Fr. Friedrich Spee Von Langenfeld, S.J.

In August of the year 1633 Treves had been delivered over by its governor to the French, and the Jesuits, who were strong Imperialists, had had their schools closed. They were still holding on in a small way as parish priests in their Church of St. Simeon at the Porta Nigra, when, in the beginning of 1635, the Government issued a decree for their expulsion, which was to be carried into effect on the 27th of the ensuing March. It was the night between the 25th and the 26th of March when the Imperialist Graf Von Rettberg, at the head of 1,200 men, managed to effect an entrance, and, after some eight hours of desperate street fighting, found himself master of the town.

During all this time Fr. Friedrich Spee, S.J. was busy among the combatants, doing important service'to friend and foe, carrying the wounded on his shoulders into safe corners where he slaked their thirst, dressed their wounds, and, where it was needed, gave them the last sacraments. Five hundred Frenchmen were slain, and as many more, with their leader, were taken prisoners.

As soon as the battle was over, Fr. Spee hastened to Von Rettberg and prevailed upon him—Heaven knows how, except that Spee was not an easy man to refuse—to grant all the prisoners their liberty. Within a month of the capture of Treves Fr. Spee had the consolation of seeing all the prisoners who were fit to travel well supplied with clothes and money by his charity, and en route for their homes. Many, however, of the -wounded of both sides still lay in hospital, where a pestilence soon added to the difficulty of the situation.

There it was that Fr. Spee at once established himself as confessor, nurse, physician, and general servant, and there he met with his reward; they brought him home to die. He died surrounded by his brethren on the 7th of August, 1635, with no last words that have come down to us, but ' full of hope and happy.'

He lies in the crypt of St. Simeon's Church at Treves, and his epitaph says as much and no more : ' Hier liegt Friederich Spec.'

Link (here) to the full essay on Fr. Fredrick Spee, S.J. entitled A Jesuit Reformer and Poet by Fr. Henry Ignatius Dudley Ryder

FREDERIC VON SPEE, SJ: Cautio Criminalis of Processibus contra seu Sagas. Liber ad magistratus germaniae hoc tempore necessarius auctore Incerbo theologo Romano. Liber ad magistratus Germaniae hoc tempore necessarius auctore Incerbo theologo Romano. Rinthelii 1631. Rinthelii 1631. (here) and (here)
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