Fahlengen, one Herr Haster.

"It will be an easy affair," said the scout;"for you will find the windows open." In order to quiet the conscientious scruples of the robbers (if scruples they had), he informed them that Haster had a mistress, whose relations actually desired that a robbery should take place on the premises, as a separation would probably be the consequence. This bit of romance was entirely thrown away upon Heckmann, who only calculated the profits of the enterprise. He proceeded to Cologne for the purpose of getting together a party, and two of them were despatched to Fahlengen to reconnoitre and report upon the intended scene of action. They found Haster's housemaid quite ready to aid in the scheme. The housemaid was to leave the windows open, and not to fasten the door-chain. Heckmann arrived with some others at a small chapel near Neass, and in the evening crept unobserved to the mansion, when