Walter Alison Phillips

“ Her rank, her reckless charities, and her exuberant eloquence produced a great effect on the simple country folk; and when, in 1809, it was decided to found a colony of the “elect” in order to wait for “the coming of the Lord,” many wretched peasants sold or distributed all they possessed and followed the baroness and Fontaines into Württemberg, where the settlement was established at Catharinenplaisir and the château of Bönnigheim, only to be dispersed (May 1) by an unsympathetic government. ”

“ Under the influence of the pietistic movement the belief was widely spread, in royal courts, in country parsonages, in peasants’ hovels: a man would be raised up “from the north ... from the rising of the sun” (Isa. xli. 25) ; Antichrist would be overthrown, and Christ would come to reign a thousand years upon the earth. The interview determined the direction of the baroness’s religious development. ”

“ The shock overset her not too well balanced mind; she sought for consolation, and found it in the ministrations of her shoemaker, an ardent disciple of the Moravian Brethren. Though she had “found peace,” however, the disorder of her nerves continued, and she was ordered by her doctor to the baths of Wiesbaden. At Königsberg she had an interview with Queen Louise, and, more important still, with one Adam Müller, a rough peasant, to whom the Lord had revealed a prophetic mission to King Frederick William III. “Chiliasm” was in the air. Napoleon was evidently Antichrist ”

“ The tsar, however, offended by her indiscretions and sensible of the ridicule which his relations with her had brought upon him, showed little disposition to hurry her arrival. She remained in Switzerland, where she presently fell under the influence of an unscrupulous adventurer named J. G. Kellner. For months Empeytaz, an honest enthusiast, struggled to save her from this man’s clutches, but in vain. Kellner too well knew how to flatter the baroness’s inordinate vanity: the author of the Holy Alliance could be none other than the “woman clothed with the sun” of Rev. ”