Southport Telegraph

A STRANGE PREDICTION VERIFIED.

Conrad II. Emperor of Germany was surnamed the Speyerer, from his great attachment to the city of Speyer. He was the monarch who had the imperial vault erected in the beautiful cathedral of that town, for the deposit of his own remains, those of his successors, or the members of his family who might happen to die on the western side of the Alps, as the inscription over the entrance, still legibly implies. The historians of that period relate the following romantic story as the origin of this vault:

There lived at the Court of the emperor a nobleman by the name of Cain who, having had the misfortune to offend him, fled with his wife into the furthermost recesses of the Black Forest, to escape the vengeance of his irritated master.— There they took up their abode in a miserable and destitute hut. Some time after their flight, as the emperor was hunting in the vicinity of the count's retreat, he was benighted and compelled to seek an asylum in the very dwelling of the man who had so much offended him. The count was abroad at the time, but it so happened that during this very night the countess was delivered of a son in a chamber next to that to which the emperor had retired. Immediately after the birth of this child, he heard a voice emphatically exclaim—Oh! Conrad! this child will be thy son-in-law and heir!' The astonished monarch instantly summoned his two attendants, ordered to get possession of the child, and put it to death. But being more humane than their master, they determined rather to preserve than take away the infant's life, although as a proof of their bloody work, Conrad had ordered him the infant's reeking heart. The servants stole the child from the countess' chamber and left the hovel, as if having the intention to kill it. Close to the door of the hut there happened to be a quantity of game that had been killed at the hut the preceding day, at the sight of which the humane servants thought of a stratagem to deceive their cruel master. They ripped out the heart from the body of a hare, and brought it to the king, who, being more of a monster than an anatomist, mistook it for the heart of his victim, and expressed his approbation and delight at their promptitude in despatching a creature which, he had been foretold, would be his son and successor, in the meantime the infant had been put under a tree by the attendants until their return, but during their absence, Herman Duke of Suabia, passing by, and hearing the baby's screams, took compassion on its neglected state, had it removed to his house and adopted as his own.
Many years after, when the child was verging on manhood, the emperor paid a visit to the duke. The young count's interesting appearance attracted his attention, and upon his inquiring who he was, Herman related the singular manner by which he had come by him. Suspicion immediately entered the emperor's mind;— but he concealed his alarm, and pretending he had taken an extraordinary interest in his youth desired the duke to send him over to him as he would appoint him as one of his pages. Though the duke loved young Cain almost as if he had been his own child, he could not refuse the emperor's demand, but suffered him to depart with his sovereign in the quality of his page. On arriving at his residence in Suabia, the emperor immediately summoned the two servants to his presence, whom he had, eighteen years before, commissioned to destroy the infant in the Black Forest, in order to elicit from them more positive proofs of the count's identity. The two men, consternated at the king's demand, fell upon their knees and confessed the manner in which they had imposed upon him; but at the same time declaring that if it was their sovereign's will that they should die for what they had done, they would rather submit to the worst of deaths than exist as murderers. The angry monarch dismissed them from his presence, there being no longer any doubt relative to the Count's birth: but his mind was no longer in peace, for the prophecy returned with renewed force, and he determined that the object of his alarm and hatred should not this time escape him. In consequence he despatched him to the empress, who was then residing at Aix-la-Chapelle, with a letter containing this terrible injunction. 'As you set a value upon your life, see that the bearer of this be secretly and speedily destroyed.' The traveller's way lay over Speyer: where, on his arrival, he lodged, according to the order he had received, in the house of the dean of the cathedral, who was a most worthy pillar of the church but, fortunately for the young Count, his spiritual occupations were not altogether so important as to deprive him of much time to satisfy his worldly curiosity, which was more than usually excited on the arrival of the emperor's page bearing despatches to the queen, an event of not every day occurrence. He sounded the Count about the importance of his mission, but in the answers he was much disappointed, and rather served to increase his inquisitiveness than otherwise: and, whilst he was exhausting his interrogatory resources, and drawing largely upon his patience, the over-wearied traveller fell asleep. Then the excited dean, not able to resist any longer the impulses of his feelings and the favor of the moment: went to the boy, drew the letter out from the folds of his dress where it was concealed, and with a trembling hand broke the imperial seal. As he finished perusing its contents, he turned, with tears in his eyes, upon the innocent victim of his sovereign's cruelty, convinced that he had committed no crime to merit such a death, (for the guilty could not sleep as the count then slept, and resolved to avert the fate that menaced him. By the alteration of a few letters he changed the sense of the cruel order to the queen to this: As you set a value upon your life, see that the bearer be secretly and speedily married to your daughter." The good dean then consigned the letter back to its deposit, soon after which the page awoke, and departed for Aix-la-Chapelle, where, not long after his arrival he was married to the emperor's daughter.

When the emperor heard of this he was astonished and dismayed: but when he also discovered that his daughter's husband was the count Cain's son, he became reconciled to what had happened, and made him co-regent in the government thus fulfilling the prophecy that had been told of him in the hut of the Black Forest. Out of gratitude to the Dean of Speyer, who had prevented him from shedding innocent blood, he made him his chancellor, and founded the imperial vault within the precincts of the Speyer Minister.