This remained for two years her headquarters. Fontaines, half-charlatan, half-dupe, had introduced into his household a prophetess named Marie Gottliebin Kummer whose visions, carefully calculated for her own purposes, became the oracle of the divine mysteries for the baroness. Under this influence she believed more firmly than ever in the approaching millennium and her own mission to proclaim it. Her rank, her reckless charities, and her exuberant eloquence produced a great effect on the simple country folk; and when, in 1809, it was decided to found a colony of the elect in order to wait for the coming of the Lord, many wretched peasants sold or distributed all they possessed and followed the baroness and Fontaines into Württemberg, where the settlement was established at Catharinenplaisir and the château of Bonnigheim, only to be dispersed (May 1) by an unsympathetic government.