Die Elixiere Des Teufels: Nachgelassene Papiere Des Bruders Medardus, Eines Kapuziners

A novel written in the early 19th century. It is a Gothic, confessional tale framed as the posthumous papers of a Capuchin monk, charting spiritual temptation, pride, visions, and the lure of a diabolical elixir. The story centers on Brother Medardus, whose religious calling collides with unsettling apparitions and a mysterious bottle said to come from the Devil. The opening of the novel sets an editorial frame: an editor in a monastery garden introduces the “papers” of Brother Medardus and invites the reader into his extraordinary life. Medardus then narrates his childhood near the holy shrine of Heilige Linde, early mystical impressions, and the protection of a noble abbess who supports his education; he eventually gravitates to a Capuchin house under the kindly Prior Leonardus. He struggles briefly with sensual temptation, chooses the cloister, becomes a famed preacher, and grows dangerously proud until a ghastly stranger in a violet mantle shatters him mid-sermon. Put in charge of the reliquaries, he learns of a flask from St. Anthony’s legend—the Devil’s “elixir”; a visiting count and tutor uncork it as fine wine, and later, tormented and desperate, Medardus secretly drinks from the bottle at night and feels a sudden, intoxicating resurgence of strength.