728 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



who insisted that the conduct of the authorities had been very repre- 

 hensible ; even assuming the alleged miracles to be illusory or fraudu- 

 lent, the sincere belief of the multitude ought to have been respected. 

 Dr. Friedenthal, acting Minister of the Interior, replied : 



" He was prepared to defend the action of the police, there being plenty of 

 prima-facie evidence to show that the Marpingen miracle was a fraud. The 

 alleged miracle happened in a district strongly infected by the Ultramontane 

 movement, and previously productive of similar apparitions that had attracted 

 the notice of the law. Early in 1875 a woman began to work miracles at Ep- 

 pelborn, close to Marpingen, under the patronage of the local priest. She was 

 convicted of fraud and sentenced to imprisonment. The same woman and the 

 local priest who assisted her were subsequently again convicted of fraud, false 

 pretenses, and gross immorality. The Marpingen miracle was no sooner bruited 

 about than a school-girl at Groning, also near Marpingen, stated that she had 

 had an audience of the Virgin. The girl was severely reprimanded by her father, 

 when the visions ceased. At Berschweiler, likewise near Marpingen, no less 

 than five persons between eleven and nineteen years of age, in 1876, professed 

 to be in daily intercourse with the Virgin. A profitable trade in exorcisms, salva- 

 tions from purgatory, and the like, having been opened by them, the authorities 

 interfered. The police court eventually sent the whole gang to prison. At Gap- 

 penach a married couple were convicted of fraud for stating that they had seen 

 the Virgin conversing with the three little girls in a bottle of Marpingen water. 

 At Milnchwies, district of Ottweiler, a couple of school-girls pretended to have 

 interviews with the Virgin, until the parish priest objected to the story, when 

 the apparitions ceased. Considering this excited condition of the province in 

 which Marpingen is situate, and taking into account the peculiar character the 

 Ultramontane movement had recently assumed in Germany, the authorities were 

 perfectly justified in putting a stop to the Marpingen revival. There were 8,000 

 persons in the hallowed wood when the military were called in. Though there 

 was some show of resistance, nobody was wounded. Subsequently the police 

 appointed to watch the wood were fired at in the dark. With reference to the 

 legal proceedings instituted by the crown, he, the minister, was in a position to 

 say that a formal accusation would be preferred against certain persons supposed 

 to be implicated in the Marpingen affair, when the character of the miracle 

 would be fully investigated in open court.'" 



To this statement Herr Lipke added that the three little girls, when 

 first examined by the magistrate, professed to have seen not only the 

 Virgin but the devil also, whom they described as "black and white" 

 the German national colors. He said that many Catholic priests 

 with whom he had conversed on " the Marpingen swindle " agreed 

 with him in disapproving it, and he thought the Ultramontanes had 

 not benefited their cause by bringing the subject pefore Parliament. 

 Another speaker on the same side, Judge Sello, admitted that some 

 excesses had been committed by the troops, but the burgomaster who 

 ordered them to clear the wood had been tried and fined in conse- 

 quence. The debate was closed by Dr. Windthorst, the leader of the 

 Ultramontane party, who declined to commit himself to the reality 

 of the miracles, but complained that, as long as the Government kept 



