Charles Louis Schulmeister (Karl Ludwig Schulmeister), born August 5, 1770 in Neufreistett in Baden and died May 8, 1853 in Strasbourg-Meinau, remained famous for his career as a spy in the pay of Napoleon I.
The smuggler
He is the son of a sub-intendant who made him join the hussars of Conflans at the age of 15, which he left almost immediately to complete his studies. In 1788, he was an actuary (secretary in charge of drafting public acts) at the bailiwick of Kork, on the right bank of the Rhine. He only stays there for a short time and then devotes himself to farming. In 1792, he married the daughter of the director of the mines of Sainte-Marie-aux-Mines.
Taking advantage of the troubles in France, he engaged in smuggling, a profitable but dangerous activity. He practices it on a large scale, thus founding the beginning of his fortune. In 1800, he opened a factory but his activities as a smuggler led him to espionage activities on the Rhine and in Germany sporadically. It was not until 1804 that he devoted himself to it exclusively.
The spy
Schulmeister was presented in Paris in 1804 by aide-de-camp Jean Rapp, a compatriot, to Napoleon. There he received a rank in the army and was attached to Savary. Fine, cunning, and totally devoted to Napoleon, Schulmeister becomes one of the most skilful and discreet agents of the imperial police. He is thus charged with missions of confidence that have remained mysterious.
At the start of the 1805 campaign, when the Austrian general Karl Mack was besieged in Ulm, he entered it through a postern in disguise and met Mack on several occasions posing as a Hungarian. These encounters would be the cause of Mack's inexplicable surrender after the Battle of Ulm. He leads Mack to believe in a coup to overthrow Napoleon and tricks him into believing that Napoleon's armies will soon be gone. He has a fake copy of a newspaper made to convince her. Thus, Mack can he stay in Ulm while waiting for his allies, which constitutes a military fault that Mack will pay dearly. In another mission, he is captured by the Austrians who plan to execute him but he manages to escape.
His audacity led him to go so far as to participate in a council of war in the presence of the Emperor of Austria, after having bribed an Austrian general...
After the capture of Vienna, Napoleon appointed him general commissioner of the police of the city, from November 15, 1805 to mid-January 1806, where he ensured order and tranquility throughout the occupation with very small numbers. However, he made the mistake of staying in Vienna while the French troops were leaving. He was thus arrested on March 31, 1806 and remained imprisoned until July 31, 1806.
After the Treaty of Presbourg in 1805, he bought the Domaine de la Canardière in Meinau, south of Strasbourg, where he retired.
The agent in combat
The Prussian campaign called him back to the army where he was given command of a small vanguard corps made up of part of the 1st Hussar Regiment and the 7th Chasseurs à Cheval. After the Battle of Waren, he receives the order to pursue General Usedom and then to seize Wismar. Escorted by seven men, he took the city of Wismar on the night of November 4, 1806, taking fifteen officers and a hundred men who made up the city garrison prisoner. Attacked by a squadron of hussars, he manages to push them back. The next day, Savary, at the head of fifty men and a good artillery, marched against the three thousand strong Usedom corps which surrendered almost without a fight.
From Wismar, Schulmeister seizes, with twenty-five hussars, Rostock where he finds eighteen ships in the port. The cunning, the seduction that he deployed in other similar cases were decisive, more than brute force. He took part in the siege of Dantzig and after the capitulation of the city, he joined the Grande Armée for the second Polish campaign. He was under Savary's command at the Battle of Friedland where he was wounded (June 14, 1807).
The policeman
The day after the occupation of Koenigsberg, on June 16, 1807, "Monsieur Charles", a name he liked even before the Emperor, was appointed Commissioner General, a position he held until the Treaty of Tilsit. At the interview in Erfurt (September 27 - October 14, 1808), he was responsible for the security of the two sovereigns.
After the surrender of Vienne on May 15, 1809, Andréossy, the new governor of the city, received Napoleon's order to form "a police committee, made up of three members, one from the old police, a Frenchman and another , which we will name. Andréossy proposes to appoint "Mr. Schulmeister general commissioner of the police committee". Thus, on May 18, 1809, the police was entrusted to him a second time, a task he assumed with modesty, wisdom and talent.
At the peace of Vienna, he officially retired to Strasbourg but continued his secret activities by frequent trips abroad under cover of his business.
The risks of the job
Under the First Restoration, he kept his contacts active and plotted for the return of the Emperor. After March 20, 1815, he still carried out missions for the Emperor during the Hundred Days. But this earned him notice from the powers of the Congress of Vienna who put him under surveillance.
During one of his trips, Blücher had him arrested by trickery on July 27, 1815. He was imprisoned for a few months, but the judicial investigation against him was finally abandoned. Released in November 1815, he returned to Paris and now divided his time between Paris, Strasbourg and the countryside.
Retirement
Withdrawn from public affairs, he organized sumptuous parties at his Boissy-Saint-Léger estate. His fortune allows him to be a friend of the needy and a sponsor of the Beaux-Arts. But his fortune was spent when he died on May 8, 1853. He was buried in the Saint-Urbain cemetery in Strasbourg without having received the Legion of Honor that he so wanted and that Napoleon refused him.