[POLITICAL SUICIDE 1836]. Das Castlereaghsche Federmesser und Stähli, der zweite Berner Rathsschreiber. Eine Teufelei als Beitrag zur Geschichte politischer Selbstmörder, begleitet mit einigen Betrachtungen über die Naturgeschichte des Justemilieu. 

S.l. (Switzerland?): s.n., 1836. First Edition. Good. 8vo. 24 pp., complete with the spectacular triple-page folding lithograph plate (image size: 310 x 217 mm). Spine covered with contemporary marbled paper as is the only other copy we have seen, and probably issued thusly by the printer. Even toning and foxing, some staining and signs of use but quite sound. "SUICIDE, SUICIDES, POLITICS, AND A PACT WITH THE DEVIL." THIS MACABRE PAMPHLET - ISSUED ANONYMOUSLY - CONTAINS WHAT WE BELIEVE IS THE ONLY ILLUSTRATION OF A POLITICAL SUICIDE OCCASIONED BY "DEVILRY," WHILE A MAIN POINT OF THE TEXT IS THAT CENTRIST POLITICIANS ARE DOOMED.

Ours is the only copy on the market, and no copy is recorded in Rare Book Hub, which currently lists more than 14 million records in the Rare Book Transaction database. Combined searches in Worldcat and KVK produce no copies outside Switzerland.

The author (likely of Swiss origin) exploits the suicide of Friedrich Stahli, a liberal politician in Bern, as an opportunity to portray the so-called "juste milieu" political movement as a hopeless pact with the Devil. Stahli was the editor of the Berner Volksfreund from 1831-1834 and became a member of the Bern government until he aroused the anger of the progressive party as well as supporters of the national radicals. Stahli is portrayed as a traitor to the people who made a Devil's pact in 1830.

In November 1835 Stahli went missing; after seven days the authorities broke into his locked room where he was found dead, his throat cut with a sharp letter-opener. The official report was suicide but the details remain unclear. Concerning Robert Stewart, Viscount Castlereagh and 2nd Marquess of Londonderry (1769-1822), whose name appears in the title: this unfortunate individual had also killed himself with a letter-opener, likely to ease his depression and the onset of insanity.

The act of suicide, in a literal sense, is actually discussed herein, as is political suicide in a figurative sense. The author includes various reactions in the Swiss press to Stahli's suicide; more than one writer stated that Stahli should indeed go to the Devil, while one foaming extremist exclaimed that "the Devil had denied the people of the right-wing entry into His kingdom, and that the Lord was therefore compelled to send poor homeless people to the moon as a temporary base until the Day of Judgment."

The shocking frontispiece depicts Stahli dreaming his last dream: a rooster and fox are fighting; a monkey and a bear discuss the Constitution of Bern, while rats are dancing below him, thirsting for his warm corpse; we see the Devil whispering in Stahli's ear, and from above a dignitary is lowering on a thread the instrument of his suicide, the infamous letter-knife.

For further biographical details about Stahli, see the Historisches Lexikon der Schweiz.

HIGHLY CURIOUS. (Inventory #: 4283)