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Now it was the custom of the Landschaftscollegium, or provincial board under whose jurisdiction this institution was placed, to CLEAR OUT the Kassengewolbe from time to time whenever it was found to be inconveniently crowded and by this means to make way for other deceased persons and more louis d'or.
In the month of March Schwabe was dismayed at hearing that the Landschaftscollegium had decreed a speedy 'clearing out' of the Gewolbe. His old prompt way of acting had not left him; he went at once to his friend Weyland, the president of the Collegium. 'Friend Weyland, he said, 'let not the dust of Schiller be tossed up in the face of heaven and flung into that hideous hole!
On such occasions when the Landschaftscollegium gave the order 'aufzuraumen, it was the usage to dig a hole in a corner of the churchyard then to bring up en masse the contents of the Kassengewolbe coffins, whether entire or in fragments, bones, skulls, and tattered graveclothes and finally to shovel the whole heap into the aforesaid pit.
After this the secretary of the Landschaftscollegium was requested to read aloud from the records of the said board the names of such persons as had been interred shortly before and after the year 1805. This being done, the gravedigger Bielke remarked that the coffins no longer lay in the order in which they had originally been placed, but had been displaced at recent burials.
The result was surprising. Without an exception they pointed to the same skull as that which must have been the poet's. The only remaining chance of mistake seemed to be the possibility of other skulls having eluded the search, and being yet in the vault. To put this to rest, Schwabe applied to the Landschaftscollegium, in whose records was kept a list of all persons buried in the Kassengewolbe.
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