 He then turned to break-ins and armed robbery on both sides of the Rhine, which was the border between France and the Holy Roman Empire.The legend of Schinderhannes truly emerged from his escape from a prison tower in Simmern, a market town in the Hunsrück region of the Rhineland.At the time, the west bank of the Rhine was under French occupation, and the peasantry was happy to celebrate anyone who was able to flout the law.