Source note

HERMANN, a Nuremberg merchant who commanded a free company enlisted against the French, in October, 1799. Was arrested and thrown into a prison of Andernach, where he had for fellow-prisoner, Prosper Magnan, a young assistant surgeon, native of Beauvais, Oise. Hermann thus learned the terrible secret of an unjust detention followed by an execution equally unjust. Many years after, in Paris, he told the story of the martyrdom of Magnan in the presence of F. Taillefer, the unpunished author of the dual crime which had caused the imprisonment and death of an innocent man. [The Red Inn.]