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Title: The Life and Adventures of Baron Trenck, Volume 2

Author: Freiherr von der Friedrich Trenck

Editor: Henry Morley

Translator: Thomas Holcroft

Release date: June 1, 2001 [eBook #2669]
                Most recently updated: October 16, 2007

Language: English

Credits: Transcribed from the 1886 Cassell & Co. edition by David Price, proofed by Kenyon, Uzma G., Marie Gilham, L. F. Smith and David


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF BARON TRENCK, VOLUME 2 ***




Transcribed from the 1886 Cassell & Co. edition by David Price, email
ccx074@pglaf.org, proofed by Kenyon, Uzma G., Marie Gilham, L. F. Smith
and David.





THE
LIFE AND ADVENTURES
OF
BARON TRENCK


TRANSLATED BY
THOMAS HOLCROFT.

VOL. II.

CASSELL & COMPANY, LIMITED:
_LONDON_, _PARIS, NEW YORK & MELBOURNE_.
1886.




INTRODUCTION.


Thomas Holcroft, the translator of these Memoirs of Baron Trenck, was the
author of about thirty plays, among which one, _The Road to Ruin_,
produced in 1792, has kept its place upon the stage.  He was born in
December, 1745, the son of a shoemaker who did also a little business in
horse-dealing.  After early struggles, during which he contrived to learn
French, German, and Italian, Holcroft contributed to a newspaper, turned
actor, and wrote plays, which appeared between the years 1791 and 1806.
He produced also four novels, the first in 1780, the last in 1807.  He
was three times married, and lost his first wife in 1790.  In 1794, his
sympathy with ideals of the French revolutionists caused him to be
involved with Hardy, Horne Tooke, and Thelwall, in a charge of high
treason; but when these were acquitted, Holcroft and eight others were
discharged without trial.

Holcroft earned also by translation.  He translated, besides these
Memoirs of Baron Trenck, Mirabeau's _Secret History of the Court of
Berlin_, _Les Veillees du Chateau_ of Madame de Genlis, and the
posthumous works of Frederick II., King of Prussia, in thirteen volumes.

The Memoirs of Baron Trenck were first published at Berlin as his
_Merkwurdige Lebensbeschreibung_, in three volumes octavo, in 1786 and
1787.  They were first translated into French by Baron Bock (Metz, 1787);
more fully by Letourneur (Paris, 1788); and again by himself (Strasbourg,
1788), with considerable additions.  Holcroft translated from the French
versions.

H.M.




CHAPTER I.


Blessed shade of a beloved sister!  The sacrifice of my adverse and
dreadful fate!  Thee could I never avenge!  Thee could the blood of
Weingarten never appease!  No asylum, however sacred, should have secured
him, had he not sought that last of asylums for human wickedness and
human woes--the grave!  To thee do I dedicate these few pages, a tribute
of thankfulness; and, if future rewards there are, may the brightest of
these rewards be thine.  For us, and not for ours, may rewards be
expected from monarchs who, in apathy, have beheld our mortal sufferings.
Rest, noble soul, murdered though thou wert by the enemies of thy
brother.  Again my blood boils, again my tears roll down my cheeks, when
I remember thee, thy sufferings in my cause, and thy untimely end!  I
knew it not; I sought to thank thee; I found thee in the grave; I would
have made retribution to thy children, but unjust, iron-hearted princes
had deprived me of the power.  Can the virtuous heart conceive affliction
more cruel?  My own ills I would have endured with magnanimity; but thine
are wrongs I have neither the power to forget nor heal.

Enough of this.--

The worthy Emperor, Francis I., shed tears when I afterwards had the
honour of relating to him in person my past miseries; I beheld them flow,
and gratitude threw me at his feet.  His emotion was so great that he
tore himself away.  I left the palace with all the enthusiasm of soul
which such a scene must inspire.

He probably would have done more than pitied me, but his death soon
followed.  I relate this incident to convince posterity that Francis I.
possessed a heart worthy an emperor, worthy a man.  In the knowledge I
have had of monarchs he stands alone.  Frederic and Theresa both died
without doing me justice; I am now too old, too proud, have too much
apathy, to expect it from their successors.  Petition I will not, knowing
my rights; and justice from courts of law, however evident my claims,
were in these courts vain indeed to expect.  Lawyers and advocates I know
but too well, and an army to support my rights I have not.

What heart that can feel but will pardon me these digressions!  At the
exact and simple recital of facts like these, the whole man must be
roused, and the philosopher himself shudder.

Once more:--I heard nothing of what had happened for some days; at
length, however, it was the honest Gelfhardt's turn to mount guard; but
the ports being doubled, and two additional grenadiers placed before my
door, explanation was exceedingly difficult.  He, however, in spite of
precaution, found means to inform me of what had happened to his two
unfortunate comrades.

The King came to a review at Magdeburg, when he visited Star-Fort, and
commanded a new cell to be immediately made, prescribing himself the kind
of irons by which I was to be secured.  The honest Gelfhardt heard the
officer say this cell was meant for me, and gave me notice of it, but
assured me it could not be ready in less than a month.  I therefore
determined, as soon as possible, to complete my breach in the wall, and
escape without the aid of any one.  The thing was possible; for I had
twisted the hair of my mattress into a rope, which I meant to tie to a
cannon, and descend the rampart, after which I might endeavour to swim
across the Elbe, gain the Saxon frontiers, and thus safely escape.

On the 26th of May I had determined to break into the next casemate; but
when I came to work at the bricks, I found them so hard and strongly
cemented that I was obliged to defer the labour till the following day.  I
left off, weary and spent, at daybreak, and should any one enter my
dungeon, they must infallibly discover the breach.  How dreadful is the
destiny by which, through life, I have been persecuted, and which has
continually plunged me headlong into calamity, when I imagined happiness
was at hand!

The 27th of May was a cruel day in the history of my life.  My cell in
the Star-Fort had been finished sooner than Gelfhardt had supposed; and
at night, when I was preparing to fly, I heard a carriage stop before my
prison.  O God! what was my terror, what were the horrors of this moment
of despair!  The locks and bolts resounded, the doors flew open, and the
last of my poor remaining resources was to conceal my knife.  The town-
major, the major of the day, and a captain entered; I saw them by the
light of their two lanterns.  The only words they spoke were, "Dress
yourself," which was immediately done.  I still wore the uniform of the
regiment of Cordova.  Irons were given me, which I was obliged myself to
fasten on my wrists and ankles; the town-major tied a bandage over my
eyes, and, taking me under the arm, they thus conducted me to the
carriage.  It was necessary to pass through the city to arrive at the
Star-Fort; all was silent, except the noise of the escort; but when we
entered Magdeburg I heard the people running, who were crowding together
to obtain a sight of me.  Their curiosity was raised by the report that I
was going to be beheaded.  That I was executed on this occasion in the
Star-Fort, after having been conducted blindfold through the city, has
since been both affirmed and written; and the officers had then orders to
propagate this error that the world might remain in utter ignorance
concerning me.  I, indeed, knew otherwise, though I affected not to have
this knowledge; and, as I was not gagged, I behaved as if I expected
death, reproached my conductors in language that even made them shudder,
and painted their King in his true colours, as one who, unheard, had
condemned an innocent subject by a despotic exertion of power.

My fortitude was admired, at the moment when it was supposed I thought
myself leading to execution.  No one replied, but their sighs intimated
their compassion; certain it is, few Prussians willingly execute such
commands.  The carriage at length stopped, and I was brought into my new
cell.  The bandage was taken from my eyes.  The dungeon was lighted by a
few torches.  God of heaven! what were my feelings when I beheld the
whole floor covered with chains, a fire-pan, and two grim men standing
with their smiths' hammers!

* * * * *

To work went these engines of despotism!  Enormous chains were fixed to
my ankle at one end, and at the other to a ring which was incorporated in
the wall.  This ring was three feet from the ground, and only allowed me
to move about two or three feet to the right and left.  They next riveted
another huge iron ring, of a hand's breadth, round my naked body, to
which hung a chain, fixed into an iron bar as thick as a man's arm.  This
bar was two feet in length, and at each end of it was a handcuff.  The
iron collar round my neck was not added till the year 1756.

* * * * *

No soul bade me good night.  All retired in dreadful silence; and I heard
the horrible grating of four doors, that were successively locked and
bolted upon me!

Thus does man act by his fellow, knowing him to be innocent, having
received the commands of another man so to act.

O God!  Thou alone knowest how my heart, void as it was of guilt, beat at
this moment.  There sat I, destitute, alone, in thick darkness, upon the
bare earth, with a weight of fetters insupportable to nature, thanking
Thee that these cruel men had not discovered my knife, by which my
miseries might yet find an end.  Death is a last certain refuge that can
indeed bid defiance to the rage of tyranny.  What shall I say?  How shall
I make the reader feel as I then felt?  How describe my despondency, and
yet account for that latent impulse that withheld my hand on this fatal,
this miserable night?

This misery I foresaw was not of short duration; I had heard of the wars
that were lately broken out between Austria and Prussia.  Patiently to
wait their termination, amid sufferings and wretchedness such as mine,
appeared impossible, and freedom even then was doubtful.  Sad experience
had I had of Vienna, and well I knew that those who had despoiled me of
my property most anxiously would endeavour to prevent my return.  Such
were my meditations! such my night thoughts!  Day at length returned; but
where was its splendour?  Fled!  I beheld it not; yet was its glimmering
obscurity sufficient to show me what was my dungeon.

In breadth it was about eight feet; in length, ten.  Near me once more
stood a night-table; in a corner was a seat, four bricks broad, on which
I might sit, and recline against the wall.  Opposite the ring to which I
was fastened, the light was admitted through a semi-circular aperture,
one foot high, and two in diameter.  This aperture ascended to the centre
of the wall, which was six feet thick, and at this central part was a
close iron grating, from which, outward, the aperture descended, and its
two extremities were again secured by strong iron bars.  My dungeon was
built in the ditch of the fortification, and the aperture by which the
light entered was so covered by the wall of the rampart that, instead of
finding immediate passage, the light only gained admission by reflection.
This, considering the smallness of the aperture, and the impediments of
grating and iron bars, must needs make the obscurity great; yet my eyes,
in time, became so accustomed to this glimmering that I could see a mouse
run.  In winter, however, when the sun did not shine into the ditch, it
was eternal night with me.  Between the bars and the grating was a glass
window, most curiously formed, with a small central casement, which might
be opened to admit the air.  My night-table was daily removed, and beside
me stood a jug of water.  The name of TRENCK was built in the wall, in
red brick, and under my feet was a tombstone with the name of TRENCK also
cut on it, and carved with a death's head.  The doors to my dungeon were
double, of oak, two inches thick; without these was an open space or
front cell, in which was a window, and this space was likewise shut in by
double doors.  The ditch, in which this dreadful den was built, was
enclosed on both sides by palisades, twelve feet high, the key of the
door of which was entrusted to the officer of the guard, it being the
King's intention to prevent all possibility of speech or communication
with the sentinels.  The only motion I had the power to make was that of
jumping upward, or swinging my arms to procure myself warmth.  When more
accustomed to these fetters, I became capable of moving from side to
side, about four feet; but this pained my shin-bones.

The cell had been finished with lime and plaster but eleven days, and
everybody supposed it would be impossible I should exist in these damps
above a fortnight.  I remained six months, continually immersed in very
cold water, that trickled upon me from the thick arches under which I
was; and I can safely affirm that, for the first three months, I was
never dry; yet did I continue in health.  I was visited daily, at noon,
after relieving guard, and the doors were then obliged to be left open
for some minutes, otherwise the dampness of the air put out their
candles.

This was my situation, and here I sat, destitute of friends, helplessly
wretched, preyed on by all the torture of thought that continually
suggested the most gloomy, the most horrid, the most dreadful of images.
My heart was not yet wholly turned to stone; my fortitude was sunken to
despondency; my dungeon was the very cave of despair; yet was my arm
restrained, and this excess of misery endured.

How then may hope be wholly eradicated from the heart of man?  My
fortitude, after some time, began to revive; I glowed with the desire of
convincing the world I was capable of suffering what man had never
suffered before; perhaps of at last emerging from this load of
wretchedness triumphant over my enemies.  So long and ardently did my
fancy dwell on this picture, that my mind at length acquired a heroism
which Socrates himself certainly never possessed.  Age had benumbed his
sense of pleasure, and he drank the poisonous draught with cool
indifference; but I was young, inured to high hopes, yet now beholding
deliverance impossible, or at an immense, a dreadful distance.  Such,
too, were the other sufferings of soul and body, I could not hope they
might be supported and live.

About noon my den was opened.  Sorrow and compassion were painted on the
countenances of my keepers.  No one spoke; no one bade me good morrow.
Dreadful indeed was their arrival; for, unaccustomed to the monstrous
bolts and bars, they were kept resounding for a full half-hour before
such soul-chilling, such hope-murdering impediments were removed.  It was
the voice of tyranny that thundered.

My night-table was taken out, a camp-bed, mattress, and blankets were
brought me; a jug of water set down, and beside it an ammunition loaf of
six pounds' weight.  "That you may no more complain of hunger," said the
town-major, "you shall have as much bread as you can eat."  The door was
shut, and I again left to my thoughts.

What a strange thing is that called happiness!  How shall I express my
extreme joy when, after eleven months of intolerable hunger, I was again
indulged with a full feast of coarse ammunition bread?  The fond lover
never rushed more eagerly to the arias of his expecting bride, the
famished tiger more ravenously on his prey, than I upon this loaf.  I
ate, rested; surveyed the precious morsel; ate again; and absolutely shed
tears of pleasure.  Breaking bit after bit, I had by evening devoured all
my loaf.

Oh, Nature! what delight hast thou combined with the gratification of thy
wants!  Remember this, ye who gorge, ye who rack invention to excite
appetite, and yet which you cannot procure!  Remember how simple are the
means that will give a crust of mouldy bread a flavour more exquisite
than all the spices of the East, or all the profusion of land or sea!
Remember this, grow hungry, and indulge your sensuality.

Alas! my enjoyment was of short duration.  I soon found that excess is
followed by pain and repentance.  My fasting had weakened digestion, and
rendered it inactive.  My body swelled, my water-jug was emptied; cramps,
colics, and at length inordinate thirst racked me all the night.  I began
to pour curses on those who seemed to refine on torture, and, after
starving me so long, to invite me to gluttony.  Could I not have reclined
on my bed, I should indeed have been driven, this night, to desperation;
yet even this was but a partial relief; for, not yet accustomed to my
enormous fetters, I could not extend myself in the same manner I was
afterwards taught to do by habit.  I dragged them, however, so together
as to enable me to sit down on the bare mattress.  This, of all my nights
of suffering, stands foremost.  When they opened my dungeon next day they
found me in a truly pitiable situation, wondered at my appetite, brought
me another loaf; I refused to accept it, believing I nevermore should
have occasion for bread; they, however, left me one, gave me water,
shrugged up their shoulders, wished me farewell, as, according to all
appearance, they never expected to find me alive, and shut all the doors,
without asking whether I wished or needed further assistance.

Three days had passed before I could again eat a morsel of bread; and my
mind, brave in health, now in a sick body became pusillanimous, so that I
determined on death.  The irons, everywhere round my body, and their
weight, were insupportable; nor could I imagine it was possible I should
habituate myself to them, or endure them long enough to expect
deliverance.  Peace was a very distant prospect.  The King had commanded
that such a prison should be built as should exclude all necessity of a
sentinel, in order that I might not converse with and seduce them from
what is called their duty: and, in the first days of despair, deliverance
appeared impossible; and the fetters, the war, the pain I felt, the
place, the length of time, each circumstance seemed equally impossible to
support.  A thousand reasons convinced me it was necessary to end my
sufferings.  I shall not enter into theological disputes: let those who
blame me imagine themselves in my situation; or rather let them first
actually endure my miseries, and then let them reason.  I had often
braved death in prosperity, and at this moment it seemed a blessing.

Full of these meditations, every minute's patience appeared absurdity,
and resolution meanness of soul; yet I wished my mind should be satisfied
that reason, and not rashness, had induced the act.  I therefore
determined, that I might examine the question coolly, to wait a week
longer, and die on the fourth of July.  In the meantime I revolved in my
mind what possible means there were of escape, not fearing, naked and
chained, to rush and expire on the bayonets of my enemies.

The next day I observed, as the four doors were opened, that they were
only of wood, therefore questioned whether I might not even cut off the
locks with the knife that I had so fortunately concealed: and should this
and every other means fail, then would be the time to die.  I likewise
determined to make an attempt to free myself of my chains.  I happily
forced my right hand through the handcuff, though the blood trickled from
my nails.  My attempts on the left were long ineffectual; but by rubbing
with a brick, which I got from my seat, on the rivet that had been
negligently closed, I effected this also.

The chain was fastened to the run round my body by a hook, one end of
which was not inserted in the rim; therefore, by setting my foot against
the wall, I had strength enough so far to bend this hook back, and open
it, as to force out the link of the chain.  The remaining difficulty was
the chain that attached my foot to the wall: the links of this I took,
doubled, twisted, and wrenched, till at length, nature having bestowed on
me great strength, I made a desperate effort, sprang forcibly up, and two
links at once flew off.

Fortunate, indeed, did I think myself: I hastened to the door, groped in
the dark to find the clinkings of the nails by which the lock was
fastened, and discovered no very large piece of wood need be cut.
Immediately I went to work with my knife, and cut through the oak door to
find its thickness, which proved to be only one inch, therefore it was
possible to open all the four doors in four-and-twenty hours.

Again hope revived in my heart.  To prevent detection I hastened to put
on my chains; but, O God! what difficulties had I to surmount!  After
much groping about, I at length found the link that had flown off; this I
hid: it being my good fortune hitherto to escape examination, as the
possibility of ridding myself of such chains was in nowise suspected.  The
separated iron links I tied together with my hair ribbon; but when I
again endeavoured to force my hand into the ring, it was so swelled that
every effort was fruitless.  The whole might was employed upon the rivet,
but all labour was in vain.

Noon was the hour of visitation, and necessity and danger again obliged
me to attempt forcing my hand in, which at length, after excruciating
torture, I effected.  My visitors came, and everything had the appearance
of order.  I found it, however, impossible to force out my right hand
while it continued swelled.

I therefore remained quiet till the day fixed, and on the determined
fourth of July, immediately as my visitors had closed the doors upon me,
I disencumbered myself of my irons, took my knife, and began my Herculean
labour on the door.  The first of the double doors that opened inwards
was conquered in less than an hour; the other was a very different task.
The lock was soon cut round, but it opened outwards; there was therefore
no other means left but to cut the whole door away above the bar.

Incessant and incredible labour made this possible, though it was the
more difficult as everything was to be done by feeling, I being totally
in the dark; the sweat dropped, or rather flowed, from my body; my
fingers were clotted in my own blood, and my lacerated hands were one
continued wound.

Daylight appeared: I clambered over the door that was half cut away, and
got up to the window in the space or cell that was between the double
doors, as before described.  Here I saw my dungeon was in the ditch of
the first rampart: before me I beheld the road from the rampart, the
guard but fifty paces distant, and the high palisades that were in the
ditch, and must be scaled before I could reach the rampart.  Hope grew
stronger; my efforts were redoubled.  The first of the next double doors
was attacked, which likewise opened inward, and was soon conquered.  The
sun set before I had ended this, and the fourth was to be cut away as the
second had been.  My strength failed; both my hands were raw; I rested
awhile, began again, and had made a cut of a foot long, when my knife
snapped, and the broken blade dropped to the ground!

God of Omnipotence! what was I at this moment?  Was there, God of
Mercies! was there ever creature of Thine more justified than I in
despair?  The moon shone very clear; I cast a wild and distracted look up
to heaven, fell on my knees, and in the agony of my soul sought comfort:
but no comfort could be found; nor religion nor philosophy had any to
give.  I cursed not Providence, I feared not annihilation, I dared not
Almighty vengeance; God the Creator was the disposer of my fate; and if
He heaped afflictions upon me He had not given me strength to support,
His justice would not therefore punish me.  To Him, the Judge of the
quick and dead, I committed my soul, seized the broken knife, gashed
through the veins of my left arm and foot, sat myself tranquilly down,
and saw the blood flow.  Nature, overpowered fainted, and I know not how
long I remained, slumbering, in this state.  Suddenly I heard my own
name, awoke, and again heard the words, "Baron Trenck!"  My answer was,
"Who calls?"  And who indeed was it--who but my honest grenadier
Gelfhardt--my former faithful friend in the citadel!  The good, the kind
fellow had got upon the rampart, that he might comfort me.

"How do you do?" said Gelfhardt.  "Weltering in my blood," answered I;
"to-morrow you will find me dead."--"Why should you die?" replied he.  "It
is much easier for you to escape here than from the citadel!  Here is no
sentinel, and I shall soon find means to provide you with tools; if you
can only break out, leave the rest to me.  As often as I am on guard, I
will seek opportunity to speak to you.  In the whole Star-Fort, there are
but two sentinels: the one at the entrance, and the other at the guard-
house.  Do not despair; God will succour you; trust to me."  The good
man's kindness and discourse revived my hopes: I saw the possibility of
an escape.  A secret joy diffused itself through my soul.  I immediately
tore my shirt, bound up my wounds, and waited the approach of day; and
the sun soon after shone through the window, to me, with unaccustomed
brightness.

Let the reader judge how far it was chance, or the effect of Divine
providence, that in this dreadful hour my heart again received hope.  Who
was it sent the honest Gelfhardt, at such a moment, to my prison?  For,
had it not been for him, I had certainly, when I awoke from my slumbers,
cut more effectually through my arteries.

Till noon I had time to consider what might further be done: yet what
could be done, what expected, but that I should now be much more cruelly
treated, and even more insupportably ironed than before--finding, as they
must, the doors cut through and my fetters shaken off?

After mature consideration, I therefore made the following resolution,
which succeeded happily, and even beyond my hopes.  Before I proceed,
however, I will speak a few words concerning my situation at this moment.
It is impossible to describe how much I was exhausted.  The prison swam
with blood; and certainly but little was left in my body.  With painful
wounds, swelled and torn hands, I there stood shirtless, felt an
inclination to sleep almost irresistible, and scarcely had strength to
keep my legs, yet was I obliged to rouse myself, that I might execute my
plan.

With the bar that separated my hands, I loosened the bricks of my seat,
which, being newly laid, was easily done, and heaped them up in the
middle of my prison.  The inner door was quite open, and with my chains I
so barricaded the upper half of the second as to prevent any one climbing
over it.  When noon came and the first of the doors was unlocked, all
were astonished to find the second open.  There I stood, besmeared with
blood, the picture of horror, with a brick in one hand, and in the other
my broken knife, crying, as they approached, "Keep off, Mr. Major, keep
off!  Tell the governor I will live no longer in chains, and that here I
stand, if so he pleases, to be shot; for so only will I be conquered.
Here no man shall enter--I will destroy all that approach; here are my
weapons; lucre will I die in despite of tyranny."  The major was
terrified, wanted resolution, and made his report to the governor.  I
meantime sat down on my bricks, to wait what might happen: my secret
intent, however, was not so desperate as it appeared.  I sought only to
obtain a favourable capitulation.

The governor, General Borck, presently came, attended by the town-major
and some officers, and entered the outward cell, but sprang back the
moment he beheld a figure like me, standing with a brick and uplifted
arm.  I repeated what I had told the major, and he immediately ordered
six grenadiers to force the door.  The front cell was scarcely six feet
broad, so that no more than two at a time could attack my intrenchment,
and when they saw my threatening bricks ready to descend, they leaped
terrified back.  A short pause ensued, and the old town-major, with the
chaplain, advanced towards the door to soothe me: the conversation
continued some time: whose reasons were most satisfactory, and whose
cause was the most just, I leave to the reader.  The governor grew angry,
and ordered a fresh attack.  The first grenadier was knocked down, and
the rest ran back to avoid my missiles.

The town-major again began a parley.  "For God's sake, my dear Trenck,"
said he, "in what have I injured you, that you endeavour to effect my
ruin?  I must answer for your having, through my negligence, concealed a
knife.  Be persuaded, I entreat you.  Be appeased.  You are not without
hope, nor without friends."  My answer was--"But will you not load me
with heavier irons than before?"

He went out, spoke with the governor, and gave me his word of honour that
the affair should be no further noticed, and that everything should be
exactly reinstated as formerly.

Here ended the capitulation, and my wretched citadel was taken.  The
condition I was in was viewed with pity; my wounds were examined, a
surgeon sent to dress them, another shirt was given me, and the bricks,
clotted with blood, removed.  I, meantime, lay half dead on my mattress;
my thirst was excessive.  The surgeon ordered me some wine.  Two
sentinels were stationed in the front cell, and I was thus left four days
in peace, unironed.  Broth also was given me daily, and how delicious
this was to taste, how much it revived and strengthened me, is wholly
impossible to describe.  Two days I lay in a slumbering kind of trance,
forced by unquenchable thirst to drink whenever I awoke.  My feet and
hands were swelled; the pains in my back and limbs were excessive.

On the fifth day the doors were ready; the inner was entirely plated with
iron, and I was fettered as before: perhaps they found further cruelty
unnecessary.  The principal chain, however, which fastened me to the
wall, like that I had before broken, was thicker than the first.  Except
this, the capitulation was strictly kept.  They deeply regretted that,
without the King's express commands, they could not lighten my
afflictions, wished me fortitude and patience, and barred up my doors.

It is necessary I should here describe my dress.  My hands being fixed
and kept asunder by an iron bar, and my feet chained to the wall, I could
neither put on shirt nor stockings in the usual mode; the shirt was
therefore tied, and changed once a fortnight; the coarse ammunition
stockings were buttoned on the sides; a blue garment, of soldier's cloth,
was likewise tied round me, and I had a pair of slippers for my feet.  The
shirt was of the army linen; and when I contemplated myself in this dress
of a malefactor, chained thus to the wall in such a dungeon, vainly
imploring mercy or justice, my conscience void of reproach, my heart of
guilt--when I reflected on my former splendour in Berlin and Moscow, and
compared it with this sad, this dreadful reverse of destiny, I was sunk
in grief, or roused to indignation, that might have hurried the greatest
hero or philosopher to madness or despair.  I felt what can only be
imagined by him who has suffered like me, after having like me
flourished, if such can be found.

Pride, the justness of my cause, the unbounded confidence I had in my own
resolution, and the labours of an inventive head and iron body--these
only could have preserved my life.  These bodily labours, these continued
inventions, and projected plans to obtain my freedom, preserved my
health.  Who would suppose that a man fettered as I was could find means
of exercising himself?  By swinging my arms, acting with the upper part
of my body, and leaping upwards, I frequently put myself in a strong
perspiration.  After thus wearying myself I slept soundly, and often
thought how many generals, obliged to support the inclemencies of
weather, and all the dangers of the field--how many of those who had
plunged me into this den of misery, would have been most glad could they,
like me, have slept with a quiet conscience.  Often did I reflect how
much happier I was than those tortured on the bed of sickness by gout,
stone, and other terrible diseases.  How much happier was I in innocence
than the malefactor doomed to suffer the pangs of death, the ignominy of
men, and the horrors of internal guilt!




CHAPTER II.


In the following part of my history it will appear I often had much money
concealed under the ground and in the walls of my den, yet would I have
given a hundred ducats for a morsel of bread, it could not have been
procured.  Money was to me useless.  In this I resembled the miser, who
hoards, yet hives in wretchedness, having no joy in gentle acts of
benevolence.  As proudly might I delight myself with my hidden treasure
as such misers; nay, more, for I was secure from robbers.

Had fastidious pomp been my pleasure, I might have imagined myself some
old field-marshal bedridden, who hears two grenadier sentinels at his
door call, "Who goes there?" My honour, indeed, was still greater; for,
during my last year's imprisonment, my door was guarded by no less than
four.  My vanity also might have been flattered: I might hence conclude
how high was the value set upon my head, since all this trouble was taken
to hold me in security.  Certain it is that in my chains I thought more
rationally, more nobly, reasoned more philosophically on man, his nature,
his zeal, his imaginary wants, the effects of his ambition, his passions,
and saw more distinctly his dream of earthly good, than those who had
imprisoned, or those who guarded me.  I was void of the fears that haunt
the parasite who servilely wears the fetters of a court, and daily
trembles for the loss of what vice and cunning have acquired.  Those who
had usurped the Sclavonian estates, and feasted sumptuously from the
service of plate I had been robbed of, never ate their dainties with so
sweet an appetite as I my ammunition bread, nor did their high-flavoured
wines flow so limpid as my cold water.

Thus, the man who thinks, being pure of heart, will find consolation when
under the most dreadful calamities, convinced, as he must be, that those
apparently most are frequently least happy, insensible as they are of the
pleasures they might enjoy.  Evil is never so great as it appears.

   "Sweet are the uses of adversity,
   Which, like the toad, ugly and venomous,
   Wears yet a precious jewel in his head."

   _As you Like it_.

Happy he who, like me, having suffered, can become an example to his
suffering brethren!

YOUTH, prosperous, and imagining eternal prosperity, read my history
attentively, though I should be in my grave!  Read feelingly, and bless
my sleeping dust, if it has taught thee wisdom or fortitude!

FATHER, reading this, say to thy children, I felt thus like them, in
blooming youth, little prophesied of misfortune, which after fell so
heavy on me, and by which I am even still persecuted!  Say that I had
virtue, ambition, was educated in noble principles; that I laboured with
all the zeal of enthusiastic youth to become wiser, better, greater than
other men; that I was guilty of no crimes, was the friend of men, was no
deceiver of man or woman; that I first served my own country faithfully,
and after, every other in which I found bread; that I was never, during
life, once intoxicated; was no gamester, no night rambler, no
contemptible idler; that yet, through envy and arbitrary power, I have
fallen to misery such as none but the worst of criminals ought to feel.

BROTHER, fly those countries where the lawgiver himself knows no law,
where truth and virtue are punished as crimes; and, if fly you cannot, be
it your endeavour to remain unknown, unnoticed; in such countries, seek
not favour or honourable employ, else will you become, when your merits
are known, as I have been, the victim of slander and treachery: the
behests of power will persecute you, and innocence will not shield you
from the shafts of wicked men who are envious, or who wish to obtain the
favour of princes, though by the worst of means.

SIRE, imagine not that thou readest a romance.  My head is grey, like
thine.  Read, yet despise not the world, though it has treated me thus
unthankfully.  Good men have I also found, who have befriended me in
misfortunes, and there, where I had least claim, have I found them most.
May my book assist thee in noble thoughts; mayest thou die as tranquilly
as I shall render up my soul to appear before the Judge of me and my
persecutors.  Be death but thought a transition from motion to rest.  Few
are the delights of this world for him who, like me, has learned to know
it.  Murmur not, despair not of Providence.  Me, through storms, it has
brought to haven; through many griefs to self-knowledge; and through
prisons to philosophy.  He only can tranquilly descend to annihilation
who finds reason not to repent he has once existed.  My rudder broke not
amid the rocks and quicksands, but my bark was cast upon the strand of
knowledge.  Yet, even on these clear shores are impenetrable clouds.  I
have seen more distinctly than it is supposed men ought to see.  Age will
decay the faculties, and mental, like bodily sight, must then decrease.  I
even grew weary of science, and envied the blind-born, or those who, till
death, have been wilfully hoodwinked.  How often have I been asked, "What
didst thou see?"  And when I answered with sincerity and truth, how often
have I been derided as a liar, and been persecuted by those who
determined not to see themselves, as an innovator singular and rash!

Sire, I further say to thee, teach thy descendants to seek the golden
mean, and say with Gellert--"The boy Fritz needs nothing;--his stupidity
will insure his success, Examine our wealthy and titled lords, what are
their abilities and honours, then inquire how they were attained, and, if
thou canst, discover in what true happiness consists."

Once more to my prison.  The failure of my escape, and the recovery of
life from this state of despair, led me to moralise deeper than I had
ever done before; and in this depth of thought I found unexpected
consolation and fortitude, and a firm persuasion I yet should accomplish
my deliverance.

Gelfhardt, my honest grenadier, had infused fresh hope, and my mind now
busily began to meditate new plans.  A sentinel was placed before my
door, that I might be more narrowly watched, and the married men of the
Prussian states were appointed to this duty, who, as I will hereafter
show, were more easy to persuade in aiding my flight than foreign
fugitives.  The Pomeranian will listen, and is by nature kind, therefore
may easily be moved, and induced to succour distress.

I began to be more accustomed to my irons, which I had before found so
insupportable; I could comb out my long hair, and could tie it at last
with one hand.  My beard, which had so long remained unshaven, gave me a
grim appearance, and I began to pluck it up by the roots.  The pain at
first was considerable, especially about the lips; but this also custom
conquered, and I performed this operation in the following years, once in
six weeks, or two months, as the hair thus plucked up required that
length of time before the nails could again get hold.  Vermin did not
molest me; the dampness of my den was inimical to them.  My limbs never
swelled, because of the exercise I gave myself, as before described.  The
greatest pain I found was in the continued unvivifying dimness in which I
lived.

I had read much, had lived in, and seen much of the world.  Vacuity of
thought, therefore, I was little troubled with; the former transactions
of my life, and the remembrance of the persons I had known, I revolved so
often in my mind, that they became as familiar and connected as if the
events had each been written in the order it occurred.  Habit made this
mental exercise so perfect to me, that I could compose speeches, fables,
odes, satires, all of which I repeated aloud, and had so stored my memory
with them that I was enabled, after I had obtained my freedom, to commit
to writing two volumes of my prison labours.  Accustomed to this
exercise, days that would otherwise have been days of misery appeared but
as a moment.  The following narrative will show how munch esteem, how
many friends, these compositions procured me, even in my dungeon;
insomuch that I obtained light, paper, and finally freedom itself.  For
these I have to thank the industrious acquirements of my youth; therefore
do I counsel all my readers so to employ their time.  Riches, honours,
the favours of fortune, may be showered by monarchs upon the most
worthless; but monarchs can give and take, say and unsay, raise and pull
down.  Monarchs, however, can neither give wisdom nor virtue.  Arbitrary
power itself, in the presence of these, is foiled.

How wisely has Providence ordained that the endowments of industry,
learning, and science, given by ourselves, cannot be taken from us;
while, on the contrary, what others bestow is a fantastical dream, from
which any accident may awaken us!  The wrath of Frederic could destroy
legions, and defeat armies; but it could not take from me the sense of
honour, of innocence, and their sweet concomitant, peace of mind--could
not deprive me of fortitude and magnanimity.  I defied his power, rested
on the justice of my cause, found in myself expedients wherewith to
oppose him, was at length crowned with conquest, and came forth to the
world the martyr of suffering virtue.

Some of my oppressors now rot in dishonourable graves.  Others, alas! in
Vienna, remain immured in houses of correction, as Krugel and Zeto, or
beg their bread, like Gravenitz and Doo.  Nor are the wealthy possessors
of my estates more fortunate, but look down with shame wherever I and my
children appear.  We stand erect, esteemed, and honoured, while their
injustice is manifest to the whole world.

Young man, be industrious: for without industry can none of the treasures
I have described be purchased.  Thy labour will reward itself; then, when
assaulted by misfortune, or even misery, learn of me and smile; or,
shouldst thou escape such trials, still labour to acquire wisdom, that in
old age thou mayest find content and happiness.

The years in my dungeon passed away as days, those moments excepted when,
thinking on the great world, and the deeds of great men, my ambition was
roused: except when, contemplating the vileness of my chains, and the
wretchedness of my situation, I laboured for liberty, and found my
labours endless and ineffectual; except while I remembered the triumph of
my enemies, and the splendour in which those lived by whom I had been
plundered.  Then, indeed, did I experience intervals that approached
madness, despair, and horror: beholding myself destitute of friend or
protector, the Empress herself, for whose sake I suffered, deserting me;
reflecting on past times and past prosperity; remembering how the good
and virtuous, from the cruel nature of my punishment, must be obliged to
conclude me a wretch and a villain, and that all means of justification
were cut off: O God!  How did my heart beat! with what violence!  What
would I not have undertaken, in these suffering moments, to have put my
enemies to shame!  Vengeance and rage then rose rebellious against
patience; long-suffering philosophy vanished, and the poisoned cup of
Socrates would have been the nectar of the gods.

Man deprived of hope is man destroyed.  I found but little probability in
all my plans and projects; yet did I trust that some of them should
succeed, yet did I confide in them and my honest Gelfhardt, and that I
should still free myself from my chains.

The greatest of all my incitements to patient endurance was love.  I had
left behind me, in Vienna, a lady for whom the world still was dear to
me; her would I neither desert nor afflict.  To her and my sister was my
existence still necessary.  For their sakes, who had lost and suffered so
much for mine, would I preserve my life; for them no difficulty, no
suffering was too great; yet, alas! when long-desired liberty was
restored, I found them both in their graves.  The joy, for which I had
borne so much, was no more to be tasted.

About three weeks after my attempt to escape, the good Gelfhardt first
came to stand sentinel over me; and the sentinel they had so carefully
set was indeed the only hope I could have of escape; for help must be had
from without, or this was impossible.

The effort I had made had excited too munch surprise and alarm for me to
pass without strict examination; since, on the ninth day after I was
confined, I had, in eighteen hours, so far broken through a prison built
purposely for myself, by a combination of so many projectors, and with
such extreme precaution, that it had been universally declared
impenetrable.

Gelfhardt scarcely had taken his post before we had free opportunity of
conversing together; for, when I stood with one foot on my bedstead, I
could reach the aperture through which light was admitted.

Gelfhardt described the situation of my dungeon, and our first plan was
to break under the foundation which he had seen laid, and which he
affirmed to be only two feet deep.

Money was the first thing necessary.  Gelfhardt was relieved during his
guard, and returned bringing within him a sheet of paper rolled on a
wire, which he passed through my grating; as he also did a piece of small
wax candle, some burning amadone (a kind of tinder), a match, and a pen.
I now had light, and I pricked my finger, and wrote with my blood to my
faithful friend, Captain Ruckhardt, at Vienna, described my situation in
a few words, sent him an acquittance for three thousand florins on my
revenues, and requested he would dispose of a thousand florins to defray
the expenses of his journey to Gummern, only two miles from Magdeburg.
Here he was positively to be on the 15th of August.  About noon, on this
same day, he was to walk with a letter in his hand; and a man was there
to meet him, carrying a roll of smoking tobacco, to whom he must remit
the two thousand florins, and return to Vienna.

I returned the written paper to Gelfhardt by the same means it had been
received, gave him my instructions, and he sent his wife with it to
Gummern, by whom it was safely put in the post.

My hopes daily rose, and as often as Gelfhardt mounted guard, so often
did we continue our projects.  The 15th of August came, but it was some
days before Gelfhardt was again on guard; and oh! how did my heart
palpitate when he came and exclaimed, "All is right! we have succeeded."
He returned in the evening, and we began to consider by what means he
could convey the money to me.  I could not, with my hands chained to an
iron bar, reach the aperture of the window that admitted air--besides
that it was too small.  It was therefore agreed that Gelfhardt should, on
the next guard, perform the office of cleaning my dungeon, and that he
then should convey the money to me in the water-jug.

This luckily was done.  How great was my astonishment when, instead of
one, I found two thousand florins!  For I had permitted him to reserve
half to himself, as a reward for his fidelity; he, however, had kept but
five pistoles, which he persisted was enough.

Worthy Gelfhardt!  This was the act of a Pomeranian grenadier!  How rare
are such examples!  Be thy name and mine ever united!  Live thou while
the memory of me shall live!  Never did my acquaintance with the great
bring to my knowledge a soul so noble, so disinterested!

It is true, I afterwards prevailed on him to accept the whole thousand;
but we shall soon see he never had them, and that his foolish wife, three
years after, suffered by their means; however, she suffered alone, for he
soon marched to the field, and therefore was unpunished.

Having money to carry on my designs, I began to put my plan of burrowing
under the foundation into execution.  The first thing necessary was to
free myself from my fetters.  To accomplish this, Gelfhardt supplied me
with two small files, and by the aid of these, this labour, though great,
was effected.

The cap, or staple, of the foot ring was made so wide that I could draw
it forward a quarter of an inch.  I filed the iron which passed through
it on the inside; the more I filed this away, the farther I could draw
the cap down, till at last the whole inside iron, through which the
chains passed, was cut quite through! by this means I could slip off the
ring, while the cap on the outside continued whole, and it was impossible
to discover any cut, as only the outside could be examined.  My hands, by
continued efforts, I so compressed as to be able to draw them out of the
handcuffs.  I then filed the hinge, and made a screw-driver of one of the
foot-long flooring nails, by which I could take out the screw at
pleasure, so that at the time of examination no proofs could appear.  The
rim round my body was but a small impediment, except the chain, which
passed from my hand-bar: and this I removed, by filing an aperture in one
of the links, which, at the necessary hour, I closed with bread, rubbed
over with rusty-iron, first drying it by the heat of my body; and would
wager any sum that, without striking the chain link by link, with a
hammer, no one not in the secret would have discovered the fracture.

The window was never strictly examined; I therefore drew the two staples
by which the iron bars were fixed to the wall, and which I daily
replaced, carefully plastering them over.  I procured wire from
Gelfhardt, and tried how well I could imitate the inner grating: finding
I succeeded tolerably, I cut the real grating totally away, and
substituted an artificial one of my own fabricating, by which I obtained
a free communication with the outside, additional fresh air, together
with all necessary implements, tinder, and candles.

That the light might not be seen, I hung the coverlid of my bed before
the window, so that I could work fearless and undetected.

Every thing prepared, I went to work.  The floor of my dungeon was not of
stone, but oak plank, three inches thick; three beds of which were laid
crossways, and were fastened to each other by nails half an inch in
diameter, and a foot long.  Raving worked round the head of a nail, I
made use of the hole at the end of the bar, which separated my hands, to
draw it out, and this nail, sharpened upon my tombstone, made an
excellent chisel.

I now cut through the board more than an inch in width, that I might work
downwards, and having drawn away a piece of board which was inserted two
inches under the wall, I cut this so as exactly to fit; the small crevice
it occasioned I stopped up with bread and strewed over with dust, so as
to prevent all suspicious appearance.  My labour under this was continued
with less precaution, and I had soon worked through my nine-inch planks.
Under them I came to a fine white sand, on which the Star Fort was built.
My chips I carefully distributed beneath the boards.  If I had not help
from without, I could proceed no farther; for to dig were useless, unless
I could rid myself of my rubbish.  Gelfhardt supplied me with some ells
of cloth, of which I made long narrow bags, stuffed them with earth, and
passed them between the iron bars, to Gelfhardt, who, as he was on guard,
scattered or conveyed away their contents.

Furnished with room to secrete them under the floor, I obtained more
instruments, together with a pair of pistols, powder, ball, and a
bayonet.

I now discovered that the foundation of my prison, instead of two, was
sunken four feet deep.  Time, labour, and patience were all necessary to
break out unheard and undiscovered; but few things are impossible, where
resolution is not wanting.

The hole I made was obliged to be four feet deep, corresponding with the
foundation, and wide enough to kneel and stoop in: the lying down on the
floor to work, the continual stooping to throw out the earth, the narrow
space in which all must be performed, these made the labour incredible:
and, after this daily labour, all things were to be replaced, and my
chains again resumed, which alone required some hours to effect.  My
greatest aid was in the wax candles, and light I had procured; but as
Gelfhardt stood sentinel only once a fortnight, my work was much delayed;
the sentinels were forbidden to speak to me under pain of death: and I
was too fearful of being betrayed to dare to seek new assistance.

Being without a stove, I suffered much this winter from cold; yet my
heart was cheerful as I saw the probability of freedom; and all were
astonished to find me in such good spirits.

Gelfhardt also brought me supplies of provisions, chiefly consisting of
sausages and salt meats, ready dressed, which increased my strength, and
when I was not digging, I wrote satires and verses: thus time was
employed, and I contented even in prison.

Lulled into security, an accident happened that will appear almost
incredible, and by which every hope was nearly frustrated.

Gelfhardt had been working with me, and was relieved in the morning.  As
I was replacing the window, which I was obliged to remove on these
occasions, it fell out of my hand, and three of the glass panes were
broken.  Gelfhardt was not to return till guard was again relieved: I had
therefore no opportunity of speaking with him, or concerting any mode of
repair.  I remained nearly an hour conjecturing and hesitating; for
certainly had the broken window been seen, as it was impossible I should
reach it when fettered, I should immediately have been more rigidly
examined, and the false grating must have been discovered.

I therefore came to a resolution, and spoke to the sentinel (who was
amusing himself with whistling), thus: "My good fellow, have pity, not
upon me, but upon your comrades, who, should you refuse, will certainly
be executed: I will throw you thirty pistoles through the window, if you
will do me a small favour."  He remained some moments silent, and at last
answered in a low voice, "What, have you money, then?"--I immediately
counted thirty pistoles, and threw them through the window.  He asked
what he was to do: I told him my difficulty, and gave him the size of the
panes in paper.  The man fortunately was bold and prudent.  The door of
the pallisadoes, through the negligence of the officer, had not been shut
that day: he prevailed on one of his comrades to stand sentinel for him,
during half an hour, while he meantime ran into the town, and procured
the glass, on the receipt of which I instantly threw him out ten more
pistoles.  Before the hour of noon and visitation came, everything was
once more reinstated, my glaziery performed to a miracle, and the life of
my worthy Gelfhardt preserved!--Such is the power of money in this world!
This is a very remarkable incident, for I never spoke after to the man
who did me this signal service.

Gelfhardt's alarm may easily be imagined; he some days after returned to
his post, and was the more astonished as he knew the sentinel who had
done me this good office; that he had five children, and a man most to be
depended on by his officers, of any one in the whole grenadier company.

I now continued my labour, and found it very possible to break out under
the foundation; but Gelfhardt had been so terrified by the late accident,
that he started a thousand difficulties, in proportion as my end was more
nearly accomplished; and at the moment when I wished to concert with him
the means of flight, he persisted it was necessary to find additional
help, to escape in safety, and not bring both him and myself to
destruction.  At length we came to the following determination, which,
however, after eight months' incessant labour, rendered my whole project
abortive.

I wrote once more to Ruckhardt, at Vienna; sent him a new assignment for
money, and desired he would again repair to Gummern, where he should wait
six several nights, with two spare horses, on the glacis of
Klosterbergen, at the time appointed, everything being prepared for
flight.  Within these six days Gelfhardt would have found means, either
in rotation, or by exchanging the guard, to have been with me.  Alas! the
sweet hope of again beholding the face of the sun, of once more obtaining
my freedom, endured but three days: Providence thought proper otherwise
to ordain.  Gelfhardt sent his wife to Gummern with the letter, and this
silly woman told the post-master her husband had a lawsuit at Vienna,
that therefore she begged he would take particular care of the letter,
for which purpose she slipped ten rix-dollars into his hand.

This unexpected liberality raised the suspicions of the Saxon
post-master, who therefore opened the letter, read the contents, and
instead of sending it to Vienna, or at least to the general post-master
at Dresden, he preferred the traitorous act of taking it himself to the
governor of Magdeburg, who then, as at present, was Prince Ferdinand of
Brunswick.

What were my terrors, what my despair, when I beheld the Prince himself,
about three o'clock in the afternoon, enter my prison with his
attendants, present my letter, and ask, in an authoritative voice, who
had carried it to Gummern.  My answer was, "I know not."  Strict search
was immediately made by smiths, carpenters, and masons, and after half an
hour's examination, they discovered neither my hole nor the manner in
which I disencumbered myself of my chains; they only saw that the middle
grating, in the aperture where the light was admitted, had been removed.
This was boarded up the next day, only a small air-hole left, of about
six inches diameter.

The Prince began to threaten; I persisted I had never seen the sentinel
who had rendered me this service, nor asked his name.  Seeing his
attempts all ineffectual, the governor, in a milder tone, said, "You have
ever complained, Baron Trenck, of not having been legally sentenced, or
heard in your own defence; I give you my word of honour, this you shall
be, and also that you shall be released from your fetters, if you will
only tell me who took your letter."  To this I replied, with all the
fortitude of innocence, "Everybody knows, my lord, I have never deserved
the treatment I have met with in my country.  My heart is irreproachable.
I seek to recover my liberty by every means in my power: but were I
capable of betraying the man whose compassion has induced him to succour
my distress; were I the coward that could purchase happiness at his
expense, I then should, indeed, deserve to wear those chains with which I
am loaded.  For myself, do with me what you please: yet remember I am not
wholly destitute: I am still a captain in the Imperial service, and a
descendant of the house of Trenck."

Prince Ferdinand stood for a moment unable to answer; then renewed his
threats, and left my dungeon.  I have since been told that, when he was
out of hearing, he said to those around him, "I pity his hard fate, and
cannot but admire his strength of mind!"

I must here remark that, when we remember the usual circumspection of
this great man, we are obliged to wonder at his imprudence in holding a
conversation of such a kind with me, which lasted a considerable time, in
the presence of the guard.  The soldiers of the whole garrison had
afterwards the utmost confidence, as they were convinced I would not
meanly devote others to destruction, that I might benefit myself.  This
was the way to gain me esteem and intercourse among the men, especially
as the Duke had said he knew I must have money concealed, for that I had
distributed some to the sentinels.

He had scarcely been gone an hour, before I heard a noise near my prison.
I listened--what could it be?  I heard talking, and learned a grenadier
had hanged himself to the pallisadoes of my prison.

The officer of the town-guard, and the town-major again entered my
dungeon to fetch a lanthorn they had forgotten, and the officer at going
out, told me in a whisper, "One of your associates has just hanged
himself."

It was impossible to imagine my terror or sensations; I believed it could
be only my kind, my honest Gelfhardt.  After many gloomy thoughts, and
lamenting the unhappy end of so worthy a fellow, I began to recollect
what the Prince had promised me, if I would discover the accomplice.  I
knocked at the door, and desired to speak to the officer; he came to the
window and asked me what I wanted; I requested he would inform the
governor that if he would send me light, pen, ink, and paper, I would
discover my whole secret.

These were accordingly sent, an hour's time was granted; the door was
shut, and I was left alone.  I sat myself down, began to write on my
night-table, and was about to insert the name of Gelfhardt, but my blood
thrilled, and shrank back to my heart.  I shuddered, rose, went to the
aperture of the window and called, "Is there no man who in compassion
will tell me the name of him who has hanged himself, that I may deliver
many others from destruction?"  The window was not nailed up till the
next day; I therefore wrapped five pistoles in a paper, threw them out,
called to the sentinel, and said, "Friend, take these, and save thy
comrades; or go and betray me, and bring down innocent blood upon thy
head!"

The paper was taken up; a pause of silence ensued: I heard sighs, and
presently after a low voice said, "his name is Schutz; he belonged to the
company of Ripps."  I had never heard the name before, or known the man,
but I however immediately wrote SCHUTZ, instead of Gelfhardt.  Having
finished the letter I called the lieutenant, who took that and the light
away, and again barred up the door of my dungeon.  The Duke, however,
suspected there must be some evasion, and everything remained in the same
state: I obtained neither hearing nor court-martial.  I learned, in the
sequel, the following circumstances, which will display the truth of this
apparently incredible story.

While I was imprisoned in the citadel, a sentinel came to the post under
my window, cursed and blasphemed, exclaiming aloud against the Prussian
service, and saying, if Trenck only knew my mind, he would not long
continue in his hole!  I entered into discourse with him, and he told me,
if I could give him money to purchase a boat, in which he might cross the
Elbe, he would soon make my doors fly open, and set me free.

Money at that time I had none; but I gave him a diamond shirt-buckle,
worth five hundred ferns, which I had concealed.  I never heard more from
this man; he spoke to me no more.  He often stood sentinel over me, which
I knew by his Westphalian dialect, and I as often addressed myself to
him, but ineffectually; he would make no answer.

This Schutz must have sold my buckle, and let his riches be seen; for,
when the Duke left me, the lieutenant on guard said to him--"You must
certainly be the rascal who carried Trenck's letter; you have, for some
time past, spent much money, and we have seen you with louis-d'ors.  How
came you by them?"  Schutz was terrified, his conscience accused him, he
imagined I should betray him, knowing he had deceived me.  He, therefore,
in the first agonies of despair, came to the pallisadoes, and hung
himself before the door of my dungeon.




CHAPTER III.


How wonderful is the hand of Providence!  The wicked man fell a sacrifice
to his crime, after having escaped a whole year, and the faithful, the
benevolent-hearted Gelfhardt was thereby saved.

The sentinels were now doubled, that any intercourse with them might be
rendered more difficult.  Gelfhardt again stood guard, but he had
scarcely opportunity, without danger, to speak a few words: he thanked me
for having preserved him, wished me better fortune, and told me the
garrison, in a few days, would take the field.

This was dreadful news: my whole plan was destroyed at a breath.  I,
however, soon recovered fresh hopes.  The hole I had sunken was not
discovered: I had five hundred florins, candles, and implements.

The seven years' war broke out about a week after, and the regiment took
the field.  Major Weyner came, for the last time, and committed me to the
care of the new major of the militia, Bruckhausen, who was one of the
most surly and stupid of men.  I shall often have occasion to mention
this man.

All the majors and lieutenants of the guard, who had treated me with
compassion and esteem, now departed, and I became an old prisoner in a
new world.  I acquired greater confidence, however, by remembering that
both officers and men in the militia were much easier to gain over than
in the regulars; the truth of which opinion was soon confirmed.

Four lieutenants were appointed, with their men, to mount guard at the
Star Fort in turn, and before a year had passed, three of them were in my
interest.

The regiments had scarcely taken the field ere the new governor, General
Borck, entered my prison, like what he was, an imperious, cruel tyrant.
The King, in giving him the command, had informed him he must answer for
my person with his head: he therefore had full power to treat me with
whatever severity he pleased.

Borck was a stupid man, of an unfeeling heart, the slave of despotic
orders; and as often as he thought it possible I might rid myself of my
fetters and escape, his heart palpitated with fear.  In addition to this,
he considered me as the vilest of men and traitors, seeing his King had
condemned me to imprisonment so cruel, and his barbarity towards me was
thus the effect of character and meanness of soul.  He entered my dungeon
not as an officer, to visit a brother officer in misery, but as an
executioner to a felon.  Smiths then made their appearance, and a
monstrous iron collar, of a hand's breadth, was put round my neck, and
connected with the chains of the feet by additional heavy links.  My
window was walled up, except a small air-hole.  He even at length took
away my bed, gave me no straw, and quitted me with a thousand revilings
on the Empress-Queen, her whole army, and myself.  In words, however, I
was little in his debt, and he was enraged even to madness.

What my situation was under this additional load of tyranny, and the
command of a man so void of human pity, the reader may imagine.  My
greatest good fortune consisted in the ability I still had to disencumber
myself of all the irons that were connected with the ankle-rims, and the
provision I had of light, paper, and implements; and though it was
apparently impossible I should break out undiscovered by both sentinels,
yet had I the remaining hope of gaining some officer, by money, who, as
in Glatz, should assist my escape.

Had the commands of the King been literally obeyed escape would have been
wholly impossible; for, by this, all communication would have been
totally cut off with the sentinels.  To this effect the four keys of the
four doors were each to be kept by different persons; one with the
governor, another with the town-major, the third with the major of the
day, and the fourth with the lieutenant of the guard.  I never could have
found opportunity to have spoken with any one of them singly.  These
commands at first were rigidly observed, with this exception, that the
governor made his appearance only every week.  Magdeburg became so full
of prisoners that the town-major was obliged to deliver up his key to the
major of the day, and the governor's visitations wholly subsided, the
citadel being an English mile and a half distant from the Star Fort.

General Walrabe, who had been a prisoner ever since the year 1746, was
also at the Star Fort, but he had apartments, and three thousand
rix-dollars a year.  The major of the day and officer of the guard dined
with him daily, and generally stayed till evening.  Either from
compassion, or a concurrence of fortunate circumstances, these gentlemen
entrusted the keys to the lieutenant on guard, by which means I could
speak with each of them alone when they made their visits, and they
themselves at length sought these opportunities.  My consequent
undertakings I shall relate, with all the arts and inventions of a
wretched prisoner endeavouring to escape.

Borck had selected three majors and four lieutenants for this service as
those he could best trust.  My situation was truly deplorable.  The
enormous iron round my neck pained me, and prevented motion; and I durst
not attempt to disengage myself from the pendant chains till I had, for
some months, carefully observed the mode of their examination, and which
parts they supposed were perfectly secure.  The cruelty of depriving me
of my bed was still greater: I was obliged to sit upon the bare ground,
and lean with my head against the damp wall.  The chains that descended
from the neck collar were obliged to be supported first with one band,
and then with the other; for, if thrown behind, they would have strangled
me, and if hanging forward occasioned most excessive headaches.  The bar
between my hands held one down, while leaning on my elbow; I supported
with the other my chains; and this so benumbed the muscles and prevented
circulation, that I could perceive my arms sensibly waste away.  The
little sleep I could have in such a situation may easily be supposed,
and, at length, body and mind sank under this accumulation of miserable
suffering, and I fell ill of a burning fever.

The tyrant Borck was inexorable; he wished to expedite my death, and rid
himself of his troubles and his terrors.  Here did I experience what was
the lamentable condition of a sick prisoner, without bed, refreshment, or
aid from human being.  Reason, fortitude, heroism, all the noble
qualities of the mind, decay when the corporal faculties are diseased;
and the remembrance of my sufferings, at this dreadful moment, still
agitates, still inflames my blood, so as almost to prevent an attempt to
describe what they were.

Yet hope had not totally forsaken me.  Deliverance seemed possible,
especially should peace ensue; and I sustained, perhaps, what mortal man
never bore, except myself, being, as I was, provided with pistols, or any
such immediate mode of despatch.

I continued ill about two months, and was so reduced at last that I had
scarcely strength to lift the water-jug to my mouth.  What must the
sufferings of that man be who sits two months on the bare ground in a
dungeon so damp, so dark, so horrible, without bed or straw, his limbs
loaded as mine were, with no refreshment but dry ammunition bread,
without so much as a drop of broth, without physic, without consoling
friend, and who, under all these afflictions, must trust, for his
recovery, to the efforts of nature alone!

Sickness itself is sufficient to humble the mightiest mind; what, then,
is sickness, with such an addition of torment?  The burning fever, the
violent headaches, my neck swelled and inflamed with the irons, enraged
me almost to madness.  The fever and the fetters together flayed my body
so that it appeared like one continued wound--Enough!  Enough!  The
malefactor extended living on the wheel, to whom the cruel executioner
refuses the last stroke--the blow of death--must yet, in some short
period, expire: he suffers nothing I did not then suffer; and these, my
excruciating pangs, continued two dreadful months--Yet, can it be
supposed?  There came a day!  A day of horror, when these mortal pangs
were beyond imagination increased.  I sat scorched with this intolerable
fever, in which nature and death were contending; and when attempting to
quench my burning entrails with cold water, the jug dropped from my
feeble hands, and broke!  I had four-and-twenty hours to remain without
water.  So intolerable, so devouring was my thirst, I could have drank
human blood!  Ay, in my madness, had it been the blood of my father!

* * * * * *

Willingly would I have seized my pistols, but strength had forsaken me, I
could not open the place I was obliged to render so secure.

My visitors next day supposed me gone at last.  I lay motionless, with my
tongue out of my mouth.  They poured water down my throat, and I revived.

Oh, God!  Oh, God!  How pure, how delicious, how exquisite was this
water!  My insatiable thirst soon emptied the jug; they filled it anew,
bade me farewell, hoped death would soon relieve my mortal sufferings,
and departed.

The lamentable state in which I lay at length became the subject of
general conversation, that all the ladies of the town united with the
officers, and prevailed on the tyrant, Borck, to restore me my bed.

Oh, Nature, what are thy operations?  From the day I drank water in such
excess I gathered strength, and to the astonishment of every one, soon
recovered.  I had moved the heart of the officer who inspected my prison;
and after six months, six cruel months of intense misery, the day of hope
again began to dawn.

One of the majors of the day entrusted his key to Lieutenant Sonntag, who
came alone, spoke in confidence, and related his own situation,
complained of his debts, his poverty, his necessities; and I made him a
present of twenty-five louis-d'ors, for which he was so grateful that our
friendship became unshaken.

The three lieutenants all commiserated me, and would sit hours with me,
when a certain major had the inspection; and he himself, after a time,
would even pass half the day with me.  He, too, was poor: and I gave him
a draft for three thousand florins; hence new projects took birth.

Money became necessary; I had disbursed all I possessed, a hundred
florins excepted, among the officers.  The eldest son of Captain K---,
who officiated as major, had been cashiered: his father complained to me
of his distress, and I sent him to my sister, not far from Berlin, from
whom he received a hundred ducats.  He returned and related her joy at
hearing from me.  He found her exceedingly ill; and she informed me, in a
few lines, that my misfortunes, and the treachery of Weingarten, had
entailed poverty upon her, and an illness which had endured more than two
years.  She wished me a happy deliverance from my chains, and, in
expectation of death, committed her children to my protection.  She,
however, grew better, and married a second time, Colonel Pape; but died
in the year 1758.  I shall forbear to relate her history: it indeed does
no honour to the ashes of Frederic, and would but less dispose my own
heart to forgiveness, by reviving the memory of her oppressions and
griefs.

K---n returned happy with the money: all things were concerted with the
father.  I wrote to the Countess Bestuchef, also to the Grand Duke,
afterwards Peter III., recommended the young soldier, and entreated every
possible succour for myself.

K---n departed through Hamburg, for Petersburg, where, in consequence of
my recommendation, he became a captain, and in a short time major.  He
took his measures so well that I, by the intervention of his father, and
a Hamburg merchant, received two thousand rubles from the Countess, while
the service he rendered me made his own fortune in Russia.

To old K---, who was as poor as he was honest, I gave three hundred
ducats; and he, till death, continued my grateful friend.  I distributed
nearly as much to the other officers; and matters proceeded so far that
Lieutenant Glotin gave back the keys to the major without locking my
prison, himself passing half the night with me.  Money was given to the
guard to drink; and thus everything succeeded to my wish, and the tyrant
Borck was deceived.  I had a supply of light; had books, newspapers, and
my days passed swiftly away.  I read, I wrote, I busied myself so
thoroughly that I almost forgot I was a prisoner.  When, indeed, the
surly, dull blockhead, Major Bruckhausen, had the inspection, everything
had to be carefully reinstated.  Major Z---, the second of the three, was
also wholly mine.  He was particularly attached to me; for I had promised
to marry his daughter, and, should I die in prison, to bequeath him a
legacy of ten thousand florins.

Lieutenant Sonntag got false handcuffs made for me, that were so wide I
could easily draw my hands out; the lieutenants only examined my irons,
the new handcuffs were made perfectly similar to the old, and Bruckhausen
had too much stupidity to remark any difference.

The remainder of my chains I could disencumber myself of at pleasure.
When I exercised myself, I held them in my hands, that the sentinel might
be deceived by their clanking.  The neck-iron was the only one I durst
not remove; it was likewise too strongly riveted.  I filed through the
upper link of the pendant chain, however, by which means I could take it
off, and this I concealed with bread in the manner before mentioned.

So I could disencumber myself of most of my fetters, and sleep in ease.  I
again obtained sausages and cold meat, and thus my situation, bad as it
still was, became less miserable.  Liberty, however, was most desirable:
but, alas! not one of the three lieutenants had the courage of a Schell:
Saxony, too, was in the hands of the Prussians, and flight, therefore,
more dangerous.  Persuasion was in vain with men determined to risk
nothing, but, if they went, to go in safety.  Will, indeed, was not
wanting in Glotin and Sonntag; but the first was a poltroon, and the
latter a man of scruples, who thought this step might likewise be the
ruin of his brother at Berlin.

The sentinels were doubled, therefore my escape through my hole, which
had been two years dug, could not, unperceived by them, be effected:
still less could I, in the face of the guard, clamber the twelve feet
high pallisadoes.  The following labour, therefore, though Herculean, was
undertaken.

Lieutenant Sonntag, measuring the interval between the hole I had dug and
the entrance in the gallery in the principal rampart, found it to be
thirty-seven feet.  Into this it was possible I might, by mining,
penetrate.  The difficulty of the enterprise was lessened by the nature
of the ground, a fine white sand.  Could I reach the gallery my freedom
was certain.  I had been informed how many steps to the right or left
must be taken, to find the door that led to the second rampart: and, on
the day when I should be ready for flight, the officer was secretly to
leave this door open.  I had light, and mining tools, and was further to
rely on money and my own discretion.

I began and continued this labour about six months.  I have already
noticed the difficulty of scraping out the earth with my hands, as the
noise of instruments would have been heard by the sentinels.  I had
scarcely mined beyond my dungeon wall before I discovered the foundation
of the rampart was not more than a foot deep; a capital error certainly
in so important a fortress.  My labour became the lighter, as I could
remove the foundation stones of my dungeon, and was not obliged to mine
so deep.

My work at first proceeded so rapidly, that, while I had room to throw
back my sand, I was able in one night to gain three feet; but ere I had
proceeded ten feet I discovered all my difficulties.  Before I could
continue my work I was obliged to make room for myself, by emptying the
sand out of my hole upon the floor of the prison, and this itself was an
employment of some hours.  The sand was obliged to be thrown out by the
hand, and after it thus lay heaped in my prison, must again be returned
into the hole; and I have calculated that after I had proceeded twenty
feet, I was obliged to creep under ground, in my hole, from fifteen
hundred to two thousand fathoms, within twenty-four hours, in the removal
and replacing of the sand.  This labour ended, care was to be taken that
in none of the crevices of the floor there might be any appearance of
this fine white sand.  The flooring was the next to be exactly replaced,
and my chains to be resumed.  So severe was the fatigue of one day, in
this mode, that I was always obliged to rest the three following.

To reduce my labour as much as possible, I was constrained to make the
passage so small that my body only had space to pass, and I had not room
to draw my arm back to my head.  The work, too, must all be done naked,
otherwise the dirtiness of my shirt must have been remarked; the sand was
wet, water being found at the depth of four feet, where the stratum of
the gravel began.  At length the expedient of sand-bags occurred to me,
by which it might be removed out and in more expeditiously.  I obtained
linen from the officers, but not in sufficient quantities; suspicions
would have been excited at observing so much linen brought into the
prison.  At last I took my sheets and the ticking that enclosed my straw,
and cut them up for sand-bags, taking care to lie down on my bed, as if
ill, when Bruckhausen paid his visit.

The labour, towards the conclusion, became so intolerable as to incite
despondency.  I frequently sat contemplating the heaps of sand, during a
momentary respite from work; and thinking it impossible I could have
strength or time again to replace all things as they were, resolved
patiently to wait the consequence, and leave everything in its present
disorder.  Yes! I can assure the reader that, to effect concealment, I
have scarcely had time in twenty-four hours to sit down and eat a morsel
of bread.  Recollecting, however, the efforts, and all the progress I had
made, hope would again revive, and exhausted strength return: again would
I begin my labours, that I might preserve my secret and my expectations:
yet has it frequently happened that my visitors have entered a few
minutes after I had reinstated everything in its place.

When my work was within six or seven feet of being accomplished, a new
misfortune happened that at once frustrated all further attempts.  I
worked, as I have said, under the foundation of the rampart near where
the sentinels stood.  I could disencumber myself of my fetters, except my
neck collar and its pendent chain.  This, as I worked, though it was
fastened, got loose, and the clanking was heard by one of the sentinels
about fifteen feet from my dungeon.  The officer was called, they laid
their ears to the ground, and heard me as I went backward and forward to
bring my earth bags.  This was reported the next day; and the major, who
was my best friend, with the town-major, and a smith and mason, entered
my prison.  I was terrified.  The lieutenant by a sign gave me to
understand I was discovered.  An examination was begun, but the officers
would not see, and the smith and mason found all, as they thought, safe.
Had they examined my bed, they would have seen the ticking and sheets
were gone.

The town-major, who was a dull man, was persuaded the thing was
impossible, and said to the sentinel, "Blockhead! you have heard some
mole underground, and not Trenck.  How, indeed, could it be, that lee
should work underground, at such a distance from his dungeon?"  Here the
scrutiny ended.

There was now no time for delay.  Had they altered their hour of coming,
they must have found me at work: but this, during ten years, never
happened: for the governor and town-major were stupid men, and the
others, poor fellows, wishing me all success, were willingly blind.  In a
few days I could have broken out, but, when ready, I was desirous to wait
for the visitation of the man who had treated me so tyranically,
Bruckhausen, that his own negligence might be evident.  But this man,
though he wanted understanding, did not want good fortune.  He was ill
for some time, and his duty devolved on K---.

He recovered; and the visitation being over, the doors were no sooner
barred than I began my supposed last labour.  I had only three feet
farther to proceed, and it was no longer necessary I should bring out the
sand, I having room to throw it behind me.  What my anxiety was, what my
exertions were, may well be imagined.  My evil genius, however, had
decreed that the same sentinel, who had heard me before, should be that
day on guard.  He was piqued by vanity, to prove he was not the blockhead
he had been called; he therefore again laid his ear to the ground, and
again heard me burrowing.  Ho called his comrades first, next thee major;
lee came, and heard me likewise; they then went without the pallisadoes,
and heard me working near the door, at which place I was to break into
the gallery.  This door they immediately opened, entered the gallery with
lanthorns, and waited to catch the hunted fox when unearthed.

Through the first small breach I made I perceived a light, and saw the
heads of those who were expecting me.  This was indeed a thunder-stroke!
I crept back, made my way through the sand I had cast behind me, and
awaited my fate with shuddering!  I had the presence of mind to conceal
my pistols, candles, paper, and some money, under the floor which I could
remove.  The money was disposed of in various holes, well concealed also
between the panels of the doors; and under different cracks in the floor
I hid my small files and knives.  Scarcely were these disposed of before
the doors resounded: the floor was covered with sand and sand-bags: my
handcuffs, however, and the separating bar, I had hastily resumed that
they might suppose I had worked with them on, which they were silly
enough to credit, highly to my future advantage.

No man was more busy on this occasion than the brutal and stupid
Bruckhausen, who put many interrogatories, to which I made no reply,
except assuring him that I should have completed my work some days
sooner, had it not been his good fortune to fall sick, and that this only
had been the cause of my failure.

The man was absolutely terrified with apprehension; he began to fear me,
grew more polite, and even supposed nothing was impossible to me.

It was too late to remove the sand; therefore the lieutenant and guard
continued with me, so that this night at least I did not want company.
When the morning came, the hole was first filled up; the planking was
renewed.  The tyrant Borck was ill, and could not come, otherwise my
treatment would have been still more lamentable.  The smiths had ended
before the evening, and the irons were heavier than ever.  The foot
chains, instead of being fastened as before, were screwed and riveted;
all else remained as formerly.  They were employed in the flooring till
the next day, so that I could not sleep, and at last I sank down with
weariness.

The greatest of my misfortunes was they again deprived me of my bed,
because I had cut it up for sand-bags.  Before the doors were barred
Bruckhausen and another major examined my body very narrowly.  They often
had asked me where I concealed all my implements?  My answer was,
"Gentlemen, Beelzebub is my best and most intimate friend; he brings me
everything I want, supplies me with light: we play whole nights at
piquet, and, guard me as you please, he will finally deliver me out of
your power."

Some were astonished, others laughed.  At length, as they were barring
the last door, I called, "Come back, gentlemen! you have forgotten
something of great importance."  In the interim I had taken up one of my
hidden files.  When they returned, "Look ye, gentlemen," said I, "here is
a proof of the friendship Beelzebub has for me, he has brought me this in
a twinkling."  Again they examined, and again they shut their doors.
While they were so doing, I took out a knife, and ten louis-d'ors,
called, and they re turned, grumbling curses; I then shewed the knife and
the louis-d'ors.  Their consternation was excessive; and I diverted my
misfortunes by jesting at such blundering, short-sighted keepers.  It was
soon rumoured through Magdeburg, especially among the simple and vulgar,
that I was a magician to whom the devil brought all I asked.

One Major Holtzkammer, a very selfish man, profited by this report.  A
foolish citizen had offered him fifty dollars if he might only be
permitted to see me through the door, being very desirous to see a
wizard.  Holtzkammer told me, and we jointly determined to sport with his
credulity.  The major gave me a mask with a monstrous nose, which I put
on when the doors were opening, and threw myself in an heroic attitude.
The affrighted burger drew back; but Holtzkammer stopped him, and said,
"Have patience for some quarter of an hour, and you shall see he will
assume quite a different countenance."  The burger waited, my mask was
thrown by, and my face appeared whitened with chalk, and made ghastly.
The burger again shrank back; Holtzkammer kept him in conversation, and I
assumed a third farcical form.  I tied my hair under my nose, and a
pewter dish to my breast, and when the door a third time opened, I
thundered, "Begone, rascals, or I'll set your necks--awry!"  They both
ran: and the silly burger, eased of his fifty dollars, scampered first.

The major, in vain, laid his injunctions on the burger never to reveal
what he had beheld, it being a breach of duty in him to admit any persons
whatever to the sight of me.  In a few days, the necromancer Trenck was
the theme of every alehouse in Magdeburg, and the person was named who
had seen me change my form thrice in the space of one hour.  Many false
and ridiculous circumstances were added, and at last the story reached
the governor's ears.  The citizen was cited, and offered to take his oath
of what himself and the major had seen.  Holtzkammer accordingly suffered
a severe reprimand, and was some days under arrest.  We frequently
laughed, however, at this adventure, which had rendered me so much the
subject of conversation.  Miraculous reports were the more easily
credited, because no one could comprehend how, in despite of the load of
irons I carried, and all the vigilance of my guards, I should be
continually able to make new attempts, while those appointed to examine
my dungeon seemed, as it were, blinded and bewildered.  A proof this, how
easy it is to deceive the credulous, and whence have originated
witchcraft, prophecies, and miracles.




CHAPTER IV.


My last undertaking had employed me more than twelve months, and so
weakened me that I appeared little better than a skeleton.
Notwithstanding the greatness of my spirit, I should have sunk into
despondency, at seeing an end like this to all my labours, had I not
still cherished a secret hope of escaping, founded on the friends I had
gained among the officers.

I soon felt the effects of the loss of my bed, and was a second time
attacked by a violent fever, which would this time certainly have
consumed me had not the officers, unknown to the governor, treated me
with all possible compassion.  Bruckhausen alone continued my enemy, and
the slave of his orders; on his day of examination rules and commands in
all their rigour were observed, nor durst I free myself from my irons,
till I had for some weeks remarked those parts on which he invariably
fixed his attention.  I then cut through the link, and closed up the
vacancy with bread.  My hands I could always draw out, especially after
illness had consumed the flesh off my bones.  Half a year had elapsed
before I had recovered sufficient strength to undertake, anew, labours
like the past.

Necessity at length taught me the means of driving Bruckhausen from my
dungeon, and of inducing him to commit his office to another.  I learnt
his olfactory nerves were somewhat delicate, and whenever I heard the
doors unbar, I took care to make a stir in my night-table.  This made him
give back, and at length he would come no farther than the door.  Such
are the hard expedients of a poor unhappy prisoner!

One day he came, bloated with pride, just after a courier had brought the
news of victory, and spoke of the Austrians, and the august person of the
Empress-Queen with so much virulence, that, at last, enraged almost to
madness, I snatched the sword of an officer from its sheath, and should
certainly have ended him, had he not made a hasty retreat.  From that day
forward he durst no more come without guards to examine the dungeon.  Two
men always preceded him, with their bayonets fixed, and their pieces
presented, behind whom he stood at the door.  This was another fortunate
incident, as I dreaded only his examination.

The following anecdote will afford a specimen of this man's
understanding.  While digging in the earth I found a cannon-ball, and
laid it in the middle of my prison.  When he came to examine--"What in
the name of God is that?" said he.  "It is a part of the ammunition,"
answered I, "that my Familiar brings me.  The cannon will be here anon,
and you will then see fine sport!"  He was astonished, told this to
others, nor could conceive such a ball might by any natural means enter
my prison.

I wrote a satire on him, when the late Landgrave of Hesse-Cassel was
governor of Magdeburg; and I had permission to write as will hereafter
appear: the Landgrave gave it to him to read himself; and so gross was
his conception, that though his own phraseology was introduced, part of
his history and his character painted, yet he did not perceive the jest,
but laughed heartily with the hearers.  The Landgrave was highly
diverted, and after I obtained my freedom, restored me the manuscript
written in my own blood.

About the time that my last attempt at escaping failed, General
Krusemarck came to my prison, whom I had formerly lived with in habits of
intimacy, when cornet of the body guard.  Without testifying friendship,
esteem, or compassion, he asked, among other things, in an authoritative
tone, how I could employ my time to prevent tediousness?  I answered in
as haughty a mood as he interrogated: for never could misfortune bend my
mind.  I told him, "I always could find sources of entertainment in my
own thoughts; and that, as for my dreams, I imagined they would at least
be as peaceful and pleasant as those of my oppressors."  "Had you in
time," replied he, "curbed this fervour of yours, had you asked pardon of
the King, perhaps you would have been in very different circumstances;
but he who has committed an offence in which he obstinately persists,
endeavouring only to obtain freedom by seducing men from their duty,
deserves no better fate."

Justly was my anger roused!  "Sir," answered I, "you are a general of the
King of Prussia, I am an Austrian captain.  My royal mistress will
protect, perhaps deliver me, or, at least, revenge my death; I have a
conscience void of reproach.  You, yourself, well know I have not
deserved these chains.  I place my hope in time, and the justness of my
cause, calumniated and condemned, as I have been, without legal sentence
or hearing.  In such a situation, the philosopher will always be able to
brave and despise the tyrant."

He departed with threats, and his last words were, "The bird shall soon
be taught to sing another tune."  The effects of this courteous visit
were soon felt.  An order came that I should be prevented sleeping, and
that the sentinels should call, and wake me every quarter of an hour;
which dreadful order was immediately executed.

This was indeed a punishment intolerable to nature!  Yet did custom at
length teach me to answer in my sleep.  Four years did this unheard of
cruelty continue!  The noble Landgrave of Hesse-Cassel at length put an
end to it a year before I was released from my dungeon, and once again,
in mercy, suffered me to sleep in peace.

Under this new affliction, I wrote an Elegy which may be found in the
second volume of my works, a few lines of which I shall cite.

   Wake me, ye guards, for hark, the quarter strikes!
   Sport with my woes, laugh loud at my miseries
   Hearken if you hear my chains clank!  Knock!  Beat!
   Of an inexorable tyrant be ye
   Th' inexorable instruments!  Wake me, ye slaves;
   Ye do but as you're bade.  Soon shall he lie
   Sleepless, or dreaming, the spectres of conscience
   Behold and shriek, who me deprives of rest.

      Wake me: Again the quarter strikes!  Call loud
   Rip up all my bleeding wounds, and shrink not!
   Yet think 'tis I that answer, God that hears!
   To every wretch in chains sleep is permitted:
   I, I alone, am robb'd of this last refuge
   Of sinking nature!  Hark!  Again they thunder!
   Again they iterate yells of Trenck and death.

   Peace to thy anger, peace, thou suffering heart!
   Nor indignant beat, adding tenfold pangs to pain.

      Ye burthened limbs, arise from momentary
   Slumbers!  Shake your chains!  Murmur not, but rise!
   And ye!  Watch-dogs of Power! let loose your rage:
   Fear not, for I am helpless, unprotected.
   And yet, not so--The noble mind, within
   Itself, resources finds innumerable.

   Thou, Oh God, thought'st good me t' imprison thus:
   Thou, Oh God, in Thy good time, wilt me deliver.

      Wake me then, nor fear!  My soul slumbers not.
   And who can say but those who fetter me,
   May, ere to-morrow, groan themselves in fetters!
   Wake me!  For lo! their sleep's less sweet than mine.

   Call!  Call!  From night to morn, from twilight to dawn,
   Incessant!  Yea, in God's name, Call!  Call!  Call!
   Amen!  Amen!  Thy will, Oh God, be done!
   Yet surely Thou at length shalt hear my sighs!
   Shalt burst my prison doors!  Shalt shew me fair
   Creation!  Yea, the very heav'n of heav'ns!

With whom these orders originated, unexampled in the history even of
tyranny, I shall not venture to say.  The major, who was my friend,
advised me to persist in not answering.  I followed his advice; and it
produced this good effect that we mutually forced each other to a
capitulation: they restored me my bed, and I was obliged to reply.

Immediately after this regulation, the sub-governor, General Borck, my
bitter enemy, became insane, was dispossessed of his post, and Lieutenant-
General Reichmann, the benevolent friend of humanity, was made
sub-governor.

About the same time the Court fled from Berlin, and the Queen, the Prince
of Prussia, the Princess Amelia, and the Margrave Henry, chose Magdeburg
for their residence.  Bruckhausen grew more polite, probably perceiving I
was not wholly deserted, and that it was yet possible I might obtain my
freedom.  The cruel are usually cowards, and there is reason to suppose
Bruckhausen was actuated by his fears to treat me with greater respect.

The worthy new governor had not indeed the power to lighten my chains, or
alter the general regulations; what he could, he did.  If he did not
command, he connived at the doors being occasionally at first, and at
length, daily, kept open some hours, to admit daylight and fresh air.
After a time, they were open the whole day, and only closed by the
officers when they returned from their visit to Walrabe.

Having light, I began to carve, with a nail, on the pewter cup in which I
drank, satirical verses and various figures, and attained so much
perfection that my cups, at last, were considered as master-pieces, both
of engraving and invention, and were sold dear, as rare curiosities.  My
first attempts were rude, as may well be imagined.  My cup was carried to
town, and shown to visitors by the governor, who sent me another.  I
improved, and each of the inspecting officers wished to possess one.  I
grew more expert, and spent a whole year in this employment, which thus
passed swiftly away.  The perfection I had now acquired obtained me the
permission of candle-light, and this continued till I was restored to
freedom.

The King gave orders these cups should all be inspected by government,
because I wished, by my verses and devices, to inform the world of my
fate.  But this command was not obeyed; the officers made merchandise of
my cups, and sold them at last for twelve ducats each.  Their value
increased so much, when I was released from prison, that they are now to
be found in various museums throughout Europe.  Twelve years ago the late
Landgrave of Hesse-Cassel presented one of them to my wife; and another
came, in a very unaccountable manner, from the Queen-Dowager of Prussia
to Paris.  I have given prints of both these, with the verses they
contained, in my works; whence it may be seen how artificially they were
engraved.

A third fell into the hands of Prince Augustus Lobkowitz, then a prisoner
of war at Magdeburg, who, on his return to Vienna, presented it to the
Emperor, who placed it in his museum.  Among other devices on this cup,
was a landscape, representing a vineyard and husbandmen, and under it the
following words:--_By my labours my vineyard flourished_, _and I hoped to
have gathered the fruit_; _but Ahab came_.  _Alas_! _for Naboth_.

The allusion was so pointed, both to the wrongs done me in Vienna, and my
sufferings in Prussia, that it made a very strong impression on the
Empress-Queen, who immediately commanded her minister to make every
exertion for my deliverance.  She would probably at last have even
restored me to my estates, had not the possessors of them been so
powerful, or had she herself lived one year longer.  To these my engraved
cups was I indebted for being once more remembered at Vienna.  On the
same cup, also, was another engraving of a bird in a cage, held by a
Turk, with the following inscription:--_The bird sings even in the
storm_; _open his cage_, _break his fetters_, _ye friends of virtue_,
_and his songs shall be the delight of your abodes_!

There is another remarkable circumstance attending these cups.  All were
forbidden under pain of death to hold conversation with me, or to supply
me with pen and ink; yet by this open permission of writing what I
pleased on pewter, was I enabled to inform the world of all I wished, and
to prove a man of merit was oppressed.  The difficulties of this
engraving will be conceived, when it is remembered that I worked by
candle-light on shining pewter, attained the art of giving light and
shade, and by practice could divide a cup into two-and-thirty
compartments as regularly with a stroke of the hand as with a pair of
compasses.  The writing was so minute that it could only be read with
glasses.  I could use but one hand, both, being separated by the bar, and
therefore held the cup between my knees.  My sole instrument was a
sharpened nail, yet did I write two lines on the rim only.

My labour became so excessive, that I was in danger of distraction or
blindness.  Everybody wished for cups, and I wished to oblige everybody,
so that I worked eighteen hours a day.  The reflection of the light from
the pewter was injurious to my eyes, and the labour of invention for
apposite subjects and verses was most fatiguing.  I had learnt only
architectural drawing.

Enough of these cups, which procured me so much honour, so many
advantages, and helped to shorten so many mournful hours.  My greatest
encumbrance was the huge iron collar, with its enormous appendages,
which, when suffered to press the arteries in the back of my neck,
occasioned intolerable headaches.  I sat too much, and a third time fell
sick.  A Brunswick sausage, secretly given me by a friend, occasioned an
indigestion, which endangered my life; a putrid fever followed, and my
body was reduced to a skeleton.  Medicines, however, were conveyed to me
by the officers, and, now and then, warm food.

After my recovery, I again thought it necessary to endeavour to regain my
liberty.  I had but forty louis-d'ors remaining, and these I could not
get till I had first broken up the flooring.

Lieutenant Sonntag was consumptive, and obtained his discharge.  I
supplied bins with money to defray the expenses of his journey, and with
an order that four hundred florins should be annually paid him from my
effects till his death or my release.  I commissioned him to seek an
audience from the Empress, endeavour to excite her compassion in my
behalf, and to remit me four thousand florins, for which I gave a proper
acquittance, by the way of Hamburgh.  The money-draft was addressed to my
administrators, Counsellors Kempf and Huttner.

But no one, alas! in Vienna, wished my return; they had already begun to
share my property, of which they never rendered me an account.  Poor
Sonntag was arrested as a spy, imprisoned, ill treated for some weeks,
and, at last, when naked and destitute, received a hundred florins, and
was escorted beyond the Austrian confines.  The worthy man fell a
shameful sacrifice to his honesty, could never obtain an audience of the
Empress, and returned poor and miserable on foot to Berlin, where he was
twelve months secretly maintained by his brother, and with whom he died.
He wrote an account of all this to the good Knoblauch, my Hamburgh agent,
and I, from my small store, sent him a hundred ducats.

How much must I despair of finding any place of refuge on earth, hearing
accounts like these from Vienna.

A friend, whom I will never name, by the aid of one of the lieutenants,
secretly visited me, and supplied me with six hundred ducats.  The same
friend, in the year 1763, paid four thousand florins to the imperial
envoy, Baron Reidt, at Berlin, for the furthering of my freedom, as I
shall presently more fully show.  Thus I had once more money.

About this time the French army advanced to within five miles of
Magdeburg.  This important fortress was, at that time, the key of the
whole Prussian power.  It required a garrison of sixteen thousand men,
and contained not more than fifteen hundred.  The French might have
marched in unopposed, and at once have put an end to the war.  The
officers brought me all the news, and my hopes rose as they approached.
What was my astonishment when the major informed me that three waggons
had entered the town in the night, had been sent back loaded with money,
and that the French were retreating.  This, I can assure my readers, on
my honour, is literally truth, to the eternal disgrace of the French
general.  The major, who informed me, was himself an eye-witness of the
fact.  It was pretended the money was for the army of the King, but
everybody could guess whither it was going; it left the town without a
convoy, and the French were then in the neighbourhood.  Such were the
allies of Maria Theresa; the receivers of this money are known in Paris.
Not only were my hopes this way frustrated, but in Russia likewise, where
the Countess of Bestuchef and the Chancellor had fallen into disgrace.

I now imagined another, and, indeed, a fearful and dangerous project.  The
garrison of Magdeburg at this moment consisted but of nine hundred
militia, who were discontented men.  Two majors and two lieutenants were
in my interest.  The guard of the Star Fort amounted but to a hundred and
fifteen men.  Fronting the gate of this fort was the town gate, guarded
only by twelve men and an inferior officer; beside these lay the
casemates, in which were seven thousand Croat prisoners.  Baron K---y, a
captain, and prisoner of war, also was in our interest, and would hold
his comrades ready at a certain place and time to support my undertaking.
Another friend was, under some pretence, to hold his company ready, with
their muskets loaded, and the plan was such that I should have had four
hundred men in arms ready to carry it into execution.

The officer was to have placed the two men we most suspected and feared,
as sentinels over me; he was to command them to take away my bed, and
when encumbered, I was to spring out, and shut them in the prison.
Clothing and arms were to have been procured, and brought me into my
prison; the town-gate was to have been surprised; I was to have run to
the casemate, and called to the Croats, "Trenck to arms!"  My friends, at
the same instant, were to break forth, and the plan was so well concerted
that it could not have failed.  Magdeburg, the magazine of the army, the
royal treasury, arsenal, all would have been mine; and sixteen thousand
men, who were then prisoners of war, would have enabled me to keep
possession.

The most essential secret, by which all this was to have been effected, I
dare not reveal; suffice it to say, everything was provided for,
everything made secure; I shall only add that the garrison, in the
harvest months, was exceedingly weakened, because the farmers paid the
captains a florin per man each day, and the men for their labour
likewise, to obtain hands.  The sub-governor connived at the practice.

One Lieutenant G--- procured a furlough to visit his friends; but,
supplied by me with money, he went to Vienna.  I furnished him with a
letter, addressed to Counsellors Kempf and Huttner, including a draft for
two thousand ducats; wherein I said that, by these means, I should not
only soon be at liberty, but in possession of the fortress of Magdeburg;
and that the bearer was entrusted with the rest.

The lieutenant came safe to Vienna, underwent a thousand interrogatories,
and his name was repeatedly asked.  This, fortunately, he concealed.  They
advised him not to be concerned in so dangerous an undertaking; told him
I had not so much money due to me, and gave him, instead of two thousand
ducats, one thousand florins.  With these he left Vienna, but with very
prudent suspicions which prevented him ever returning to Magdeburg.  A
month had scarcely passed before the late Landgrave of Hesse-Cassel, then
chief governor, entered my prison, showed me my letter, and demanded to
know who had carried the letter, and who were to free me and betray
Magdeburg.  Whether the letter was sent immediately to the King or the
governor I know not; it is sufficient that I was once more betrayed at
Vienna.  The truth was, the administrators of my effects had acted as if
I were deceased, and did not choose to refund two thousand ducats.  They
wished not I should obtain my freedom, in a manner that would have
obliged the government to have rewarded me, and restore the effects they
had embezzled and the estates they had seized.  What happened afterwards
at Vienna, which will be related in its place, will incontestably prove
this surmise to be well founded.

These bad men did not, it is true, die in the manner they ought, but they
are all dead, and I am still living, an honest, though poor man: they did
not die so.  Be this read and remembered by their luxurious heirs, who
refuse to restore my children to their rights.




CHAPTER V.


My consternation on the appearance of the Landgrave, with my letter in
his hand, may well be supposed; I had the presence of mind, however, to
deny my handwriting, and affect astonishment at so crafty a trick.  The
Landgrave endeavoured to convict me, told me what Lieutenant Kemnitz had
repeated at Vienna concerning my possessing myself of Magdeburg, and
thereby showed me how fully I had been betrayed.  But as no such person
existed as Lieutenant Kemnitz, and as my friend had fortunately concealed
his name, the mystery remained impenetrable, especially as no one could
conceive how a prisoner, in my situation, could seduce or subdue the
whole garrison.  The worthy prince left my prison, apparently satisfied
with my defence; his heart felt no satisfaction in the misfortunes of
others.

The next day a formal examination was taken, at which the sub-governor
Reichmann presided.  I was accused as a traitor to my country; but I
obstinately denied my handwriting.  Proofs or witnesses there were none,
and in answer to the principal charge, I said, "I was no criminal, but a
man calumniated, illegally imprisoned, and loaded with irons; that the
King, in the year 1746, had cashiered me, and confiscated my parental
inheritance; that therefore the laws of nature enforced me to seek honour
and bread in a foreign service; and that, finding these in Austria, I
became an officer and a faithful subject of the Empress-Queen; that I had
been a second time unoffendingly imprisoned; that here I was treated as
the worst of malefactors, and my only resource was to seek my liberty by
such means as I could; were I therefore in this attempt to destroy
Magdeburg, and occasion the loss of a thousand lives, I should still be
guiltless.  Had I been heard and legally sentenced, previous to my
imprisonment at Glatz, I should have been, and still continued, a
criminal; but not having been guilty of any small, much less of any great
crime, equal to my punishment, if such crime could be, I was therefore
not accountable for consequences; I owed neither fidelity nor duty to the
King of Prussia; for by the word of his power he had deprived me of
bread, honour, country, and freedom."

Here the examination ended, without further discovery; the officers,
however, falling under suspicion, were all removed, and thus I lost my
best friends; yet it was not long before I had gained two others, which
was no difficult matter, as I knew the national character, and that none
but poor men were made militia officers.  Thus was the governor's
precaution fruitless, and almost everybody secretly wished I might obtain
my freedom.

I shall never forget the noble manner in which I was treated on this
occasion by the Landgrave.  This I personally acknowledged, some years
afterwards, in the city of Cassel, when I heard many things which
confirmed all my surmises concerning Vienna.  The Landgrave received me
with all grace, favour, and distinction.  I revere his memory, and seek
to honour his name.  He was the friend of misfortune.  When I not long
afterwards fell ill, he sent me his own physician, and meat from his
table, nor would he suffer me, during two months, to be wakened by the
sentinels.  He likewise removed the dreadful collar from my neck; for
which he was severely reprimanded by the King, as he himself has since
assured me.

I might fill a volume with incidents attending two other efforts to
escape, but I will not weary the reader's patience with too much
repetition.  I shall merely give an abstract of both.

When I had once more gained the officers, I made a new attempt at mining
my way out.  Not wanting for implements, my chains and the flooring were
soon cut through, and all was so carefully replaced that I was under no
fear of examination.  I here found my concealed money, pistols, and other
necessaries, but till I had rid myself of some hundredweight of sand, it
was impossible to proceed.  For this purpose I made two different
openings in the floor: out of the real hole I threw a great quantity of
sand into my prison; after which I closed it with all possible care.  I
then worked at the second with so much noise, that I was certain they
must hear me without.  About midnight the doors began to thunder, and in
they came, detecting me, as I intended they should.  None of them could
conceive why I should wish to break out under the door, where there was a
triple guard to pass.  The sentinels remained, and in the morning
prisoners were sent to wheel away the sand.  The hole was walled up and
boarded, and my fetters were renewed.  They laughed at the ridiculousness
of my undertaking, but punished me by depriving me of my light and bed,
which, however, in a fortnight were both restored.  Of the other hole,
out of which most of the earth had been thrown, no one was aware.  The
major and lieutenant were too much my friends to remark that they had
removed thrice the quantity of sand the false opening could contain.  They
supposed this strange attempt having failed, it would be my last, and
Bruckhausen grew negligent.

The governor and sub-governor both visited me after some weeks, but far
from imitating the brutality of Borck, the Landgrave spoke to me with
mildness, promised me his interest to regain my freedom, when peace
should be concluded; told me I had more friends than I supposed, and
assured me I had not been forgotten by the Court at Vienna.

He promised me every alleviation, and I gave him my word I would no more
attempt to escape while he remained governor.  My manner enforced
conviction and he ordered my neck-collar to be taken off, my window to be
unclosed, my doors to be left open two hours every day, a stove to be put
in my dungeon, finer linen for my shirts, and paper to amuse myself by
writing my thoughts.  The sheets were to be numbered when given, and then
returned, by the town-major, that I might not abuse this liberty.

Ink was not allowed me, I therefore pricked my fingers, suffered the
blood to trickle into a pot; by these means I procured a substitute for
ink, both to write and draw.

I now engraved my cups, and versified.  I had opportunity to display my
abilities to awaken compassion.  My emulation was increased by knowing
that my works were seen at Courts, that the Princess Amelia and the Queen
herself testified their satisfaction.  I had subjects to engrave from
sent me; and the wretch whom the King intended to bury alive, whose name
no man was to mention, never was more famous than while he vented his
groans in his dungeon.  My writings produced their effect, and really
regained my freedom.  To my cultivation of the sciences and presence of
mind I am indebted for all; these all the power of Frederic could not
deprive me of.  Yes!  This liberty I procured, though he answered all
petitions in my behalf--"He is a dangerous man: and so long as I live he
shall never see the light!"  Yet have I seen it during his life: after
his death I have seen it without revenging myself, otherwise than by
proving my virtue to a monarch who oppressed because he knew me not,
because he would not recall the hasty sentence of anger, or own he might
be mistaken.  He died convinced of my integrity, yet without affording me
retribution!  Man is formed by misfortune; virtue is active in adversity.
It is indifferent to me that the companions of my youth have their ears
gratified, delighted with the titles of General!  Field-Marshal I have
learned to live without such additions; I am known in my works.

I returned to my dungeon.  Here, after my last conference with the
Landgrave, I waited my fate with a mind more at ease than that of a
prince in a palace.  The newspapers they brought me bespoke approaching
peace, on which my dependence was placed, and I passed eighteen months
calmly, and without further attempt to escape.

The father of the Landgrave died; and Magdeburg now lost its governor.
The worthy Reichmann, however, testified for me all compassion and
esteem; I had books, and my time was employed.  Imprisonment and chains
to me were become habitual, and freedom in hope approached.

About this time I wrote the poems, "The Macedonian Hero," "The Dream
Realised," and some fables.  The best of my poems are now lost to me.  The
mind's sensibility when the body is imprisoned is strongly roused, nor
can all the aids of the library equal this advantage.  Perhaps I may
recover some in Berlin; if so, the world may learn what my thoughts then
were.  When I was at liberty, I had none but such as I remembered, and
these I committed to writing.  On my first visit to the Landgrave of
Hesse-Cassel I received a volume of them written in my own blood; but
there were eight of these which I shall never regain.

The death of Elizabeth, the deposing of Peter III., and the accession of
Catherine II. produced peace.  On the receipt of this intelligence I
tried to provide for all contingencies.  The worthy Captain K--- had
opened me a correspondence with Vienna: I was assured of support; but was
assured the administrators and those who possessed my estates would throw
every impediment in the way of freedom.  I tried to persuade another
officer to aid my escape, but in vain.

I therefore opened my old hole, and my friends assisted me to
disembarrass myself of sand.  My money melted away, but they provided me
with tools, gunpowder, and a good sword.  I had remained so long quiet
that my flooring was not examined.

My intent was to wait the peace; and should I continue in chains, then
would I have my subterranean passage to the rampart ready for escape.  For
my further security, an old lieutenant had purchased a house in the
suburbs, where I might lie concealed.  Gummern, in Saxony, is two miles
from Magdeburg; here a friend, with two good horses, was to wait a year,
to ride on the glacis of Klosterbergen on the first and fifteenth of each
month, and at a given signal to hasten to my assistance.

My passage had to be ready in case of emergency; I removed the upper
planking, broke up the two beds, cut the boards into chips, and burnt
them in my stove.  By this I obtained so much additional room as to
proceed half way with my mine.  Linen again was brought me, sand-bags
made, and thus I successfully proceeded to all but the last operation.
Everything was so well concealed that I had nothing to fear from
inspection, especially as the new come garrison could not know what was
the original length of the planks.

I must here relate a dreadful accident, which I cannot remember without
shuddering, and the terror of which has often haunted my very dreams.

While mining under the rampart, as I was carrying out the sand-bag, I
struck my foot against a stone which fell down and closed up the passage.

What was my horror to find myself buried alive!  After a short
reflection, I began to work the sand away from the side, that I might
turn round.  There were some feet of empty space, into which I threw the
sand as I worked it away; but the small quantity of air soon made it so
foul that I a thousand times wished myself dead, and made several
attempts to strangle myself.  Thirst almost deprived me of my senses, but
as often as I put my mouth to the sand I inhaled fresh air.  My
sufferings were incredible, and I imagine I passed eight hours in this
situation.  My spirits fainted; again I recovered and began to labour,
but the earth was as high as my chin, and I had no more space where I
might throw the sand.  I made a more desperate effort, drew my body into
a ball, and turned round; I now faced the stone; there being an opening
at the top, I respired fresher air.  I rooted away the sand under the
stone, and let it sink so that I might creep over; at length I once more
arrived in my dungeon!

The morning was advanced; I sat down so exhausted that I supposed it was
impossible I had strength to conceal my hole.  After half an hour's rest,
my fortitude returned: again I went to work, and scarcely had I ended
before my visitors approached.

They found me pale: I complained of headache, and continued some days
affected by the fatigue I had sustained.  After a time strength returned;
but perhaps of all my nights of horror this was the most horrible.  I
repeatedly dreamt I was buried in the centre of the earth; and now,
though three and twenty years are elapsed, my sleep is still haunted by
this vision.

After this accident, when I worked in my cavity, I hung a knife round my
neck, that if I should be enclosed I might shorten my miseries.  Over the
stone that had fallen several others hung tottering, under which I was
obliged to creep.  Nothing, however, could deter me from trying to obtain
my liberty.

When my passage was ready, I wrote letters to my friends at Vienna, and
also a memorial to my Sovereign.  When the militia left Magdeburg and the
regulars returned, I took leave of my friends who had behaved so
benevolently.  Several weeks elapsed before they departed and I learnt
that General Reidt was appointed ambassador from Vienna to Berlin.

I had seen the world; I knew this General was not averse to a bribe: I
wrote him a letter, conjuring him to act with ardour in my behalf.  I
enclosed a draft for six thousand florins on my effects at Vienna, and he
received four thousand from one of my relations.  I have to thank these
ten thousand florins for my freedom, which I obtained nine months after.
My vouchers show the six thousand florins were paid in April, 1763, to
the order of General Reidt.  The other four thousand I repaid, when at
liberty, to my friend.

I received intelligence before the garrison departed that no stipulation
had been made on my behalf at the peace of Hubertsberg.  The Vienna
plenipotentiaries, after the articles were signed, mentioned my name to
Hertzberg, with but few assurances of every effort being made to move
Frederic, a promise on which I could much better rely than on my
protectors at Vienna, who had left me in misfortune.  I determined to
wait three months longer, and should I still find myself neglected, to
owe my escape to myself.

On the change of the garrison, the officers were more difficult to gain
than the former.  The majors obeyed their orders; their help was
unnecessary; but still I sighed for my old friends.  I had only
ammunition-bread again for food.

My time hung very heavy; everything was examined on the change of the
garrison.  A stricter scrutiny might occur, and my projects be
discovered.  This had nearly been effected, as I shall here relate.  I
had so tamed a mouse that it would eat from my mouth; in this small
animal I discovered proofs of intelligence.

This mouse had nearly been my ruin.  I had diverted myself with it one
night; it had been nibbling at my door and capering on a trencher.  The
sentinels hearing our amusement, called the officers: they heard also,
and thought all was not right.  At daybreak the town-major, a smith, and
mason entered; strict search was begun; flooring, walls, chains, and my
own person were all scrutinised, but in vain.  They asked what was the
noise they had heard; I mentioned the mouse, whistled, and it came and
jumped upon my shoulder.  Orders were given I should be deprived of its
society; I entreated they would spare its life.  The officer on guard
gave me his word he would present it to a lady, who would treat it with
tenderness.

He took it away and turned it loose in the guardroom, but it was tame to
me alone, and sought a hiding place.  It had fled to my prison door, and,
at the hour of visitation, ran into my dungeon, testifying its joy by
leaping between my legs.  It is worthy of remark that it had been taken
away blindfold, that is to say, wrapped in a handkerchief.  The guard-
room was a hundred paces from the dungeon.

All were desirous of obtaining this mouse, but the major carried it off
for his lady; she put it into a cage, where it pined, and in a few days
died.

The loss of this companion made me quite melancholy, yet, on the last
examination, I perceived it had so eaten the bread by which I had
concealed the crevices I had made in cutting the floor, that the
examiners must be blind not to discover them.  I was convinced my
faithful little friend had fallen a necessary victim to its master's
safety.  This accident determined me not to wait the three months.

I have related that horses were to be kept ready, on the first and
fifteenth, and I only suffered the first of August to pass, because I
would not injure Major Pfuhl, who had treated me with more compassion
than his comrades, and whose day of visitation it was.  On the fifteenth
I determined to fly.  This resolution formed, I waited in expectation of
the day, when a new and remarkable succession of accidents happened.

An alarm of fire had obliged the major to repair to the town; he
committed the keys to the lieutenant.  The latter, coming to visit me,
asked--"Dear Trenck, have you never, during seven years that you have
been under the guard of the militia, found a man like Schell?"  "Alas!
sir," answered I, "such friends are rare; the will of many has been good;
each knew I could make his fortune, but none had courage enough for so
desperate an attempt!  Money I have distributed freely, but have received
little help."

"How do you obtain money in this dungeon?"  "From a correspondent at
Vienna, by whom I am still supplied."  "If I can serve you, command me: I
will do it without asking any return."  So saying, I took fifty ducats
from between the panels, and gave them to the lieutenant.  At first he
refused, but at length accepted them with fear.  He left me, promised to
return, pretended to shut the door, and kept his word.  He now said debt
obliged him to desert; that this had long been his determination, and
that, desirous to assist me at the same time if he could find the means,
I had only to show how this might be effected.

We continued two hours in conference: a plan was formed, approved, and a
certainty of success demonstrated; especially when I told him I had two
horses waiting.  We vowed eternal friendship; I gave him fifty ducats,
and his debts, not amounting to more than two hundred rix-dollars, which
he never could have discharged out of his pay.

He was to prepare four keys to resemble those of my dungeon; the latter
were to be exchanged on the day of flight, being kept in the guard-room
while the major was with General Walrabe.  He was to give the grenadiers
on guard leave of absence, or send them into the town on various
pretences.  The sentinels he was to call from their duty, and those
placed over me were to be sent into my dungeon to take away my bed; while
encumbered with this, I was to spring out and lock them in, after which
we were to mount our horses, which were kept ready, and ride to Gummern.
Every thing was to be prepared within a week, when he was to mount guard.
We had scarcely formed our project before the sentinels called the major
was coming; he accordingly barred the door, and the major passed to
General Walrabe.

No man was happier than myself; my hopes of escape were triple; the
mediation at Berlin, the mine I had made, and my friend the lieutenant.

When most my mind ought to have been clear, I seemed to have lost my
understanding.  I came to a resolution which will appear extravagant and
pitiable.  I was stupid enough, mad enough, to form the design of casting
myself on the magnanimity of the Great Frederic!  Should this fail, I
still thought my lieutenant a saviour.

Having heated my imagination with this scheme, I waited the visitation
with anxiety.  The major entered, I bespoke him thus:

"I know, sir, the great Prince Ferdinand is again in Magdeburg.  Inform
him that he may examine my prison, double the sentinels, and give me his
commands, stating what hour will please him I should make my appearance
on the glacis of Klosterbergen.  If I prove myself capable of this, I
then hope for the protection of Prince Ferdinand: and that he will relate
my proceeding to the King, who may he convinced of my innocence."

The major was astonished; the proposal he held to be ridiculous, and the
performance impossible.  I persisted; he returned with the sub-governor,
Reichmann, the town-major, Riding, and the major of inspection.  The
answer they delivered was, that the Prince promised me his protection,
the King's favour, and a release from my chains, should I prove my
assertion.  I required they would appoint a time; they ridiculed the
thing as impossible, and said that it would be sufficient could I prove
the practicability of such a scheme; but should I refuse, they would
break up the flooring, and place sentinels in my dungeon, adding, the
governor would not admit of any breaking out.

After promises of good faith, I disencumbered myself of my chains, raised
my flooring, gave them my implements, and two keys, my friends had
procured me, to the doors of the subterranean gallery.  This gallery I
desired them to sound with their sword hilts, at the place through which
I was to break, which might be done in a few minutes.  I described the
road I was to take through the gallery, informed them that two of the
doors had not been shut for six months, and to the others they had the
keys; adding, I had horses waiting at the glacis, that would be now
ready; the stables for which were unknown to them.  They went, examined,
returned, put questions, which I answered with precision.  They left me
with seeming friendship, came back, told me the Prince was astonished at
what he had heard, that he wished me all happiness, and then took me
unfettered, to the guard-house.  The major came in the evening, treated
us with a supper, assured me everything would happen to my wishes, and
that Prince Ferdinand had written to Berlin.

The guard was reinforced next day.  The whole guard loaded with ball
before my eyes, the drawbridges were raised in open day, and precautions
were taken as if I intended to make attempts as desperate as those I had
made at Glatz.

I now saw workmen employed on my dungeon, and carts bringing
quarry-stones.  The officers on guard behaved with kindness, kept a good
table, at which I ate; but two sentinels, and an under-officer, never
quitted the guard-room.  Conversation was cautious, and this continued
five or six days; at length, it was the lieutenant's turn to mount guard;
he appeared to be as friendly as formerly, but conference was difficult;
he found an opportunity to express his astonishment at my ill-timed
discovery, told me the Prince knew nothing of the affair, and that the
report through the garrison was, I had been surprised in making a new
attempt.

My dungeon was completed in a week.  The town-major re-conducted me to
it.  My foot was chained to the wall with links twice as strong as
formerly; the remainder of my irons were never after added.

The dungeon was paved with flag-stones.  That part of my money only was
saved which I had concealed in the panels of the door, and the chimney of
my stove; some thirty louis-d'ors, hidden about my clothes, were taken
from me.

While the smith was riveting my chains, I addressed the sub-governor.  "Is
this the fulfilment of the pledge of the Prince?  Think not you deceive
me, I am acquainted with the false reports that have been spread; the
truth will soon come to light, and the unworthy be put to shame.  Nay, I
forewarn you that Trenck shall not be much longer in your power; for were
you to build your dungeon of steel, it would be insufficient to contain
me."

They smiled at me.  Reichmann told me I might soon obtain my freedom in a
proper manner.  My firm reliance on my friend, the lieutenant, gave me a
degree of confidence that amazed them all.

It is necessary to explain this affair.  When I obtained my liberty, I
visited Prince Ferdinand.  He informed me the majors had not made a true
report.  Their story was, they had caught me at work, and, had it not
been for their diligence, I should have made my escape.  Prince Ferdinand
heard the truth, and informed the King, who only waited an opportunity to
restore me to liberty.

Once more I was immured.  I waited in hope for the day when my deliverer
was to mount guard.  What again was my despair when I saw another
lieutenant!  I buoyed myself up with the hope that accident was the
occasion of this; but I remained three weeks, and saw him no more.  I
heard at length that he had left the corps of grenadiers, and was no
longer to mount guard at the Star Fort.  He has my forgiveness, and I
applaud myself for never having said anything by which he might be
injured.  He might have repented his promise, he might have trusted
another friend with the enterprise, and have been himself betrayed; but,
be it as it may, his absence cut off all hope.

I now repented my folly and vanity; I had brought my misfortunes on
myself.  I had myself rendered my dungeon impenetrable.  Death would have
followed but for the dependence I placed in the court of Vienna.

The officers remarked the loss of my fortitude and thoughtfulness; the
verses I wrote were desponding.  The only comfort they could give
was--"Patience, dear Trenck; your condition cannot be worse; the King may
not live for ever."  Were I sick, they told me I might hope my sufferings
would soon have an end.  If I recovered they pitied me, and lamented
their continuance.  What man of my rank and expectations ever endured
what I did, ever was treated as I have been treated!




CHAPTER VI.


Peace had been concluded nine months.  I was forgotten.  At last, when I
supposed all hope lost, the 25th of December, and the day of freedom,
came.  At the hour of parade, Count Schlieben, lieutenant of the guards,
brought orders for my release!

The sub-governor supposed me weaker in intellect than I was, and would
not too suddenly tell me these tidings.  He knew not the presence of
mind, the fortitude, which the dangers I had seen had made habitual.

My doors for the LAST TIME resounded!  Several people entered; their
countenances were cheerful, and the sub-governor at their head at length
said, "This time, my dear Trenck, I am the messenger of good news.  Prince
Ferdinand has prevailed on the King to let your irons be taken off."
Accordingly, to work went the smith.  "You shall also," continued he,
"have a better apartment."  "I am free, then," said I.  "Speak! fear not!
I can moderate my transports."

"Then you are free!" was the reply.

The sub-governor first embraced me, and afterwards his attendants.

He asked me what clothes I would wish.  I answered, the uniform of my
regiment.  The tailor took my measure.  Reichmann told him it must be
made by the morning.  The man excused himself because it was Christmas
Eve.  "So, then, this gentleman must remain in his dungeon because it is
holiday with you."  The tailor promised to be ready.

I was taken to the guard-room, congratulations were universal, and the
town-major administered the oath customary to all state prisoners.

1st.  That I should avenge myself on no man.

2nd.  That I should neither enter the Prussian nor Saxon states.

3rd.  That I should never relate by speech or in writing what had
happened to me.

4th.  And that, so long as the King lived, I should neither serve in a
civil nor military capacity.

Count Schlieben delivered me a letter from the imperial minister, General
Reidt, to the following purport:--That he rejoiced at having found an
opportunity of obtaining my liberty from the King, and that I must obey
the requisitions of Count Schlieben, whose orders were to accompany me to
Prague.

"Yes, dear Trenck," said Schlieben, "I am to conduct you through Dresden
to Prague, with orders not to suffer you to speak to any one on the road.
I have received three hundred ducats, to defray the expenses of
travelling.  As all things cannot be prepared today, the, sub-governor
has determined we shall depart to-morrow night."

I acquiesced, and Count Schlieben remained with me; the others returned
to town, and I dined with the major and officers on guard, with General
Walrabe in his prison.

Once at liberty, I walked about the fortifications, to collect the money
I had concealed in my dungeon.  To every man on guard I gave a ducat, to
the sentinels, each three, and ten ducats to be divided among the relief-
guard.  I sent the officer on guard a present from Prague, and the
remainder of my money I bestowed on the widow of the worthy Gelfhardt.  He
was no more, and she had entrusted the thousand florins to a young
soldier, who, spending them too freely, was suspected, betrayed her, and
she passed two years in prison.  Gelfhardt never received any punishment;
he was in the field.  Had he left any children, I should have provided
for them.  To the widow of the man who hung himself before my prison
door, in the year 1756, I gave thirty ducats, lent me by Schlieben.

The night was riotous, the guard made merry, and I passed most of it in
their company.  I was visited by all the generals of the garrison on
Christmas morning, for I was not allowed to enter the town.  I dressed,
viewed myself in the glass, and found pleasure; but the tumult of my
passions, the congratulations I received, and the vivacity round me,
prevented my remembering incidents minutely.

Yet how wonderful an alteration in the countenances of those by whom I
had been guarded!  I was treated with friendship, attention, and
flattery.  And why?  Because these fetters had dropped off which I had
never justly borne.

Evening came, and with it Count Schlieben, a waggon, and four
post-horses.  After an affecting farewell, we departed.  I shed tears at
leaving Magdeburg.  It seems strange that I lived here ten years, yet
never saw the town.

The duration of my imprisonment at Magdeburg was nearly ten years, and
with the term of my imprisonment at Glatz, the time is eleven years.  Thus
was I robbed of time, my body weakened, my health impaired, so that in my
decline of life, a second time, I suffer the gloom and chains of the
dungeon at Magdeburg.

The reader would now hope that my calamities were at an end; yet, upon my
honour, I would prefer the suffering of the Star Fort to those I have
since endured in Austria, especially while Krugel and Zetto were my
referendaries and curators.

At this moment I am obliged to be guarded in my expressions.  I have put
my enemies to shame; but the hope of justice or reward is vain.  No
rewards are bestowed on him who, with the consciousness of integrity,
demands, and does not deplore.  The facts I shall relate will seem
incredible, yet I have, in my own hands, the vouchers of their veracity.

"If my right hand is guilty of writing untruths in this book, may the
executioner sever it from my body, and, in the memory of posterity, may I
live a villain!"

I will proceed with my history.

On the 2nd of January I arrived, with Count Schlieben, at Prague; the
same day he delivered me to the governor, the Duke of Deuxponts.  He
received me with kindness; we dined with him two days, and all Prague
were anxious to see a man who had surmounted ten years of suffering so
unheard of as mine.  Here I received three thousand florins, and paid
General Reidt his three hundred ducats, which he had advanced Count
Schlieben, for my journey, the repayment of which he demanded in his
letter, although he had received ten thousand florins.  The expense of
returning I also paid to Schlieben, made him a present, and provided
myself with some necessaries.  After remaining a few days at Prague, a
courier arrived from Vienna, to whom I was obliged to pay forty florins,
with an order from government to bring me from Prague to Vienna.  My
sword was demanded; Captain Count Wela, and two inferior officers,
entered the carriage, which I was obliged to purchase, in company with
me, and brought me to Vienna.  I took up a thousand florins more, in
Prague, to defray these expenses, and was obliged, in Vienna, to pay the
captain fifty ducats for travelling charges back.

I was brought back like a criminal, was sent as a prisoner to the
barracks, there kept in the chamber of Lieutenant Blonket, with orders
that I should be suffered to write to no one, speak to no one, without a
ticket from the counsellors Kempt or Huttner.

Thus I remained six weeks; at length, the colonel of the regiment of
Poniatowsky, the present field-marshal, Count Alton, spoke to me.  I
related what I supposed were the reasons of my being kept a prisoner in
Vienna; and to the exertions of this man am I indebted that the
intentions of my enemies were frustrated, which were to have me
imprisoned as insane in the fortress of Glatz.  Had they once removed me
from Vienna, I should certainly have pined away my life in a madhouse.
Yet I could never obtain justice against these men.  The Empress was
persuaded that my brain was affected, and that I uttered threats against
the King of Prussia.  The election of a king of the Romans was then in
agitation, and the court was apprehensive lest I should offend the
Prussian envoy.  General Reidt had been obliged to promise Frederic that
I should not appear in Vienna, and that they should hold a wary eye over
me.  The Empress-Queen felt compassion for my supposed disease, and asked
if no assistance could be afforded me; to which they answered, I had
several times let blood, but that I still was a dangerous man.  They
added, that I had squandered four thousand florins in six days at Prague;
that it would be proper to appoint guardians to impede such
extravagancies.

Count Alton spoke of me and my hard destiny to the Countess Parr,
mistress of the ceremonies to the Empress-Queen.  The late Emperor
entered the chamber, and asked whether I ever had any lucid intervals.
"May it please your Majesty," answered Alton, "he has been seven weeks in
my barracks, and I never met a more reasonable man.  There is mystery in
this affair, or he could not be treated as a madman.  That he is not so
in anywise I pledge my honour."

The next day the Emperor sent Count Thurn, grand-master of the Archduke
Leopold, to speak to me.  In him I found an enlightened philosopher, and
a lover of his country.  To him I related how I had twice been betrayed,
twice sold at Vienna, during my imprisonment; to him showed that my
administrators had acted in this vile manner that I might be imprisoned
for life, and they remain in possession of my effects.  We conversed for
two hours, during which many things were said that prudence will not
permit me to repeat.  I gained his confidence, and he continued my friend
till death.  He promised me protection, and procured me an audience of
the Emperor.

I spoke with freedom; the audience lasted an hour.  At length the Emperor
retired into the next apartment.  I saw the tears drop from his eyes.  I
fell at his feet, and wished for the presence of a Rubens or Apelles, to
preserve a scene so honourable to the memory of the monarch, and paint
the sensations of an innocent man, imploring the protection of a
compassionate prince.  The Emperor tore himself from me, and I departed
with sensations such as only those can know who, themselves being
virtuous, have met with wicked men.  I returned to the barracks with joy,
and an order the next day came for my release.  I went with Count Alton
to the Countess Parr, and by her mediation I obtained an audience with
the Empress.

I cannot describe how much she pitied my sufferings and admired my
fortitude.  She told me she was informed of the artifices practised
against me in Vienna; she required me to forgive my enemies, and pass all
the accounts of my administrators.  "Do not complain of anything," said
she, "but act as I desire--I know all--you shall be recompensed by me;
you deserve reward and repose, and these you shall enjoy."

I must either sign whatever was given to sign, or be sent to a madhouse.
I received orders to accompany M. Pistrich to Counsellor Ziegler; thither
I went, and the next day was obliged to sign, in their presence, the
following conditions:--

First--That I acknowledged the will of Trenck to be valid.

Secondly--That I renounced all claim to the Sclavonian estates, relying
alone on her Majesty's favour.

Thirdly--That I solemnly acquitted my accountants and curators.  And,

Lastly--That I would not continue in Vienna.

This I must sign, or languish in prison.

How did my blood boil while I signed!  This confidence I had in myself
assured me I could obtain employment in any country of Europe, by the
labours of my mind, and the recital of all my woes.  At that time I had
no children; I little regretted what I had lost, or the poor portion that
remained.

I determined to avoid Austria eternally.  My pride would never suffer me,
by insidious arts, to approach the throne.  I knew no such mode of
soliciting for justice, hence I was not a match for my enemies; hence my
misfortunes.  Appeals to justice were represented as the splenetic
effusions of a man never to be satisfied.  My too sensitive heart was
corroded by the treatment I met at Vienna.  I, who with so much fortitude
had suffered so much in the cause of Vienna, I, on whom the eyes of
Germany were fixed, to behold what should be the reward of these
sufferings, I was again, in this country, kept a prisoner, and delivered
to those by whom I had been plundered as a man insane!

Before my intended departure to seek my fortune, I fell ill, and sickness
almost brought me to the grave.  The Empress, in her great clemency, sent
one of her physicians and a friar to my assistance, both of whom I was
obliged to pay.

At this time I refused a major's commission, for which I was obliged to
pay the fees.  Being excluded from actual service, to me the title was of
little value; my rank in the army had been equal ten years before in
other service.  The following words, inserted in my commission, are not
unworthy of remark:--"Her Majesty, in consequence of my fidelity for her
service, demonstrated during a long imprisonment, my endowments and
virtues, had been graciously pleased to grant me, in the Imperial
service, the rank of major."--The rank of major!--From this preamble who
would not have expected either the rank of general, or the restoration of
my great Sclavonian estates?  I had been fifteen years a captain of
cavalry, and then was I made an invalid major three-and-twenty years ago,
and an invalid major I still remain!  Let all that has been related be
called to mind, the manner in which I had been pillaged and betrayed; let
Vienna, Dantzic, and Magdeburg he remembered; and be this my promotion
remembered also!  Let it be known that the commission of major might be
bought for a few thousand florins!  Thirty thousand florins only of the
money I had been robbed of would have purchased a colonel's commission.  I
should then have been a companion for generals.

During the thirty-six years that I have been in the service of Austria, I
never had any man of rank, any great general, my enemy, except Count
Grassalkowitz, and he was only my enemy because he had conceived a
friendship for my estates.

My character was never calumniated, nor did any worthy man ever speak of
me but with respect.  Who were, who are, my enemies?--Jesuits, monks,
unprincipled advocates, wishing to become my curators, referendaries, who
died despicable, or now live in houses of correction.  Such as live, live
in dread of a similar end, for the Emperor Joseph is able to discover the
truth.  Alas! the truth is discovered so late; age has now nearly
rendered me an invalid.  Men with hearts so base ought, indeed, to become
the scavengers of society, that, terrified by their example, succeeding
judges may not rack the heart of an honest man, seize on the possessions
of the orphan and the widow, and expel virtue out of Austria.

I attended the levee of Prince Kaunitz.  Not personally known to him, he
viewed in me a crawling insect.  I thought somewhat more proudly; my
actions were upright, and so should my body be.  I quitted the apartment,
and was congratulated by the mercenary Swiss porter on my good fortune of
having obtained an audience!

I applied to the field-marshal, from whom I received this answer--"If you
cannot purchase, my dear Trenck, it will be impossible to admit you into
service; besides, you are too old to learn our manoeuvres."  I was then
thirty-seven.  I briefly replied, "Your excellency mistakes my character.
I did not come to Vienna to serve as an invalid major.  My curators have
taken good care I should have no money to purchase; but had I millions, I
would never obtain rank in the army by that mode."  I quitted the room
with a shrug.  The next day I addressed a memorial to the Empress.  I did
not re-demand my Sclavonian estates, I only petitioned.

First--That those who had carried off quintals of silver and gold from
the premises, and had rendered no account to me or the treasury, should
refund at least a part.

Secondly--That they should be obliged to return the thirty-six thousand
florins taken from my inheritance, and applied to a hospital.

Thirdly--That the thirty-six thousand florins might be repaid, which
Count Grassalkowitz had deducted from the allodial estates, for three
thousand six hundred pandours who had fallen in the service of the
Empress; I not being bound to pay for the lives of men who had died in
defence of the Empress.

Fourthly--I required that fifteen thousand florins, which had been
deducted from my capital, and applied to the Bohemian fortifications,
should likewise be restored, together with the fifteen thousand which had
been unduly paid to the regiment of Trenck.

Fifthly--I reclaimed the twelve thousand florins which I had been robbed
of at Dantzic by the treachery of the Imperial Resident, Abramson; and
public satisfaction from the magistracy of Dantzic, who had delivered me
up, so contrary to the laws of nations, to the Prussian power.

I likewise claimed the interest of six per cent, for seventy-six thousand
florins, detained by the Hungarian Chamber, which amounted to twenty
thousand florins; I having been allowed five per cent., and at last four.

I insisted on the restoration of my Sclavonian estates, and a proper
allowance for improvements, which the very sentence of the court had
granted, and which amounted to eighty thousand florins.

I petitioned for an arbitrator; I solicited justice concerning rights,
but received no answer to this and a hundred other petitions!

I must here speak of transactions during my imprisonment.  I had bought a
house in Vienna in the year 1750; the price was sixteen thousand florins,
thirteen thousand of which I had paid by instalments.  The receipts were
among my writings; these writings, with my other effects, were taken from
me at Dantzic, in the year 1754; nor have I, to this hour, been able to
learn more than that my writings were sent to the administrators of my
affairs at Vienna.  With respect to my houses and property in Dantzic, in
what manner these were disposed of no one could or would say.

After being released at Magdeburg, I inquired concerning my house, but no
longer found it mine.  Those who had got possession of my writings must
have restored the acquittances to the seller, consequently he could re-
demand the whole sum.  My house was in other hands, and I was brought in
debtor six thousand florins for interest and costs of suit.  Thus were
house and money gone.  Whom can I accuse?

Again, I had maintained, at my own expense Lieutenant Schroeder, who had
deserted from Glatz, and for whom I obtained a captain's commission in
the guard of Prince Esterhazy, at Eisenstadt.  His misconduct caused him
to be cashiered.  In my administrator's accounts I found the following

"To Captain Schroeder, for capital, interest, and costs of suit, sixteen
hundred florins."

It was certain I was not a penny indebted to this person; I had no
redress, having been obliged to pass and sign all their accounts.

I, four years afterwards, obtained information concerning this affair: I
met Schroeder, knew him, and inquired whether he had received these
sixteen hundred florins.  He answered in the affirmative.  "No one
believed you would ever more see the light.  I knew you would serve me,
and that you would relieve my necessities.  I went and spoke to Dr.
Berger; he agreed we should halve the sum, and his contrivance was, I
should make oath I had lent you a thousand florins, without having
received your note.  The money was paid me by M. Frauenberger, to whom I
agreed to send a present of Tokay, for Madam Huttner."

This was the manner in which my curators took care of my property!  Many
instances I could produce, but I am too much agitated by the
recollection.  I must speak a word concerning who and what my curators
were.

The Court Counsellor, Kempf, was my administrator, and Counsellor Huttner
my referendary.  The substitute of Kempf was Frauenberger, who, being
obliged to act as a clerk at Prague during the war, appointed one Krebs
as a sub-substitute; whether M. Krebs had also a sub-substitute is more
than I am able to say.

Dr. Bertracker was _fidei commiss-curator_, though there was no _fidei
commissum_ existing.  Dr. Berger, as Fidei Commiss-Advocate, was
superintendent, and to them all salaries were to be paid.

Let us see what was the business this company had to transact.  I had
seventy-six thousand florins in the Hungarian Chamber, the interest of
which was to be yearly received, and added to the capital: this was their
employment, and was certainly so trifling that any man would have
performed it gratis.  The war made money scarce, and the discounting of
bills with my ducats was a profitable trade to my curators.  Had it been
honestly employed, I should have found my capital increased, after my
imprisonment, full sixty thousand florins.  Instead of these I received
three thousand florins at Prague, and found my capital diminished seven
thousand florins.

Frauenberger and Berger died rich; and I must be confined as a madman,
lest this deputy should have been proved a rogue.  This is the clue to
the acquittal I was obliged to sign:--Madam K--- was a lady of the
bedchamber at court; she could approach the throne: her chamber
employments, indeed, procured her the keys of doors that to me were
eternally locked.

Not satisfied with this, Kempf applied to the Empress, informed her they
were acquitted, not recompensed, and that Frauenberger required four
thousand florins for remuneration.  The Empress laid an interdict on the
half of my income and pension.  Thus was I obliged to live in poverty;
banished the Austrian dominions, where my seventy-six thousand florins
were reduced to sixty-three, the interest of which I could only receive;
and that burthened by the above interdict, the _fidei commissum_, and
administratorship.

The Empress during my sickness ordered that my captain's pay, during my
ten years' imprisonment, should be given me, amounting to eight thousand
florins; which pay she also settled on me as a pension.  By this pension
I never profited; for, during twenty-three years, that and more was
swallowed by journeys to Vienna, chicanery of courtiers and agents, and
costs of suits.  Of the eight thousand florins three were stolen; the
court physician must be paid thrice as much as another, and what remained
after my recovery was sunk in the preparations I had made to seek my
fortune elsewhere.

How far my captain's pay was matter of right or favour, let the world
judge, being told I went in the service of Vienna to the city of Dantzic.
Neither did this restitution of pay equal the sum I had sent the Imperial
Minister to obtain my freedom.  I remained nine months in my dungeon
after the articles were signed, unthought of; and, when mentioned by the
Austrians, the King had twice rejected the proposal of my being set free.
The affair happened as follows, as I received it from Prince Henry,
Prince Ferdinand of Brunswick, and the Minister, Count Hertzberg:--General
Reidt had received my ten thousand florins full six months, and seemed to
remember me no more.  One gala day, on the 21st of December, the King
happened to be in good humour; and Her Majesty the Queen, the Princess
Amelia, and the present monarch, said to the Imperial Minister, "This is
a fit opportunity for you to speak in behalf of Trenck."  He accordingly
waited his time, did speak, and the King replied, "Yes."

The joy of the whole company appeared so great that Frederic _the Great_
was offended!

Other circumstances which contributed to promote this affair, the reader
will collect from my history.  That there were persons in Vienna who
desired to detain me in prison is indubitable, from their proceedings
after my return.  My friends in Berlin and my money were my deliverers.

Walking round Vienna, having recovered from my sickness, the broad
expanse of heaven inspired a consciousness of freedom and pleasure
indescribable.  I heard the song of the lark.  My heart palpitated, my
pulse quickened, for I recollected I was not in chains.  "Happen," said
I, "what may, my will and heart are free."

An incident happened which furthered my project of getting away from
Austria.  Marshal Laudohn was going to Aix-la-Chapelle to take the
waters.  He went to take his leave of the Countess Parr; I was present
the Empress entered the chamber, and the conversation turning upon
Laudohn's journey, she said to me, "The baths are necessary to the re-
establishment of your health, Trenck."  I was ready, and followed him in
two days, where we remained about three months.

The mode of life at Aix-la-Chapelle and Spa pleased me, where men of all
nations meet, and where princes mingle with persons of all ranks.  One
day here procured me more pleasure than a whole life in Vienna.

I had scarcely remained a month before the Countess Parr wrote to me that
the Empress had provided for me, and would make my fortune as soon as I
returned to Vienna.  I tried to discover in what it consisted, but in
vain.  The death of the Emperor Francis at Innsbruck occasioned the
return of General Laudohn, and I followed him, on foot, to Vienna.

By means of the Countess Parr I obtained an audience.  The Empress said
to me, "I will prove to you, Trenck, that I keep my word.  I have insured
your fortune; I will give you a rich and prudent wife."  I replied, "Most
gracious Sovereign, I cannot determine to marry, and, if I could, my
choice is already made at Aix-la-Chapelle."--"How! are you married,
then?"--"Not yet, please your Majesty."--"Are you promised?"

"Yes."--"Well, well, no matter for that; I will take care of that affair;
I am determined on marrying you to the rich widow of M---, and she
approves my choice.  She is a good, kind woman, and has fifty thousand
florins a year.  You are in want of such a wife."

I was thunderstruck.  This bride was a canting hypocrite of sixty-three,
covetous, and a termagant.  I answered, "I must speak the truth to your
Majesty; I could not consent did she possess the treasures of the whole
earth.  I have made my choice, which, as an honest man, I must not
break."  The Empress said, "Your unhappiness is your own work.  Act as
you think proper; I have done."  Here my audience ended.  I was not
actually affianced at that time to my present wife, but love had
determined my choice.

Marshal Laudohn promoted the match.  He was acquainted with my heart and
the warmth of my passion, and perceived that I could not conquer the
desire of vengeance on men by whom I had been so cruelly treated.  He and
Professor Gellert advised me to take this mode of calming passions that
often inspired projects too vast, and that I should fly the company of
the great.  This counsel was seconded by my own wishes.  I returned to
Aix-la-Chapelle in December, 1766, and married the youngest daughter of
the former Burgomaster De Broe.  He was dead; he had lived on his own
estate in Brussels, where my wife was born and educated.  My wife's
mother was sister to the Vice-Chancellor of Dusseldorf, Baron Robert,
Lord of Roland.  My wife was with me in most parts of Europe.  She was
then young, handsome, worthy, and virtuous, has borne me eleven children,
all of whom she has nursed herself; eight of them are still living and
have been properly educated.  Twenty-two years she has borne a part of
all my sufferings, and well deserves reward.

During my abode in Vienna I made one effort more.  I sought an audience
with the present Emperor Joseph, related all that had happened to me, and
remarked such defects as I had observed in the regulations of the
country.  He heard me, and commanded me to commit my thoughts to writing.
My memorial was graciously received.  I also gave a full account of what
had happened to me in various countries, which prudence has occasioned me
to express more cautiously in these pages.  My memorial produced no
effect, and I hastened back to Aix-la-Chapelle.




CHAPTER VII.


For some years I lived in peace; my house was the rendezvous of the first
people, who came to take the waters.  I began to be more known among the
very first and best people.  I visited Professor Gellert at Leipzig, and
asked his advice concerning what branch of literature he thought it was
probable I might succeed in.  He most approved my fables and tales, and
blamed the excessive freedom with which I spoke in political writings.  I
neglected his advice, and many of the ensuing calamities were the
consequence.

I received orders to correspond with His Majesty's private secretary,
Baron Roder; suffice it to say, my attempts to serve my country were
frustrated; I saw defects too clearly, spoke my thoughts too frankly, and
wanted sufficient humility ever to obtain favour.

In the year 1767 I wrote "The Macedonian Hero," which became famous
throughout all Germany.  The poem did me honour, but entailed new
persecutions; yet I never could repent: I have had the honour of
presenting it to five reigning princes, by none of whom it has been
burnt.  The Empress alone was highly enraged.  I had spoken as Nathan did
to David, and the Jesuits now openly became my enemies.

The following trick was played me in 1768.  A friend in Brussels was
commissioned to receive my pay, from whom I learnt an interdict had been
laid upon it by the court called Hofkriegsrath, in Vienna, in which I was
condemned to pay seven hundred florins to one Bussy, with fourteen years'
interest.

Bussy was a known swindler.  I therefore journeyed, post-haste, to
Vienna.  No hearing; no satisfactory account was to be obtained.  The
answer was, "Sentence is passed, therefore all attempts are too late."

I applied to the Emperor Joseph, pledged my head to prove the
falsification of this note; and entreated a revision of the cause.  My
request was granted and my attorney, Weyhrauch, was an upright man.  When
he requested a day of revision to be appointed, he was threatened to be
committed by the referendary.  Zetto, should he interfere and defend the
affairs of Trenck.  He answered firmly, "His defence is my business: I
know my cause to be good."

Four months did I continue in Vienna before the day was appointed to
revise this cause.  It now appeared there were erasures and holes through
the paper in three places; all in court were convinced the claim ought to
be annulled, and the claimant punished.  Zetto ordered the parties to
withdraw, and then so managed that the judges resolved that the case must
be laid before the court with formal and written proofs.

This gave time for new knavery; I was obliged to return to
Aix-la-Chapelle, and four years elapsed before this affair was decided.
Two priests, in the interim, took false oaths that they had seen me
receive money.  At length, however, I proved that the note was dated a
year after I had been imprisoned at Magdeburg.  Further, my attorney
proved the writs of the court had been falsified.  Zetto, referendary,
and Bussy, were the forgers; but I happened to be too active, and my
attorney too honest, to lose this case.  I was obliged to make three very
expensive journeys from Aix-la-Chapelle to Vienna, lest judgement should
go by default.  Sentence at last was pronounced.  I gained my cause, and
the note was declared a forgery, but the costs, amounting to three
thousand five hundred florins, I was obliged to pay, for Bussy could not:
nor was he punished, though driven from Vienna for his villainous acts.
Zetto, however, still continued for eleven years my persecutor, till he
was deprived of his office, and condemned to the House of Correction.

My knowledge of the world increased at Aix-la-Chapelle, where men of all
characters met.  In the morning I conversed with a lord in opposition, in
the afternoon with an orator of the King's party, and in the evening with
an honest man of no party.  I sent Hungarian wine into England, France,
Holland, and the Empire.  This occasioned me to undertake long journeys,
and as my increased acquaintance gave me opportunities of receiving
foreigners with politeness an my own house, I was also well received
wherever I went.

The income I should have had from Vienna was engulfed by law-suits,
attorneys, and the journeys I undertook; having been thrice cited to
appear, in person, before the Hofkriegsrath.  No hope remained.  I was
described as a dangerous malcontent, who had deserted his native land.  I
nevertheless remained an honest man; one who could provide for his
necessities without the favour of courts; one whose acquaintance was
esteemed.  In Vienna alone was I unsought, unemployed, and obscure.

One day an accident happened which made me renowned as a magician, as one
who had power over fogs and clouds.

I had a quarrel with the Palatine President, Baron Blankart, concerning a
hunting district.  I wrote to him that he should repair to the spot in
dispute, whither I would attend with sword and pistol, hoping he would
there give me satisfaction for the affront I had received.  Thither I
went, with two huntsmen and two friends, but instead of the baron I found
two hundred armed peasants assembled.

I sent one of my huntsmen to the army of the enemy, informing them that,
if they did not retreat, I should fire.  The day was fine, but a thick
and impenetrable fog arose.  My huntsman returned, with intelligence
that, having delivered his message just as the fog came on, these heroes
had all run away with fright.

I advanced, fired my piece, as did my followers, and marched to the
mansion of my adversary, where my hunting-horn was blown in triumph in
his courtyard.  The runaway peasants fired, but the fog prevented their
taking aim.

I returned home, where many false reports had preceded me.  My wife
expected I should be brought home dead; however, not the least mischief
had happened.

It soon was propagated through the country that I had raised a fog to
render myself invisible, and that the truth of this could be justified by
two hundred witnesses.  All the monks of Aix-la-Chapelle, Juliers, and
Cologne, preached concerning me, reviled me, and warned the people to
beware of the arch-magician and Lutheran, Trenck.

On a future occasion, this belief I turned to merriment.  I went to hunt
the wolf in the forests of Montjoie, and invited the townsmen to the
chase.  Towards evening I, and some forty of my followers, retired to
rest in the charcoal huts, provided with wine and brandy.  "My lads,"
said I, "it is necessary you should discharge your pieces, and load them
anew; that to-morrow no wolf may escape, and that none of you excuse
yourselves on your pieces missing fire."  The guns were reloaded, and
placed in a separate chamber.  While they were merry-making, my huntsman
drew the balls, and charged the pieces with powder, several of which he
loaded with double charges.  Some of their notched balls I put into my
pocket.

In the morning away went I and my fellows to the chase.  Their
conversation turned on my necromancy, and the manner in which I could
envelope myself in a cloud, or make myself bullet-proof.  "What is that
you are talking about?" said I.--"Some of these unbelieving folks,"
answered my huntsman, "affirm your honour is unable to ward off
balls."--"Well, then," said I, "fire away, and try."  My huntsman fired.
I pretended to parry with my hand, and called, "Let any man that is so
inclined fire, but only one at a time."  Accordingly they began, and,
pretending to twist and turn about, I suffered them all to discharge
their pieces.  My people had carefully noticed that no man had reloaded
his gun.  Some of them received such blows from the guns that were doubly
charged that they fell, terrified at the powers of magic.  I advanced,
holding in my hand some of the marked balls.  "Let every one choose his
own," called I.  All stood motionless, and many of them slunk home with
their guns on their shoulders; some remained, and our sport was
excellent.

On Sunday the monks of Aix-la-Chapelle again began to preach.  My black
art became the theme of the whole country, and to this day many of the
people make oath that they fired upon me, and that, after catching them,
I returned the balls.

My invulnerable qualities were published throughout Juliers,
Aix-la-Chapelle, Maestricht, and Cologne, and perhaps this belief saved
my life; the priests having propagated it from their pulpits, in a
country which swarms with highway robbers, and where, for a single ducat,
any man may hire an assassin.

It is no small surprise that I should have preserved my life, in a town
where there are twenty-three monasteries and churches, and where the
monks are adored as deities.  The Catholic clergy had been enraged
against me by my poem of "The Macedonian Hero;" and in 1772 I published a
newspaper at Aix-la-Chapelle, and another work entitled, "The Friend of
Men," in which I unmasked hypocrisy.  A major of the apostolic Maria
Theresa, writing thus in a town swarming with friars, and in a tone so
undaunted, was unexampled.

At present, now that freedom of opinion is encouraged by the Emperor,
many essayists encounter bigotry and deceit with ridicule; or, wanting
invention themselves, publish extracts from writings of the age of
Luther.  But I have the honour of having attacked the pillars of the
Romish hierarchy in days more dangerous.  I may boast of being the first
German who raised a fermentation on the Upper Rhine and in Austria, so
advantageous to truth, the progress of the understanding, and the
happiness of futurity.

My writings contain nothing inimical to the morality taught by Christ.  I
attacked the sale of indulgences, the avarice of Rome, the laziness,
deceit, gluttony, robbery, and blood-sucking of the monks of
Aix-la-Chapelle.  The arch-priest, and nine of his coadjutors, declared
every Sunday that I was a freethinker, a wizard, one whom every man,
wishing well to God and the Church, ought to assassinate.  Father Zunder
declared me an outlaw, and a day was appointed on which my writings were
to be burnt before my house, and its inhabitants massacred.  My wife
received letters warning her to fly for safety, which warning she obeyed.
I and two of my huntsmen remained, provided with eighty-four loaded
muskets.  These I displayed before the window, that all might be
convinced that I would make a defence.  The appointed day came, and
Father Zunder, with my writings in his hand, appeared ready for the
attack; the other monks had incited the townspeople to a storm.  Thus
passed the day and night in suspense.

In the morning a fire broke out in the town.  I hastened, with my two
huntsmen, well armed, to give assistance; we dashed the water from our
buckets, and all obeyed my directions.  Father Zunder and his students
were there likewise.  I struck his anointed ear with my leathern bucket,
which no man thought proper to notice.  I passed undaunted through the
crowd; the people smiled, pulled off their hats, and wished me a good-
morning.  The people of Aix-la-Chapelle were bigots, but too cowardly to
murder a man who was prepared for his own defence.

As I was riding to Maestricht, a ball whistled by my ears, which, no
doubt, was a messenger sent after me by these persecuting priests.

When hunting near the convent of Schwartzenbruck, three Dominicans lay in
ambush behind a hedge.  One of their colleagues pointed out the place.  I
was on my guard with my gun, drew near, and called out, "Shoot,
scoundrels! but do not kill me, for the devil stands ready for you at
your elbow."  One fired, and all ran: The ball hit my hat.  I fired and
wounded one desperately, whom the others carried off.

In 1774, journeying from Spa to Limbourg, I was attacked by eight
banditti.  The weather was rainy, and my musket was in its case; my sabre
was entangled in my belt, so that I was obliged to defend myself as with
a club.  I sprang from the carriage, and fought in defence of my life,
striking down all before me, while my faithful huntsman protected me
behind.  I dispersed my assailants, hastened to my carriage, and drove
away.  One of these fellows was soon after hanged, and owned that the
confessor of the banditti had promised absolution could they but despatch
me, but that no man could shoot me, because Lucifer had rendered me
invulnerable.  My agility, fighting, too, for life, was superior to
theirs, and they buried two of their gang, whom with my heavy sabre I had
killed.

To such excess of cruelty may the violence of priests be carried!  I
attacked only gross abuses--the deceit of the monks of Aix-la-Chapelle,
Cologne, and Liege, where they are worse than cannibals.  I wished to
inculcate true Christian duties among my fellow-citizens, and the attempt
was sufficient to irritate the selfish Church of Rome.

From my Empress I had nothing to hope.  Her confessor had painted me as a
persecutor of the blessed Mother Church.  Nor was this all.  Opinions
were propagated throughout Vienna that I was a dangerous man to the
community.

Hence I was always wronged in courts of judicature, where there are ever
to be found wicked men.  They thought they were serving the cause of God
by injuring me.  Yet they were unable to prevent my writings from
producing me much money, or from being circulated through all Germany.
The _Aix-la-Chapelle Journal_ became so famous, that in the second year I
had four thousand subscribers, by each of whom I gained a ducat.

The postmasters, who gained considerably by circulating newspapers, were
envious, because the _Aix-la-Chapelle Journal_ destroyed several of the
others, and they therefore formed a combination.

Prince Charles of Sweden placed confidence in me during his residence at
Aix-la-Chapelle and Spa, and I accompanied him into Holland.  When I took
my leave of him at Maestricht, he said to me, "When my father dies,
either my brother shall be King, or we will lose our heads."  The King
died, and Prince Charles soon after said, in the postscript of one of his
letters, "What we spoke of at Maestricht will soon be fully accomplished,
and you may then come to Stockholm."

On this, I inserted an article in my journal declaring a revolution had
taken place in Sweden, that the king had made himself absolute.  The
other papers expressed their doubts, and I offered to wager a thousand
ducats on the truth of the article published in my journal under the
title of "Aix-la-Chapelle."  The news of the revolution in Sweden was
confirmed.

My journal foretold the Polish partition six weeks sooner than any other;
but how I obtained this news must not be mentioned.  I was active in the
defence of Queen Matilda of Denmark.

The French Ministry were offended at the following pasquinade:--"The
three eagles have rent the Polish bear, without losing a feather with
which any man in the Cabinet of Versailles can write.  Since the death of
Mazarin, they write only with goose-quills."

By desire of the King of Poland, I wrote a narrative of the attempt made
to assassinate him, and named the nuncio who had given absolution to the
conspirators in the chapel of the Holy Virgin.

The house was now in flames.  Rome insisted I should recall my words.  Her
nuncio, at Cologne, vented poison, daggers, and excommunication; the
Empress-Queen herself thought proper to interfere.  I obtained, for my
justification, from Warsaw a copy of the examination of the conspirators.
This I threatened to publish, and stood unmoved in the defence of truth.

The Empress wrote to the Postmaster-General of the Empire, and commanded
him to lay an interdict on the _Aix-la-Chapelle Journal_.  Informed of
this, I ended its publication with the year, but wrote an essay on the
partition of Poland, which also did but increase my enemies.

The magistracy of Aix-la-Chapelle is elected from the people, and the
Burghers' court consists of an ignorant rabble.  I know no exceptions but
Baron Lamberte and De Witte; and this people assume titles of dignity,
for which they are amenable to the court at Vienna.  Knowing I should
find little protection at Vienna, they imagined they might drive me from
their town.  I was a spy on their evil deeds, of whom they would have rid
themselves.  I knew that the two sheriffs, Kloss and Furth, and the
recorder, Geyer, had robbed the town-chamber of forty thousand dollars,
and divided the spoil.  To these I was a dangerous man.  For such reasons
they sought a quarrel with me, pretending I had committed a trespass by
breaking down a hedge, and cited me to appear at the town-house.

The postmaster, Heinsberg, of Aix-la-Chapelle, although he had two
thousand three hundred rix-dollars of mine in his possession, instituted
false suits against me, obtained verdicts against me, seized on a cargo
of wine at Cologne, and I incurred losses to the amount of eighteen
thousand florins, which devoured the fortune of my wife, and by which
she, with myself and my children, were reduced to poverty.

The Gravenitz himself, in 1778, acknowledged how much he had injured me,
affirmed he had been deceived, and promised he would try to obtain
restitution.  I forgave him, and he attempted to keep his promise; but
his power declined; the bribes he had received became too public.  He was
dispossessed of his post, but, alas! too late for me.  Two other of my
judges are at this time obliged to sweep the streets of Vienna, where
they are condemned to the House of Correction.  Had this been their
employment instead of being seated on the seat of judgment twenty years
ago, I might have been more fortunate.  It is a remarkable circumstance
that I should so continually have been despoiled by unjust judges.  Who
would have had the temerity to affirm that their evil deeds should bring
them to attend on the city scavenger?  I indeed knew them but too well,
and fearlessly spoke what I knew.  It was my misfortune that I was
acquainted with their malpractices sooner than gracious Sovereign.

Let the scene close on my litigations at Aix-la-Chapelle and Vienna.  May
God preserve every honest man from the like!  They have swallowed up my
property, and that of my wife.  Enough!




CHAPTER VIII.


From the year 1774 to 1777, I journeyed through England and France.  I
was intimate with Dr. Franklin, the American Minister, and with the
Counts St. Germain and de Vergennes, who made me proposals to go to
America; but I was prevented by my affection for my wife and children.

My friend the Landgrave of Hesse-Cassel, who had been Governor of
Magdeburg during my imprisonment, offered me a commission among the
troops going to America, but I answered--"Gracious prince, my heart beats
in the cause of freedom only; I will never assist in enslaving men.  Were
I at the head of your brave grenadiers.  I should revolt to the
Americans."

During 1775 I continued at Aix-la-Chapelle my essays, entitled, "The
Friend of Men."  My writings had made some impression; the people began
to read; the monks were ridiculed, but my partisans increased, and their
leader got himself cudgelled.

They did not now mention my name publicly, but catechised their penitents
at confession.  During this year people came to me from Cologne, Bonn,
and Dusseldorf, to speak with me privately.  When I inquired their
business, they told me their clergy had informed them I was propagating a
new religion, in which every man must sign himself to the devil, who then
would supply them with money.  They were willing to become converts to my
faith, would Beelzebub but give them money, and revenge them on their
priests.  "My good friends," answered I, "your teachers have deceived
you; I know of no devils but themselves.  Were it true that I was
founding a new religion, the converts to whom the devil would supply
money, your priests, would be the first of my apostles, and the most
catholic.  I am an honest, moral man, as a Christian ought to be.  Go
home, in God's name, and do your duty."

I forgot to mention that the recorder of the sheriff's court at Aix-la-
Chapelle, who is called Baron Geyer, had associated himself in 1778 with
a Jew convert, and that this noble company swindled a Dutch merchant out
of eighty thousand florins, by assuming the arms of Elector Palatine, and
producing forged receipts and contracts.  Geyer was taken in Amsterdam,
and would have been hanged, but, by the aid of a servant, he escaped.  He
returned to Aix-la-Chapelle, where he enjoys his office.  Three years ago
he robbed the town-chamber.  His wife was, at that time, _generis
communis_, and procured him friends at court.  The assertions of this
gentleman found greater credit at Vienna than those of the injured
Trenck!  Oh, shame!  Oh, world! world!

My wine trade was so successful that I had correspondents and stores in
London, Paris, Brussels, Hamburg, and the Hague, and had gained forty
thousand florins.  One unfortunate day destroyed all my hopes in the
success of this traffic.

In London I was defrauded of eighteen hundred guineas by a swindler.  The
fault was my brother-in-law's, who parted with the wine before he had
received the money.  When I had been wronged, and asked my friends'
assistance, I was only laughed at, as if they were happy that an
Englishman had the wit to cheat a German.

Finding myself defrauded, I hastened to Sir John Fielding.  He told me he
knew I had been swindled, and that his friendship would make him active
in my behalf; that he also knew the houses where my wine was deposited,
and that a party of his runners should go with me, sufficiently strong
for its recovery.  I was little aware that he had, at that time, two
hundred bottles of my best Tokay in his cellar.  His pretended kindness
was a snare; he was in partnership with robbers, only the stupid among
whom he hanged, and preserved the most adroit for the promotion of trade.

He sent a constable and six of his runners with me, commanding them to
act under my orders.  By good fortune I had a violent headache, and sent
my brother-in-law, who spoke better English than I.  Him they brought to
the house of a Jew, and told him, "Your wine, sir, is here concealed."
Though it was broad day, the door was locked, that he might be induced to
act illegally.  The constable desired him to break the door open, which
he did; the Jews came running, and asked--"What do you want,
gentlemen?"--"I want my wine," answered my brother.--"Take what is your
own," replied a Jew; "but beware of touching my property.  I have bought
the wine."

My brother attended the constable and runners into a cellar, and found a
great part of my wine.  He wrote to Sir John Fielding that he had found
the wine, and desired to know how to act.  Fielding answered: "It must be
taken by the owner."  My brother accordingly sent me the wine.

Next day came a constable with a warrant, saying, "He wanted to speak
with my brother, and that he was to go to Sir John Fielding."  When he
was in the street, he told him--"Sir, you are my prisoner."

I went to Sir John Fielding, and asked him what it meant.  This justice
answered that my brother had been accused of felony.  The Jews and
swindlers had sworn the wine was a legal purchase.  If I had not been
paid, or was ignorant of the English laws, that was my fault.  Six
swindlers had sworn the wine was paid for, which circumstance he had not
known, or he should not have granted me a warrant.  My brother had also
broken open the doors, and forcibly taken away wine which was not his
own.  They made oath of this, and he was charged with burglary and
robbery.

He desired me to give bail in a thousand guineas for my brother for his
appearance in the Court of King's Bench; otherwise his trial would
immediately come on, and in a few days he would be hanged.

I hastened to a lawyer, who confirmed what had been told me, advised me
to give bail, and he would then defend my cause.  I applied to Lord
Mansfield, and received the same answer.  I told my story to all my
friends, who laughed at me for attempting to trade in London without
understanding the laws.  My friend Lord Grosvenor said, "Send more wine
to London, and we will pay you so well that you will soon recover your
loss."

I went to my wine-merchants, who had a stock of mine worth upwards of a
thousand guineas.  They gave bail for my brother, and he was released.

Fielding, in the interim, sent his runners to my house, took back the
wine, and restored it to the Jews.  They threatened to prosecute me as a
receiver of stolen goods.  I fled from London to Paris, where I sold off
my stock at half-price, honoured my bills, and so ended my merchandise.

My brother returned to London in November, to defend his cause in the
Court of King's Bench; but the swindlers had disappeared, and the lawyer
required a hundred pounds to proceed.  The conclusion was that my brother
returned with seventy pounds less in his pocket, spent as travelling
expenses, and the stock in the hands of my wine-merchants was detained on
pretence of paying the bail.  They brought me an apothecary's bill, and
all was lost.

The Swedish General Sprengporten came to Aix-la-Chapelle in 1776.  He had
planned and carried into execution the revolution so favourable to the
King, but had left Sweden in discontent, and came to take the waters with
a rooted hypochondria.

He was the most dangerous man in Sweden, and had told the King himself,
after the revolution, in the presence of his guards, "While Sprengporten
can hold a sword, the King has nothing to command."

It was feared he would go to Russia, and Prince Charles wrote to me in
the name of the monarch, desiring I would exert myself to persuade him to
return to Sweden.  He was a man of pride, which rendered him either a
fool or a madman.  He despised everything that was not Swedish.

The Prussian Minister, Count Hertzberg, the same year came to
Aix-la-Chapelle.  I enjoyed his society for three months, and accompanied
this great man.  To his liberality am I indebted that I can return to my
country with honour.

The time I had to spare was not spent in idleness; I attacked, in my
weekly writings, those sharpers who attend at Aix-la-Chapelle and Spa to
plunder both inhabitants and visitants, under the connivance of the
magistracy; nor are there wanting foreign noblemen who become the
associates of these pests of society.  The publication of such truths
endangered my life from the desperadoes, who, when detected, had nothing
more to lose.  How powerful is an innocent life, nothing can more fully
prove than that I still exist, in despite of all the attempts of wicked
monks and despicable sharpers.

Though my life was much disturbed, yet I do not repent of my manner of
acting; many a youth, many a brave man, have I detained from the gaming-
table, and pointed out to them the most notorious sharpers.

This was so injurious to Spa, that the Bishop of Liege himself, who
enjoys a tax on all their winnings, and therefore protects such villains,
offered me an annual pension of five hundred guineas if I would not come
to Spa; or three per cent. on the winnings, would I but associate myself
with Colonel N---t, and raise recruits for the gaming-table.  My answer
may easily be imagined; yet for this was I threatened to be
excommunicated by the Holy Catholic Church!

I and my family passed sixteen summers in Spa.  My house became the
rendezvous of the most respectable part of the company, and I was known
to some of the most respectable characters in Europe.

A contest arose between the town of Aix-la-Chapelle and Baron Blankart,
the master of the hounds to the Elector Palatine: it originated in a
dispute concerning precedence between the before-mentioned wife of the
Recorder Geyer and the sister of the Burgomaster of Aix-la-Chapelle,
Kahr, who governed that town with despotism.

This quarrel was detrimental to the town and to the Elector Palatine, but
profitable to Kahr, whose office it was to protect the rights of the
town, and those persons who defended the claims of the Elector; the
latter kept a faro bank, the plunder of which had enriched the town; and
the former Kahr, under pretence of defending their cause, embezzled the
money of the people; so that both parties endeavoured with all their
power to prolong the litigation.

It vexed me to see their proceedings.  Those who suffered on each side
were deceived; and I conceived the project of exposing the truth.  For
this purpose I journeyed to the court at Mannheim, related the facts to
the Elector, produced a plan of accommodation, which he approved, and
obtained power to act as arbitrator.  The Minister of the Elector,
Bekkers, pretended to approve my zeal, conducted me to an _auberge_, made
me dine at his house, and said a commission was made out for my son, and
forwarded to Aix-la-Chapelle--which was false; the moment he quitted me
he sent to Aix-la-Chapelle to frustrate the attempt he pretended to
applaud.  He was himself in league with the parties.  In fine, this silly
interference brought me only trouble, expense, and chagrin.  I made five
journeys to Mannheim, till I became so dissatisfied that I determined to
quit Aix-la-Chapelle, and purchase an estate in Austria.

The Bavarian contest was at this time in agitation; my own affairs
brought me to Paris, and here I learned intelligence of great
consequence; this I communicated to the Grand Duke of Florence, on my
return to Vienna.  The Duke departed to join the army in Bohemia, and I
again wrote to him, and thought it my duty to send a courier.  The Duke
showed my letter to the Emperor; but I remained unnoticed.

I did not think myself safe in foreign countries during this time of war,
and purchased the lordship of Zwerbach, with appurtenances, which, with
the expenses, cost me sixty thousand florins.

To conclude this purchase, I was obliged to solicit the referendary,
Zetto, and his friend whom he had appointed as my curator, for my new
estate was likewise made a _fidei commissum_, as my referendaries and
curators would not let me escape contribution.  The six thousand florins
of which they emptied my purse would have done my family much service.

In May, 1780, I went to Aix-la-Chapelle, where my wife's mother died in
July; and in September my wife, myself, and family, all came to Vienna.

My wife solicited the mistress of the ceremonies to obtain an audience.
Her request was granted, and she gained the favour of the Empress.  Her
kindness was beyond expression: she introduced my wife to the
Archduchess, and commanded her mistress of the ceremonies to present her
everywhere.  "You were unwilling," said she, "to accompany your husband
into my country, but I hope to convince you that you may live happier in
Austria than at Aix-la-Chapelle."

She next day sent me her decree, assuring me of a pension of four hundred
florins.

My wife petitioned the Empress to grant me an audience: her request was
complied with: and the Empress said to me: "This is the third time in
which I would have made your fortune, had you been so disposed."  She
desired to see my children, and spoke of my writings.  "How much good
might you do," said she, "would you but write in the cause of religion!"

We departed for Zwerbach, where we lived contentedly, but when we were
preparing to return to Vienna, and solicited the restitution of part of
my lost fortune, during this favour of the court, Theresa died, and all
my hopes were overcast.

I forgot to relate that the Archduchess, Maria Anna, desired me to
translate a religious work, written in French by the Abbe Baudrand, into
German.  I replied I would obey Her Majesty's commands.  I began my work,
took passages from Baudrand, but inserted more of my own.  The first
volume was finished in six weeks; the Empress thought it admirable.  The
second soon followed, and I presented this myself.

She asked me if it equalled the first; I answered, I hoped it would be
found more excellent.  "No," said she; "I never in my life read a better
book:" and added, "she wondered how I could write so well and so
quickly."  I promised another volume within a month.  Before the third
was ready, Theresa died.  She gave orders on her death-bed to have the
writings of Baron Trenck read to her; and though her confessor well knew
the injustice that had been done me, yet in her last moments he kept
silence, though he had given me his sacred promise to speak in my behalf.

After her death the censor commanded that I should print what I have
stated in the preface to that third volume, and this was my only
satisfaction.

For one-and-thirty years had I been soliciting my rights, which I never
could obtain, because the Empress was deceived by wicked men, and
believed me a heretic.  In the thirty-second, my wife had the good
fortune to convince her this was false; she had determined to make me
restitution; just at this moment she died.

The pension granted my wife by the Empress in consequence of my
misfortunes and our numerous family, we only enjoyed nine months.

Of this she was deprived by the new monarch.  He perhaps knew nothing of
the affair, as I never solicited.  Yet much has it grieved me.  Perhaps I
may find relief when the sighs wrung from me shall reach the heart of the
father of his people in this my last writing.  At present, nothing for me
remains but to live unknown in Zwerbach.

The Emperor thought proper to collect the moneys bestowed on hospitals
into one fund.  The system was a wise one.  My cousin Trenck had
bequeathed thirty-six thousand florins to a hospital for the poor of
Bavaria.  This act he had no right to do, having deducted the sum from
the family estate.  I petitioned the Emperor that these thirty-six
thousand florins might be restored to me and my children, who were the
people whom Trenck had indeed made poor, nothing of the property of his
acquiring having been left to pay this legacy, but, on the contrary, the
money having been exacted from mine.

In a few days it was determined I should be answered in the same tone in
which, for six-and-thirty years past, all my petitions had been
answered:--

"THE REQUEST OF THE PETITIONER CANNOT BE GRANTED."

Fortune persecuted me in my retreat.  Within six years two hailstorms
swept away my crops; one year was a misgrowth; there were seven floods; a
rot among my sheep: all possible calamities befell me and my manor.

The estate had been ruined, the ponds were to drain, three farms were to
be put into proper condition, and the whole newly stocked.  This rendered
me poor, especially as my wife's fortune had been sunk in lawsuits at Aix-
la-Chapelle and Cologne.

The miserable peasants had nothing, therefore could not pay: I was
obliged to advance them money.  My sons assisted me, and we laboured with
our own hands: my wife took care of eight children, without so much as
the help of a maid.  We lived in poverty, obliged to earn our daily
bread.

The greatest of my misfortunes was my treatment in the military court,
when Zetto and Krugel were my referendaries.  Zetto had clogged me with a
curator and when the cow had no more milk to give, they began to torture
me with deputations, sequestrations, administrations, and executions.
Nineteen times was I obliged to attend in Vienna within two years, at my
own expense.  Every six years must I pay an attorney to dispute and
quarrel with the curator.  I, in conclusion, was obliged to pay.  If any
affair was to be expedited, I, by a third hand, was obliged to send the
referendary some ducats.  Did he give judgment, still that judgment lay
fourteen months inefficient, and, when it then appeared, the copy was
false, and so was sent to the upper courts, the high referendary of which
said I "must be dislodged from Zwerbach."

They obliged me at last to purchase my naturalisation.  I sent to Prussia
for my pedigree; the attestation of this was sent me by Count Hertzberg.
Although the family of Trenck had a hundred years been landholders in
Hungary, yet was my attorney obliged to solicit the instrument called
ritter-diploma, for which, under pain of execution, I must pay two
thousand florins.

By decree a Prussian nobleman is not noble in Austria, where every lackey
can purchase a diploma, making him a knight of the Empire, for twelve
hundred wretched florins!--where such men as P--- and Grassalkowitz have
purchased the dignity of a prince!

Tortured by the courts, terrified by hailstorms, I determined to publish
my works, in eight volumes, and this history of my life.

Fourteen months accomplished this purpose.  My labours found a favourable
reception through all Germany, procured me money, esteem, and honour.  By
my writings only will I seek the means of existence, and by trying to
obtain the approbation and the love of men.




CHAPTER IX.


On the 22nd of August, 1786, the news arrived that Frederic the Great had
left this world!

* * * * *

The present monarch, the witness of my sufferings in my native country,
sent me a royal passport to Berlin.  The confiscation of my estates was
annulled, and my deceased brother, in Prussia, had left my children his
heirs.

* * * * *

I journey, within the Imperial permission, back to my country, from which
I have been two-and-forty years expelled!  I journey--not as a pardoned
malefactor, but as a man whose innocence has been established by his
actions, has been proved in his writings, and who is journeying to
receive his reward.

Here I shall once more encounter my old friends my relations, and those
who have known me in the days of my affliction.  Here shall I appear, not
as my country's Traitor, but as my country's Martyr!

Possible, though little probable, are still future storms.  For these
also I am prepared.  Long had I reason daily to curse the rising sun,
and, setting, to behold it with horror.  Death to me appears a great
benefit: a certain passage from agitation to peace, from motion to rest.
As for my children, they, jocund in youth, delight in present existence.
When I have fulfilled the duties of a father, to live or die will then be
as I shall please.

Thou, O God! my righteous Judge, didst ordain that I should be an example
of suffering to the world; Thou madest me what I am, gavest me these
strong passions, these quick nerves, this thrilling of the blood, when I
behold injustice.  Strong was my mind, that deeply it might meditate on
deep subjects; strong my memory, that these meditations I might retain;
strong my body, that proudly it might support all it has pleased Thee to
inflict.

Should I continue to exist, should identity go with me, and should I know
what I was then, when I was called Trenck; when that combination of
particles which Nature commanded should compose this body shall be
decomposed, scattered, or in other bodies united; when I have no muscles
to act, no brain to think, no retina on which pictures can mechanically
be painted, my eyes wasted, and no tongue remaining to pronounce the
Creator's name, should I still behold a Creator--then, oh then, will my
spirit mount, and indubitably associate with spirits of the just who
expectant wait for their golden harps and glorious crowns from the Most
High God.  For human weaknesses, human failings, arising from our nature,
springing from our temperament, which the Creator has ordained, shall be
even thus, and not otherwise; for these have I suffered enough on earth.

Such is my confession of faith; in this have I lived, in this will I die.
The duties of a man and of a Christian I have fulfilled; nay, often have
exceeded, often have been too benevolent, too generous; perhaps also too
proud, too vain.  I could not bend, although liable to be broken.

That I have not served the world, in acts and employments where best I
might, is perhaps my own fault: the fault of my manner, which is now too
radical to be corrected in this, my sixtieth year.  Yes, I acknowledge my
failing, acknowledge it unblushingly; nay, glory in the pride of a noble
nature.

For myself, I ask nothing of those who have read my history; to them do I
commit my wife and children.  My eldest son is a lieutenant in the Tuscan
regiment of cavalry, under General Lasey, and does honour to his father's
principles.  The second serves his present Prussian Majesty, as ensign in
the Posadowsky dragoons, with equal promise.  The third is still a child.
My daughters will make worthy men happy, for they have imbibed virtue and
gentleness with their mother's milk.  Monarchs may hereafter remember
what I have suffered, what I have lost, and what is due to my ashes.

Here do I declare--I will seek no other revenge against my enemies than
that of despising their evil deeds.  It is my wish, and shall be my
endeavour, to forget the past; and having committed no offence, neither
will I solicit monarchs for posts of honour; as I have ever lived a free
man, a free man will I die.

I conclude this part of my history on the evening preceding my journey to
Berlin.  God grant I may encounter no new afflictions, to be inserted in
the remainder of this history.

This journey I prepared to undertake, but my ever-envious fate threw me
on the bed of sickness, insomuch that small hope remained that I ever
should again behold the country of my forefathers.  I seemed following
the Great Frederic to the mansions of the dead; then should I never have
concluded the history of my life, or obtained the victory by which I am
now crowned.

A variety of obstacles being overcome, I found it necessary to make a
journey into Hungary, which was one of the most pleasant of my whole
life.

I have no words to express my ardent wishes for the welfare of a nation
where I met with so many proofs of friendship.  Wherever I appeared I was
welcomed with that love and enthusiasm which only await the fathers of
their country.  The valour of my cousin Trenck, who died ingloriously in
the Spielberg, the loss of my great Hungarian estates, the fame of my
writings, and the cruelty of my sufferings, had gone before me.  The
officers of the army, the nobles of the land, alike testified the warmth
of their esteem.

Such is the reward of the upright; such too are the proofs that this
nation knows the just value of fortitude and virtue.  Have I not reason
to publish my gratitude, and to recommend my children to those who, when
I am no more, shall dare uprightly to determine concerning the rights
which have unjustly been snatched from me in Hungary?

Not a man in Hungary but will proclaim I have been unjustly dealt by; yet
I have good reason to suspect I never shall find redress.  Sentence had
been already given; judges, more honest, cannot, without difficulty,
reverse old decrees; and the present possessors of my estates are too
powerful, too intimate with the governors of the earth, for me to hope I
shall hereafter be more happy.  God knows my heart; I wish the present
possessors may render services to the state equal to those rendered by
the family of the Trencks.

There is little probability I shall ever behold my noble friends in
Hungary more.  Here I bid them adieu, promising them to pass the
remainder of any life so as still to merit the approbation of a people
with whose ashes I would most willingly have mingled my own.  May the God
of heaven preserve every Hungarian from a fate similar to mine!

The Croats have ever been reckoned uncultivated; yet, among this
uncultivated people I found more subscribers to my writings than among
all the learned men of Vienna; and in Hungary, more than in all the
Austrian dominions.

The Hungarians, the unlettered Croats, seek information.  The people of
Vienna ask their confessors' permission to read instructive books.
Various subscribers, having read the first volume of my work, brought it
back, and re-demanded their money, because some monk had told them it was
a book dangerous to be read.  The judges of their courts have re-sold
them to the booksellers for a few pence or given them to those who had
the care of their consciences to burn.

In Vienna alone was my life described as a romance; in Hungary I found
the compassion of men, their friendship, and effectual aid.  Had my book
been the production of an Englishman, good wishes would not have been his
only reward.

We German writers have interested critics to encounter if we would unmask
injustice; and if a book finds a rapid sale, dishonest printers issue
spurious editions, defrauding the author of his labours.

The encouragement of the learned produces able teachers, and from their
seminaries men of genius occasionally come forth.  The world is inundated
with books and pamphlets; the undiscerning reader knows not which to
select; the more intelligent are disgusted, or do not read at all, and
thus a work of merit becomes as little profitable to the author as to the
state.

I left Vienna on the 5th of January, and came to Prague.  Here I found
nearly the same reception as in Hungary; my writings were read.  Citizens,
noblemen, and ladies treated me with like favour.  May the monarch know
how to value men of generous feelings and enlarged understandings!

I bade adieu to Prague, and continued my journey to Berlin.  In Bohemia,
I took leave of my son, who saw his father and his two brothers, destined
for the Prussian service, depart.  He felt the weight of this separation;
I reminded him of his duty to the state he served; I spoke of the fearful
fate of his uncle and father in Austria, and of the possessors of our
vast estates in Hungary.  He shrank back--a look from his father pierced
him to the soul--tears stood in his eyes--his youthful blood flowed
quick, and the following expression burst suddenly from his lips:--"I
call God to witness that I will prove myself worthy of my father's name;
and that, while I live, his enemies shall be mine!"

At Peterswald, on the road to Dresden, my carriage broke down: my life
was endangered; and my son received a contusion in the arm.  The
erysipelas broke out on him at Berlin, and I could not present him to the
King for a month after.

I had been but a short time at Berlin before the well-known minister,
Count Hertzberg, received me with kindness.  Every man to whom his
private worth is known will congratulate the state that has the wisdom to
bestow on him so high an office.  His scholastic and practical learning,
his knowledge of languages, his acquaintance with sciences, are indeed
wonderful.  His zeal for his country is ardent, his love of his king
unprejudiced, his industry admirable, his firmness that of a man.  He is
the most experienced man in the Prussian states.  The enemies of his
country may rely on his word.  The artful he can encounter with art;
those who menace, with fortitude; and with wise foresight can avert the
rising storm.  He seeks not splendour in sumptuous and ostentatious
retinue; but if he can only enrich the state, and behold the poor happy,
he is himself willing to remain poor.  His estate, Briess, near Berlin,
is no Chanteloup, but a model to those patriots who would study economy.
Here he, every Wednesday, enjoys recreation.  The services he renders the
kingdom cost it only five thousand rix-dollars yearly; he, therefore,
lives without ostentation, yet becoming his state, and with splendour
when splendour is necessary.  He does not plunder the public treasury
that he may preserve his own private property.

This man will live in the annals of Prussia: who was employed under the
Great Frederic; had so much influence in the cabinets of Europe; and was
a witness of the last actions, the last sensations, of his dying king;
yet who never asked, nor ever received, the least gratuity.  This is the
minister whose conversation I had the happiness to partake at
Aix-la-Chapelle and Spa, whose welfare is the wish of my heart, and whose
memory I shall ever revere.

I was received with distinction at his table, and became acquainted with
those whose science had benefited the Prussian states; nor was anything
more flattering to my self-love than that men like these should think me
worthy their friendship.

Not many days after I was presented to the court by the Prussian
chamberlain, Prince Sacken, as it is not customary at Berlin for a
foreign subject to be presented by the minister of his own court.  Though
a Prussian subject, I wore the Imperial uniform.

The King received me with condescension; all eyes were directed towards
me, each welcomed me to my country.  This moved me the more as it was
remarked by the foreign ministers, who asked who that Austrian officer
could be who was received with so much affection and such evident joy in
Berlin.  The gracious monarch himself gave tokens of pleasure at
beholding me thus surrounded.  Among the rest came the worthy General
Prittwitz, who said aloud--

"This is the gentleman who might have ruined me to effect his own
deliverance."

Confused at so public a declaration, I desired him to expound this
riddle; and he added--

"I was obliged to be one of your guards on your unfortunate journey from
Dantzic to Magdeburg, in 1754, when I was a lieutenant.  On the road I
continued alone with you in an open carriage.  This gave you an
opportunity to escape, but you forbore.  I afterwards saw the danger to
which I had exposed myself.  Had you been less noble-minded, had such a
prisoner escaped through my negligence, I had certainly been ruined.  The
King believed you alike dangerous and deserving of punishment.  I here
acknowledge you as my saviour, and am in gratitude your friend."  I knew
not that the generous man, who wished me so well, was the present General
Prittwitz.  That he should himself remind me of this incident does him
the greater honour.

Having been introduced at court, I thought it necessary to observe
ceremonies, and was presented by the Imperial ambassador, Prince Reuss,
to all foreign ministers, and such families as are in the habit of
admitting such visits.  I was received by the Prince Royal, the reigning
Queen, the Queen-Dowager, and the royal family in their various places,
with favour never to be forgotten.  His Royal Highness Prince Henry
invited me to a private audience, continued long in conversation with me,
promised me his future protection, admitted me to his private concerts,
and sometimes made me sup at court.

A like reception I experienced in the palace of Prince Ferdinand of
Brunswick, where I frequently dined and supped.  His princess took
delight in hearing my narratives, and loaded me with favour.

Prince Ferdinand's mode of educating children is exemplary.  The sons are
instructed in the soldier's duties, their bodies are inured to the
inclemencies of weather; they are taught to ride, to swim, and are
steeled to all the fatigue of war.  Their hearts are formed for
friendship, which they cannot fail to attain.  Happy the nation in
defence of which they are to act!

How ridiculous these their _Royal Highnesses_ appear who, though born to
rule, are not deserving to be the lackeys to the least of those whom they
treat with contempt; and yet who swell, strut, stride, and contemplate
themselves as creatures essentially different by nature, and of a
superior rank in the scale of beings, though, in reality, their minds are
of the lowest, the meanest class.

Happy the state whose prince is impressed with a sense that the people
are not his property, but he the property of the people!  A prince
beloved by his people will ever render a nation more happy those he whose
only wish is to inspire fear.

The pleasure I received at Berlin was great indeed.  When I went to
court, the citizens crowded to see me, and when anyone among them said,
"That is Trenck," the rest would cry, "Welcome once more to your
country," while many would reach me their hands, with the tears standing
in their eyes.  Frequent were the scenes I experienced of this kind.  No
malefactor would have been so received.  It was the reward of innocence;
this reward was bestowed throughout the Prussian territories.

Oh world, ill-judging world, deceived by show!  Dost thou not blindly
follow the opinion of the prince, be he severe, arbitrary, or just?  Thy
censure and thy praise equally originate in common report.  In Magdeburg
I lay, chained to the wall, ten years, sighing in wretchedness, every
calamity of hunger, cold, nakedness, and contempt.  And wherefore?
Because the King, deceived by slanderers, pronounced me worthy of
punishment.  Because a wise King mistook me, and treated me with
barbarity.  Because a prudent King knew he had done wrong, yet would not
have it so supposed.  So was his heart turned to stone; nay, opposed by
manly fortitude, was enraged to cruelty.  Most men were convinced I was
an innocent sufferer; "Yet did they all cry out the more, saying, let him
be crucified!"  My relations were ashamed to hear my name.  My sister was
barbarously treated because she assisted me in my misfortunes.  No man
durst avow himself my friend, durst own I merited compassion; or, much
less, that the infallible King had erred.  I was the most despised,
forlorn man on earth; and when thus put on the rack, had I there expired,
my epitaph would have been, "Here lies the traitor, Trenck."

Frederic is dead, and the scene is changed; another monarch has ascended
the throne, and the grub has changed to a beautiful butterfly!  The
witnesses to all I have asserted are still living, loudly now proclaim
the truth, and embrace me with heart-felt affection.

Does the worth of a man depend upon his actions? his reward or punishment
upon his virtue?  In arbitrary states, certainly not.  They depend on the
breath of a king!  Frederic was the most penetrating prince of his age,
but the most obstinate also.  A vice dreadful to those whom he selected
as victims, who must be sacrificed to the promoting of his arbitrary
views.

How many perished, the sin offerings of Frederic's obstinate self-will,
whose orphan children now cry to God for vengeance!  The dead, alas!
cannot plead.  Trial began and ended with execution.  The few words--IT
IS THE KING'S COMMAND--were words of horror to the poor condemned wretch
denied to plead his innocence!  Yet what is the Ukase (Imperial order) in
Russia, _Tel est notre bon plaisir_ (Such is our pleasure) in France, or
the Allergnadigste Hofresolution (The all-gracious sentence of the
court), pronounced with the sweet tone of a Vienna matron?  In what do
these differ from the arbitrary order of a military despot?

Every prayer of man should be consecrated to man's general good; for him
to obtain freedom and universal justice!  Together should we cry with one
voice, and, if unable to shackle arbitrary power, still should we
endeavour to show how dangerous it is!  The priests of liberty should
offer up their thanks to the monarch who declares "the word of power" a
nullity, and "the sentence" of justice omnipotent.

Who can name the court in Europe where Louis, Peter, or Frederic, each
and all surnamed The Great, have not been, and are not, imitated as
models of perfection?  Lettres-de-cachet, the knout, and cabinet-orders,
superseding all right, are become law!

No reasoning, says the corporal to the poor grenadier, whom he canes!--No
reasoning! exclaim judges; the court has decided.--No reasoning, rash and
pertinacious Trenck, will the prudent reader echo.  Throw thy pen in the
fire, and expose not thyself to become the martyr of a state inquisition.

My fate is, and must remain, critical and undecided.  I have
six-and-thirty years been in the service of Austria, unrewarded, and
beholding the repeated and generous efforts I made effectually to serve
that state, unnoticed.  The Emperor Joseph supposes me old, that the
fruit is wasted, and that the husk only remains.  It is also supposed I
should not be satisfied with a little.  To continue to oppress him who
has once been oppressed, and who possess qualities that may make
injustice manifest, is the policy of states.  My journey to Berlin has
given the slanderer further opportunity of painting me as a suspicious
character: I smile at the ineffectual attempt.

I appeared in the Imperial uniform and belied such insinuations.  To this
purpose it was written to court, in November, when I went into Hungary,
"The motions of Trenck ought to be observed in Hungary."  Ye poor
malicious blood-suckers of the virtuous!  Ye shall not be able to hurt a
hair of my head.  Ye cannot injure the man who has sixty years lived in
honour.  I will not, in my old age, bring upon myself the reproach of
inconstancy, treachery, or desire of revenge.  I will betray no political
secrets: I wish not to injure those by whom I have been injured.--Such
acts I will never commit.  I never yet descended to the office of spy,
nor will I die a rewarded villain.

Yes, I appeared in Berlin among the upright and the just.  Instead of
being its supposed enemy, I was declared an honour to my country.  I
appeared in the Imperial uniform and fulfilled the duties of my station:
and now must the Prussian Trenck return to Austria, there to perform a
father's duty.

Yet more of what happened in Berlin.

Some days after I had been presented to the King, I entreated a private
audience, and on the 12th of February received the following letter:--

   "In answer to your letter of the 8th of this month, I inform you that,
   if you will come to me to-morrow, at five o'clock in the afternoon, I
   shall have the pleasure to speak with you; meantime, I pray God to
   take you into his holy keeping.

   "FREDERIC WILLIAM.

   "Berlin, Feb. 12, 1787."

   "P.S.--After signing the above, I find it more convenient to appoint
   to-morrow, at nine in the morning, about which time you will come into
   the apartment named the Marmor Kammer (marble chamber)."

The anxiety with which I expected this wished-for interview may well be
conceived.  I found the Prussian Titus alone, and he continued in
conversation with me more than an hour.

How kind was the monarch!  How great!  How nobly did he console me for
the past!  How entirely did his assurance of favour overpower my whole
soul!  He had read the history of my life.  When prince of Prussia, he
had been an eyewitness, in Magdeburg, of my martyrdom, and my attempts to
escape.  His Majesty parted from me with tokens of esteem and
condescension.--My eyes bade adieu, but my heart remained in the marble
chamber, in company with a prince capable of sensations so dignified; and
my wishes for his welfare are eternal.

I have since travelled through the greater part of the Prussian states.
Where is the country in which the people are all satisfied?  Many
complained of hard times, or industry unrewarded.  My answer was:--

"Friends, kneel with the rising sun, and thank the God of heaven that you
are Prussians.  I have seen and known much of this world, and I assure
you, you are among the happiest people of Europe.  Causes of complaint
everywhere exist; but you have a king, neither obstinate, ambitious,
covetous, nor cruel: his will is that his people should have cause of
content, and should he err by chance, his heart is not to blame if the
subject suffers."

Prussia is neither wanting in able nor learned men.  The warmth of
patriots glows in their veins.  Everything remains with equal stability,
as under the reign of Frederic; and should the thunder burst, the ready
conductors will render the shock ineffectual.

Hertzberg still labours in the cabinet, still thinks, writes, and acts as
he has done for years.  The king is desirous that justice shall be done
to his subjects, and will punish, perhaps, with more severity, whenever
he finds himself deceived, than from the goodness of his disposition,
might be supposed.  The treasury is full, the army continues the same,
and there is little reason to doubt but that industry, population, and
wealth will increase.  None but the vile and the wicked would leave the
kingdom; while the oppressed and best subjects of other states would fly
from their native country, certain of finding encouragement and security
in Prussia.

The personal qualities of Fredric William merit description.  He is tall
and handsome, his mien is majestic, and his accomplishments of mind and
body would procure him the love of men, were he not a king.  He is
affable without deceit, friendly and kind in conversation, and stately
when stateliness is necessary.  He is bountiful, but not profuse; he
knows that without economy the Prussian must sink.  He is not tormented
by the spirit of conquest, he wishes harm to no nation, yet he will
certainly not suffer other nations to make encroachments, nor will he be
terrified by menaces.

The wise Frederic, when living, though himself learned, and a lover of
the sciences, never encouraged them in his kingdom.  Germany, under his
reign, might have forgotten her language: he preferred the literature of
France.  Konigsberg, once the seminary of the North, contains, at
present, few professors, or students; the former are fallen into
disrepute, and are ill paid; the latter repair to Leipsic and Gottingen.
We have every reason to suppose the present monarch, though no studious
man himself, will encourage the academies of the literati, that men
learned in jurisprudence and the sciences may not be wanting: which want
is the more to be apprehended as the nobility must, without exception,
serve in the army, so that learning has but few adherents, and these are
deprived of the means of improvement.

Frederic William is also too much the friend of men to suffer them to
pine in prisons.  He abhors the barbarity with which the soldiers are
beaten: his officers will not be fettered hand and foot; slavish
subordination will be banished, and the noble in heart will be the noble
of the land.  May he, in his people, find perfect content!  May his
people be ever worthy of such a prince!  Long may he reign, and may his
ministers be ever enlightened and honourable men!

He sent for me a second time, conversed much with me, and confirmed those
ideas which my first interview had inspired.

On the 11th of March I presented my son at another audience, whom I
intended for the Prussian service.  The King bestowed a commission on him
in the Posadowsky dragoons, at my request.

I saw him at the review at Velau, and his superior officers formed great
expectations from his zeal.  Time will discover whether he who is in the
Austrian, or this in the Prussian service, will first obtain the rewards
due to their father.  Should they both remain unnoticed, I will bestow
him on the Grand Turk, rather than on European courts, whence equity to
me and mine is banished.

To Austria I owe no thanks; all that could be taken from me was taken.  I
was a captain before I entered those territories, and, after
six-and-thirty years' service, I find myself in the rank of invalid
major.  The proof of all I have asserted, and of how little I am indebted
to this state is most incontestable, since the history of my life is
allowed by the royal censor to be publicly sold in Vienna.

It is remarkable that one only of all the eight officers, with whom I
served, in the body guard, in 1745, is dead.  Lieutenant-colonel Count
Blumenthal lives in Berlin; Pannewitz is commander of the Knights of
Malta: both gave me a friendly reception.  Wagnitz is lieutenant-general
in the service of Hesse-Cassel; he was my tent comrade, and was
acquainted with all that happened.  Kalkreuter and Grethusen live on
their estates, and Jaschinsky is now alive at Konigsberg, but
superannuated, and tortured by sickness, and remorse.  He, instead of
punishment, has forty years enjoyed a pension of a thousand rix-dollars.
I have seen my lands confiscated, of the income of which I have been
forty-two years deprived, and never yet received retribution.

Time must decide; the king is generous, and I have too much pride to
become a beggar.  The name of Trenck shall be found in the history of the
acts of Frederic.  A tyrant himself, he was the slave of his passions;
and even did not think an inquiry into my innocence worth the trouble.  To
be ashamed of doing right, because he has done wrong, or to persist in
error, that fools, and fools only, can think him infallible, is a
dreadful principle in a ruler.

Since I have been at Berlin, and was received there with so many
testimonies of friendship, the newspapers of Germany have published
various articles concerning me, intending to contribute to my honour or
ease.  They said my eldest daughter is appointed the governess of the
young Princess.  This has been the joke of some witty correspondent; for
my eldest daughter is but fifteen, and stands in need of a governess
herself.  Perhaps they may suppose me mean enough to circulate falsehood.

I daily receive letters from all parts of Germany, wherein the sensations
of the feeling heart are evident.  Among these letters was one which I
received from Bahrdt, Professor at Halle, dated April 10, 1787 wherein he
says, "Receive, noble German, the thanks of one who, like you, has
encountered difficulties; yet, far inferior to those you have
encountered.  You, with gigantic strength, have met a host of foes, and
conquered.  The pests of men attacked me also.  From town to town, from
land to land, I was pursued by priestcraft and persecution; yet I
acquired fame.  I fled for refuge and repose to the states of Frederic,
but found them not.  I have eight years laboured under affliction with
perseverance, but have found no reward.  By industry have I made myself
what I am; by ministerial favour, never.  Worn out and weak, the history
of your life, worthy sir, fell into my hands, and poured balsam into my
wounds.  There I saw sufferings immeasurably greater; there, indeed,
beheld fortitude most worthy of admiration.  Compared to you, of what
could I complain?  Receive, noble German, my warmest thanks; while I live
they shall flow.  And should you find a fortunate moment, in the presence
of your King, speak of me as one consigned to poverty; as one whose
talents are buried in oblivion.  Say to him--'Mighty King! stretch forth
thy hand, and dry up his tears.'  I know the nobleness of your mind, and
doubt not your good wishes."

To the Professor's letter I returned the following answer:--

   "I was affected, sir, by your letter.  I never yet was unmoved, when
   the pen was obedient to the dictates of the heart.  I feel for your
   situation; and if my example can teach wisdom even to the wise, I have
   cause to triumph.  This is the sweetest of rewards.  At Berlin I have
   received much honour, but little more.  Men are deaf to him who
   confides only in his right.  What have I gained?  Shadowy fame for
   myself, and the vapour of hope for my heirs!

   "Truth and Trenck, my good friend, flourish not in courts.  You
   complain of priestcraft.  He who would disturb their covetousness, he
   who speaks against the false opinions they scatter, considers not
   priests, and their aim, which is to dazzle the stupid and stupefy the
   wise.  Deprecate their wrath! avoid their poisoned shafts, or they
   will infect tiny peace: will blast thy honour.  And wherefore should
   we incur this danger.  To cure ignorance of error is impossible.  Let
   us then silently steal to our graves, and thus small we escape the
   breath of envy.  He who should enjoy all even thought could grasp,
   should yet have but little.  Having acquired this knowledge, the
   passions of the soul are lulled to apathy.  I behold error, and I
   laugh; do thou, my friend, laugh also.  If that can comfort us, men
   will do our memory justice--when we are dead!  Fame plants her laurels
   over the grave, and there they flourish best.

   "BARON TRENCK

   "_Schangulach_, _near Konigsberg_,
   _April_ 30_th_, 1787."

   "P.S--I have spoken, worthy Professor, the feelings of my heart, in
   answer to your kind panegyric.  You will but do me justice, when you
   believe I think and act as I write with respect to my influence at
   court, it is as insignificant at Berlin as at Vienna or at
   Constantinople"

Among the various letters I have received, as it may answer a good
purpose, I hope the reader will not think the insertion of the following
improper.

In a letter from an unknown correspondent, who desired me to speak for
this person at Berlin, eight others were enclosed.  They came from the
above person in distress, to this correspondent: and I was requested to
let them appear in the Berlin Journal.  I selected two of them, and here
present them to the world, as it can do me injury, while they describe an
unhappy victim of an extraordinary kind: and may perhaps obtain him some
relief.

Should this hope be verified, I am acquainted with him who wishes to
remain concealed, can introduce him to the knowledge of such as might
wish to interfere in his behalf.  Should they not, the reader will still
find them well-written and affecting letters; such as may inspire
compassion.  The following is the first of those I selected.



LETTER I


   "_Neuland_, _Feb_ 12_th_, 1787.

   "I thought I had so satisfactorily answered you by my last, that you
   would have left me in peaceful possession of my sorrows! but your
   remarks, entreaties, and remonstrances, succeed each other with such
   rapidity, that I am induced to renew the contest.  Cowardice, I
   believe, you are convinced, is not a native in my heart, and should I
   now yield, you might suppose that age and the miseries I have
   suffered, had weakened my powers of mind as well as body; and that I
   ought to have been classed among the unhappy multitudes whose
   sufferings have sunk them to despondency.

   "Baron Trenck, that man of many woes, once so despised, but who now is
   held in admiration, where he was before so much the object of hatred;
   who now speaks so loudly in his own defence, where, formerly, the man
   who had but whispered his name would have lived suspected; Baron
   Trenck you propose as an example of salvation for me.  You are wrong.
   Have you considered how dissimilar our past lives have been; how
   different, too, are our circumstances?  Or, omitting these, have you
   considered to whom you would have me appeal?

   "In 1767, I became acquainted, in Vienna, with this sufferer of
   fortitude, this agreeable companion.  We are taught that a noble
   aspect bespeaks a corresponding mind; this I believe him to possess.
   But what expectations can I form from Baron Trenck?

   "I will briefly answer the questions you have put.  Baron Trenck was a
   man born to inherit great estates; this and the fire of his youth,
   fanned by flattering hopes from his famous kinsman, rendered him too
   haughty to his King; and this alone was the origin of all his future
   sufferings.  I, on the contrary, though the son of a Silesian nobleman
   of property, did not inherit so much as the pay of a common soldier;
   the family having been robbed by the hand of power, after being
   accused by wickedness under the mask of virtue.  You know my father's
   fate, the esteem in which he was held by the Empress Theresa; and that
   a pretended miracle was the occasion of his fall.  Suddenly was he
   plunged from the height to which industry, talents, and virtue had
   raised him, to the depth of poverty.  At length, at the beginning of
   the seven years' war, one of the King of Prussia's subjects
   represented him to the Austrian court as a dangerous correspondent of
   Marshal Schwerin's.  Then at sixty years of age, my father was seized
   at Jagerndorf, and imprisoned in the fortress of Gratz, in Styria.  He
   had an allowance just sufficient to keep him alive in his dungeon;
   but, for the space of seven years, never beheld the sun rise or set.  I
   was a boy when this happened, however, I was not heard.  I only
   received some pecuniary relief from the Empress, with permission to
   shed my blood in her defence.  In this situation we first vowed
   eternal friendship; but from this I soon was snatched by my father's
   enemies.  What the Empress had bestowed, her ministers tore from me.  I
   was seized at midnight, and was brought, in company with two other
   officers, to the fortress of Gratz.  Here I remained immured six
   years.  My true name was concealed, and another given me.

   "Peace being restored, Trenck, I, and my father were released; but the
   mode of our release was very different.  The first obtained his
   freedom at the intercession of Theresa, she, too, afforded him a
   provision.  We, on the contrary, according to the amnesty, stipulated
   in the treaty of peace, were led from our dungeons as state prisoners,
   without inquiry concerning the verity or falsehood of our crimes.
   Extreme poverty, wretchedness, and misery, were our reward for the
   sufferings we had endured.

   "Not only was my health destroyed, but my jawbone was lost, eaten away
   by the scurvy.  I laid before Frederic the Great the proofs of the
   calamities I had undergone, and the dismal state to which I was
   reduced, by his foe, and for his sake; entreated bread to preserve me
   and my father from starving, but his ear was deaf to my prayer, his
   heart insensible to my sighs.

   "Providence, however, raised me up a saviour,--Count Gellhorn was the
   man.  After the taking of Breslau, he had been also sent a state
   prisoner to Gratz.  During his imprisonment, he had heard the report
   of my sufferings and my innocence.  No sooner did he learn I was
   released, than he became my benefactor, my friend, and restored me to
   the converse of men, to which I had so long been dead.

   "I defer the continuance of my narrative to the next post.  The
   remembrance of past woes inflict new ones.  I am eternally."



LETTER II.


   "_February_ 24, 1787.

   "Dear Friend,--After an interval of silence, remembering my promise, I
   again continue my story.

   "My personal sufferings have not been less than those of Trenck.  His,
   I am acquainted with only from the inaccurate relations I have heard:
   my own I have felt.  A colonel in the Prussian service, whose name was
   Hallasch, was four years my companion; he was insane, and believed
   himself the Christ that was to appear at the millennium: he persecuted
   me with his reveries, which I was obliged to listen to, and approve,
   or suffer violence from one stronger than myself.

   "The society of men or books, everything that could console or amuse,
   were forbidden me; and I considered it as wonderful that I did not
   myself grow mad, in the company of this madman.  Four hard winters I
   existed without feeling the feeble emanation of a winter sun, much
   less the warmth of fire.  The madman felt more pity than my keeper,
   and lent me his cloak to cover my body, though the other denied me a
   truss of straw, notwithstanding I had lost the use of my hands and
   feet.  The place where we were confined was called a chamber; it
   rather resembled the temple of Cloacina.  The noxious damps and
   vapours so poisoned my blood that an unskilful surgeon, who tortured
   me during nine months, with insult as a Prussian traitor, and state
   criminal, I lost the greatest part of my jaw.

   "Schottendorf was our governor and tyrant; a man who repaid the
   friendship he found in the mansion of my fathers--with cruelty.  He
   was ripe for the sickle, and Time cut him off.  Tormentini and Galer
   were his successors in office, by them we were carefully watched, but
   we were treated with commiseration.  Their precautions rendered
   imprisonment less wretched.  Ever shall I hold their memory sacred.
   Yet, benevolent as they were, their goodness was exceeded by that of
   Rottensteiner, the head gaoler.  He considered his prisoners as his
   children; and he was their benefactor.  Of this I had experience,
   during two years after the release of Hallasch.

   "Here I but cursorily describe misery, at which the monarch shall
   shudder, if the blood of a tyrant flow not in his veins.  Theresa
   could not wish these things.  But she was fallible, and not
   omniscient.

   "From the above narrative, you will perceive how opposite the effects
   must be which the histories of Baron Trenck and of myself must
   produce.

   "Trenck left his dungeon shielded from contempt; the day of freedom
   was the day of triumph.  I, on the contrary, was exposed to every
   calamity.  The spirit of Trenck again raised itself.  I have laboured
   many a night that I might neither beg nor perish the following day:
   working for judges who neither knew law nor had powers of mind to
   behold the beauty of justice: settling accounts that, item after item,
   did not prove that the lord they were intended for, was an imbecile
   dupe.

   "Trenck remembers his calamities, but the remembrance is advantageous
   to himself and his family; while with me, the past did but increase,
   did but agonise, the present and the future.  He was not like me,
   obliged to crouch in presence of those vulgar, those incapable minds,
   that do but consider the bent back as the footstool of pride.  Every
   man is too busy to act in behalf of others; pity me therefore, but
   advise me not to hope assistance, by petitioning princes at second
   hand.  I know your good wishes, and, for these, I have nothing to
   return but barren thanks.--I am, &c."

The reasons why I published the foregoing letters are already stated, and
will appear satisfactory to the reader.  Once more to affairs that
concern myself.

I met at Berlin many old friends of both sexes; among others, an aged
invalid came to see me, who was at Glatz, in 1746, when I cut my way
through the guard.  He was one of the sentinels before my door, whom I
had thrown down the stairs.

The hour of quitting Berlin, and continuing my journey into Prussia,
towards Konigsberg, approached.  On the eve of my departure, I had the
happiness of conversing with her Royal Highness the Princess Amelia,
sister of Frederic the Great.  She protected me in my hour of adversity;
heaped benefits upon me, and contributed to gain my deliverance.  She
received me as a friend, as an aged patriot; and laid her commands upon
me to write to my wife, and request that she would come to Berlin, in the
month of June, with her two eldest daughters.  I received her promise
that the happiness of the latter should be her care; nay, that she would
remember my wife in her will.

At this moment, when about to depart, she asked me if I had money
sufficient for my journey: "Yes, madam," was my reply; "I want nothing,
ask nothing; but may you remember my children!"

The deep feeling with which I pronounced these words moved the princess;
she showed me how she comprehended my meaning, and said, "Return, my
friend, quickly: I shall be most happy to see you."

I left the room: a kind of indecision came over me.  I was inclined to
remain longer at Berlin.  Had I done so, my presence would have been of
great advantage to my children.  Alas! under the guidance of my evil
genius, I began my journey.  The purpose for which I came to Berlin was
frustrated: for after my departure, the Princess Amelia died!

Peace be to thy ashes, noble princess!  Thy will was good, and be that
sufficient.  I shall not want materials to write a commentary on the
history of Frederic, when, in company with thee, I shall wander on the
banks of Styx; there the events that happened on this earth may be
written without danger.

So proceed we with our story.




CHAPTER X.


On the 22nd of March I pursued my journey to Konigsberg, but remained two
days at the court of the Margrave of Brandenburg, where I was received
with kindness.  The Margrave had bestowed favours on me, during my
imprisonment at Magdeburg.

I departed thence through Soldin to Schildberg, here to visit my relation
Sidau, who had married the daughter of my sister, which daughter my
sister had by her first husband, Waldow, of whom I have before spoken.  I
found my kinsman a worthy man, and one who made the daughter of an
unfortunate sister happy.  I was received at his house within open arms;
and, for the first time after an interval of two-and-forty years, beheld
one of my own relations.

On my journey thither, I had the pleasure to meet with Lieutenant-General
Kowalsky: This gentleman was a lieutenant in the garrison of Glatz, in
1745, and was a witness of my leap from the wall of the rampart.  He had
read my history, some of the principal facts of which he was acquainted
with.  Should anyone therefore doubt concerning those incidents, I may
refer to him, whose testimony cannot be suspected.

From Schildberg I proceeded to Landsberg, on the Warta.  Here I found my
brother-in-law, Colonel Pape, commander of the Gotz dragoons, and the
second husband of my deceased sister: and here I passed a joyous day.
Everybody congratulated me on my return into my country.

I found relations in almost every garrison.  Never did man receive more
marks of esteem throughout a kingdom.  The knowledge of my calamities
procured me sweet consolation; and I were insensible indeed, and
ungrateful, did my heart remain unmoved on occasions like these.

In Austria I never can expect a like reception; I am there mistaken, and
I feel little inclination to labour at removing mistakes so rooted.  Yet,
even there am I by the general voice, approved.  Yes, I am admired, but
not known; pitied but not supported; honoured, but not rewarded.

When at Berlin, I discovered an error I had committed in the commencement
of my life.  At the time I wrote I believed that the postmaster-general
of Berlin, Mr Derschau, was my mother's brother, and the same person who,
in 1742, was grand counsellor at Glogau, and afterwards, president in
East Friesland.  I was deceived; the Derschau who is my mother's brother
is still living, and president at Aurich in East Friesland.  The
postmaster was the son of the old Derschau who died a general, and who
was only distantly related to my mother.  Neither is the younger
Derschau, who is the colonel of a regiment at Burg, the brother of my
mother, but only her first cousin; one of their sisters married Lieut.-
Colonel Ostau, whose son, the President Ostau, now lives on his own
estate, at Lablack in Prussia.

I was likewise deceived in having suspected a lieutenant, named Mollinie,
in the narrative I gave of my flight from Glatz, of having acted as a spy
upon me at Braunau, and of having sent information to General Fouquet.  I
am sorry.  This honest man is still alive, a captain in Brandenburg.  He
was affected at my suspicion, fully justified himself, and here I
publicly apologise.  He then was, and again is become my friend.

I have received a letter from one Lieutenant Brodowsky.  This gentleman
is offended at finding his mother's name in my narrative, and demands I
should retract my words.

My readers will certainly allow the virtue of Madame Brodowsky, at
Elbing, is not impeached.  Although I have said I had the fortune to be
beloved by her, I have nowhere intimated that I asked, or that she
granted, improper favours.

By the desire of a person of distinction, I shall insert an incident
which I omitted in a former part.  This person was an eye-witness of the
incident I am about to relate, at Magdeburg, and reminded me of the
affair.  It was my last attempt but one at flight.

The circumstances were these:--

As I found myself unable to get rid of more sand, after having again cut
through the planking, and mined the foundation, I made a hole towards the
ditch, in which three sentinels were stationed.  This I executed one
night, it being easy, from the lightness of the sand, to perform the work
in two hours.

No sooner had I broken through, than I threw one of my slippers beside
the palisades, that it might be supposed I had lost it when climbing over
them.  These palisades, twelve feet in length, were situated in the front
of the principal fosse, and my sentinels stood within.  There was no
sentry-box at the place where I had broken through.

This done, I returned into my prison, made another hole under the
planking, where I could hide myself, and stopped up the passage behind
me, so that it was not probable I could be seen or found.

When daylight came, the sentinel saw the hole and gave the alarm, the
slipper was found, and it was concluded that Trenck had escaped over the
palisades, and was no longer in prison.

Immediately the sub-governor came from Magdeburg, the guns were fired,
the horse scoured the country, and the subterranean passages were all
visited: no tidings came; no discovery was made, and the conclusion was I
had escaped.  That I should fly without the knowledge of the sentinels,
was deemed impossible; the officer, and all the guard, were put under
arrest, and everybody was surprised.

I, in the meantime, sat quiet in my hole, where I heard their searches,
and suppositions that I was gone.

My heart bounded with joy, and I held escape to be indubitable.  They
would not place sentinels over the prison the following night, and I
should then really have left my place of concealment, and, most probably
have safely arrived in Saxony.  My destiny, however, robbed me of all
hope at the very moment when I supposed the greatest of my difficulties
were conquered.

Everything seemed to happen as I could wish.  The whole garrison came,
and visited the casemates, and all stood astonished at the miracle they
beheld.  In this state things remained till four o'clock in the
afternoon.  At length, an ensign of the militia came, a boy of about
fifteen or sixteen years of age, who had more wit than any or all of
them.  He approached the hole, examined the aperture next the fosse,
thought it appeared small, tried to enter it himself, found he could not,
therefore concluded it was impossible a man of my size could have passed
through, and accordingly called for a light.

This was an accident I had not foreseen.  Half stifled in my hole, I had
opened the canal under the planking.  No sooner had the youth procured a
light, than he perceived my shirt, examined nearer, felt about, and laid
hold of me by the arm.  The fox was caught, and the laugh was universal.
My confusion may easily be imagined.  They all came round me, paid me
their compliments, and finding nothing better was to be done, I laughed
in company with them, and, thus laughing was led back with an aching
heart to be sorrowfully enchained in my dungeon.

I continued my journey, and arrived, on the fourth of April, at
Konigsberg, where my brother expected my arrival.  We embraced as
brothers must, after the absence of two-and-forty years.  Of all the
brothers and sisters I had left in this city, he only remained.  He lived
a retired and peaceable life on his own estates.  He had no children
living.  I continued a fortnight within him and his wife.

Here, for the first time, I learned what had happened to my relations,
during their absence.  The wrath of the Great Frederic extended itself to
all my family.  My second brother was an ensign in the regiment of
cuirassiers at Kiow, in 1746, when I first incurred disgrace from the
King.  Six years he served, fought at three battles, but, because his
name was Trenck, never was promoted.  Weary of expectation he quitted the
army, married, and lived on his estates at Meicken, where he died about
three years ago, and left two sons, who are an honour to the family of
the Trencks.

Fame spoke him a person capable of rendering the state essential service,
as a military man; but he was my brother, and the King would never suffer
his name to be mentioned.

My youngest brother applied himself to the sciences; it was proposed that
he should receive some civil employment, as he was an intelligent and
well-informed man; but the King answered in the margin of the petition,

   "No Trenck is good for anything."

Thus have all my family suffered, because of my unjust condemnation.  My
last-mentioned brother chose the life of a private man, and lived at his
ease, in independence, among the first people of the kingdom.  The hatred
of the monarch extended itself to my sister, who had married the son of
General Waldow, and lived in widowhood, from the year 1749, to her second
marriage.  The misfortunes of this woman, in consequence of the treachery
of Weingarten, and the aid she sent to me in my prison at Magdeburg, I
have before related.  She was possessed of the fine estate of Hammer,
near Landsberg on the Warta.  The Russian army changed the whole face of
the country, and laid it desert.  She fled to Custrin, where everything
was destroyed during the siege.  The Prussian army also demolished the
fine forests.

After the war, the King assisted all the ruined families of Brandenburg;
she alone obtained nothing, because she was my sister.  She petitioned
the King, who repined she must seek for redress from her dear brother.
She died, in the flower of her age, a short time after she had married
her second husband, the present Colonel Pape: her son, also, died last
year.  He was captain in the regiment of the Gotz dragoons.  Thus were
all my brothers and sisters punished because they were mine.  Could it be
believed that the great Frederic would revenge himself on the children
and the children's children?  Was it not sufficient that he should wreak
his wrath on my head alone?  Why has the name of Trenck been hateful to
him, to the very hour of his death?

One Derschau, captain of horse, and brother of my mother, addressed
himself to the King, in 1753, alleging he was my nearest relation and
feudal heir, and petitioned that he would bestow on him my confiscated
estates of Great Sharlack.  The King demanded that the necessary proofs
should be sent from the chamber at Konigsberg.  He was uninformed that I
had two brothers living, that Great Sharlack was an ancient family
inheritance, and that it appertained to my brothers, and not to Derschau.
My brothers then announced themselves as the successors to this fief, and
the King bestowed on them the estate of Great Sharlack conformable to the
feudal laws.  That it might be properly divided, it was put up to
auction, and bought by the youngest of my brothers, who paid surplus to
the other, and to my sister.  He likewise paid debts charged upon it,
according to the express orders of the court.  The persons who called
themselves my creditors were impostors, for I had no creditors; I was but
nineteen when my estates were confiscated, consequently was not of age.
By what right therefore, could such debts be demanded or paid?  Let them
explain this who can.

The same thing happened when an account was given in to the Fiscus of the
guardianship, although I acknowledge my guardians were men of probity.
One of them was eight years in possession, and when he gave it up to my
brothers he did not account with them for a single shilling.  At present,
therefore, the affair stands thus:--Frederic William has taken off the
sentence of confiscation, and ordered me to be put in possession of my
estates, by a gracious rescript: empowered by this I come and demand
restitution; my brother answers, "I have bought and paid for the estate,
am the legal possessor, have improved it so much that Great Sharlack, at
present, is worth three or four times the sum it was at the time of
confiscation.  Let the Fiscus pay me its actual value, and then let them
bestow it on whom they please.  If the reigning king gives what his
predecessor sold to me, I ought not thereby to be a loser."

This is a problem which the people of Berlin must resolve.  My brother
has no children, and, without going to law, will bequeath Great Sharlack
to mine, when he shall happen to die.  If he is forced in effect to
restore it without being reimbursed, the King instead of granting a
favour, has not done justice.  I do not request any restitution like
this, since such restitution would be made without asking it as a favour
of the King.  If his Majesty takes off the confiscation because he is
convinced it was originally violent and unjust, then have I a right to
demand the rents of two-and-forty years.  This I am to require from the
Fiscus, not from my brother.  And should the Fiscus only restore me the
price for which it then sold, it would commit a manifest injustice, since
all estates in the province of Prussia have, since 1746, tripled and
quadrupled their value.  If the estates descend only to my children after
my death, I receive neither right nor favour; for, in this case, I obtain
nothing for myself, and shall remain deprived of the rents, which, as the
estate is at present farmed by my brother amount to four thousand rix-
dollars per annum.  This estate cannot be taken from him legally, since
he enjoys it by right of purchase.

Such is the present state of the business.  How the monarch shall think
proper to decide, will be seen hereafter.  I have demanded of the Fiscus
that it shall make a fair valuation of Great Sharlack, reimburse my
brother, and restore it to me.  My brother has other estates.  These he
will dispose of by testament, according to his good pleasure.  Be these
things as they may, the purpose of my journey is accomplished.

Thou, great God, has preserved me amidst my trouble.  The purest
gratitude penetrates my heart.  Oh, that thou wouldst shield man from
arbitrary power, and banish despotism from the earth!

May this my narration be a lesson to the afflicted, afford hope to the
despairing, fortitude to the wavering, and humanise the hearts of kings.
Joyfully do I journey to the shores of death.  My conscience is void of
reproach, posterity shall bless my memory, and only the unfeeling, the
wicked, the confessor of princes and the pious impostor, shall vent their
rage against my writings.  My mind is desirous of repose, and should this
be denied me, still I will not murmur.  I now wish to steal gently
towards that last asylum, whither if I had gone in my youth, it must have
been with colours flying.  Grant, Almighty God, that the prayer I this
day make may be heard, and that such may be the conclusion of my eventful
life!




HISTORY OF
FRANCIS BARON TRENCK.
WRITTEN BY
FREDERICK BARON TRENCK,
AS A NECESSARY SUPPLEMENT TO HIS OWN HISTORY.


Francis Baron Trenck was born in 1714, in Calabria, a province of Sicily.
His father was then a governor and lieutenant-colonel there, and died in
1743, at Leitschau, in Hungary, lord of the rich manors of Prestowacz,
Pleternitz, and Pakratz, in Sclavonia, and other estates in Hungary.  His
christian name was John; he was my father's brother, and born in
Konigsberg in Prussia.

The name of his mother was Kettler; she was born in Courland.  Trenck was
a gentleman of ancient family; and his grandfather, who was mine also,
was of Prussia.  His father, who had served Austria to the age of sixty-
eight, a colonel, and bore those wounds to his grave which attested his
valour.

Francis Baron Trenck was his only son; he had attained the rank of
colonel during his father's life, and served with distinction in the army
of Maria Theresa.  The history of his life, which he published in 1747,
when he was under confinement at Vienna, is so full of minute
circumstances, and so poorly written, that I shall make but little use of
it.  Here I shall relate only what I have heard from his enemies
themselves, and what I have myself seen.  His father, a bold and daring
soldier, idolised his only son, and wholly neglected his education, so
that the passions of this son were most unbridled.  Endowed with
extraordinary talents, this ardent youth was early allowed to indulge the
impetuous fire of his constitution.  Moderation was utterly unknown to
him, and good fortune most remarkably favoured all his enterprises.  These
were numerous, undertaken from no principle of virtue, nor actuated by
any motives of morality.  The love of money, and the desire of fame, were
the passions of his soul.  To his warlike inclination was added the
insensibility of a heart natively wicked: and he found himself an actor,
on the great scene of life, at a time when the earth was drenched with
human gore, and when the sword decided the fate of nations: hence this
chief of pandours, this scourge of the unprotected, became an
iron-hearted enemy, a ferocious foe of the human race, a formidable enemy
in private life, and a perfidious friend.

Constitutionally sanguinary, addicted to pleasures, sensual, and brave;
he was unappeased when affronted, prompt to act, in the moment of danger
circumspect, and, when under the dominion of anger, cruel even to fury;
irreconcilable, artful, fertile in invention, and ever intent on great
projects.  When youth and beauty inspired love, he then became supple,
insinuating, amiable, gentle, respectful; yet, ever excited by pride,
each conquest gave but new desires of adding another slave over whom he
might domineer; and, whenever he encountered resistance, he then even
ceased to be avaricious.  A prudent and intelligent woman, turning this
part of his character to advantage, might have formed this man to virtue,
probity, and the love of the human race: but, from his infancy, his will
had never suffered restraint, and he thought nothing impossible.  As a
soldier, he was bold even to temerity; capable of the most hazardous
enterprise, and laughing at the danger he provoked.  His projects were
the more elevated because the acquirement of renown was the intent of all
his actions.  In council he was dangerous; everything must be conceded to
his views.  To him the means by which his end was to be obtained were
indifferent.

The Croats at this time were undisciplined, prone to rapine, thirsting
for human blood, and only taught obedience by violence; these had been
the companions of his infancy: these he undertook to subject, by
servitude and fear, to military subordination, and from banditti to make
them soldiers.

With respect to his exterior, Nature had been prodigal of her favours.
His height was six feet three inches, and the symmetry of his limbs was
exact; his form was upright, his countenance agreeable, yet masculine,
and his strength almost incredible.  He could sever the head from the
body of the largest ox with one stroke of his sabre, and was so adroit at
this Turkish practice, that he at length could behead men in the manner
boys do nettles.  In the latter years of his life, his aspect had become
terrible; for, during the Bavarian war, he had been scorched by the
explosion of a powder-barrel, and ever after his face remained scarred
and impregnated with black spots.  In company he rendered himself
exceedingly agreeable, spoke seven languages fluently, was jocular,
possessed wit, and in serious conversation, understanding; had learned
music, sung with taste, and had a good voice, so that he might have been
well paid as an actor, had that been his fate.  He could even, when so
disposed, become gentle and complaisant.

His look told the man of observation that he was cunning and choleric;
and his wrath was terrible.  He was ever suspicious, because he judged
others by himself.  Self-interest and avarice constituted his ruling
passion, and, whenever he had an opportunity of increasing his wealth, he
disregarded the duties of religion, the ties of honour, and human pity.
In the thirty-first year of his age, when he was possessed of nearly two
millions, he did not expend a florin per day.

As he and his pandours always led the van, and as he thence had an
opportunity to ravage the enemy's country, at the head of troops addicted
to rapine, we must not wonder that Bavaria, Silesia, and Alsatia were so
plundered.  He alone purchased the booty from his troops at a low price,
and this he sent by water to his own estates.  If any one of his officers
had made a rich capture, Trenck instantly became his enemy.  He was sent
on every dangerous expedition till he fell, and the colonel became his
universal heir, for Trenck appropriated all he could to himself.  He was
reputed to be a man most expert in military science, an excellent
engineer, and to possess an exact eye in estimating heights and
distances.  In all enterprises he was first; inured to fatigue, his iron
body could support it without inconvenience.  Nothing escaped his
vigilance, all was turned to account, and what valour could not
accomplish, cunning supplied.  His pride suffered him not to incur an
obligation, and thus he was unthankful; his actions all centred in self,
and as he was remarkably fortunate in whatever he undertook, he ascribed
even that, which accident gave, to foresight and genius.

Yet was he ever, as an officer, a most useful and inestimable man to the
state.  His respect for his sovereign, and his zeal in her service, were
unbounded; whenever her glory was at stake, he devoted himself her
victim.  This I assert to be truth: I knew him well.  Of little
consequence is it to me, whether the historians of Maria Theresa have, or
have not, misrepresented his talents and the fame he deserved.

The life of Trenck I write for the following reasons.  He had the honour
first to form, and command, regular troops, raised in Sclavonia.  The
soldiers acquired glory under their leader, and sustained the tottering
power of Austria: they made libations of their blood in its defence, as
did Trenck, in various battles.  He served like a brave warrior, with
zeal, loyalty, and effect.  The vile persecutions of his enemies at
Vienna, with whom he refused to share the plunder he had made, lost him
honour, liberty, and not only the personal property he had acquired, but
likewise the family patrimony in Hungary.  He died like a malefactor,
illegally sentenced to imprisonment; and knaves have affirmed, and fools
have believed, and believe still, he took the King of Prussia prisoner,
and that he granted him freedom in consequence of a bribe.  So have the
loyal Hungarians been led to suppose that an Hungarian had really been a
traitor.

By my writings, I wish to prove to this noble nation on the contrary,
that Trenck, for his loyalty deserved compassion, esteem, and honour in
his country.  This I have already done in the former part of my history.
The dead Trenck can speak no more; but it is the duty of the living ever
to speak in defence of right.

Trenck wrote his own history while he was confined in the arsenal at
Vienna; and, in the last two sheets he openly related the manner in which
he had been treated by the council of war, of which Count Loewenwalde,
his greatest enemy, was president.  The count, however, found supporters
too powerful, and these sheets were torn from the book and publicly burnt
at Vienna.  Defence after this became impossible: he groaned under the
grip of his adversaries.

I have given a literal copy of these sheets in the first part of this
history; and I again repeat I am able to prove the truth of what is there
asserted, by the acts, proceedings, and judicial registers which are in
my possession.  He was confined in the Spielberg, because much was to be
dreaded from an injured man, whom they knew capable of the most desperate
enterprises.  He died defenceless, the sacrifice of iniquity and unjust
judges.  He died, and his honour remained unprotected.  I am by duty his
defender: although he expired my personal enemy, the author of nearly all
the ills I have suffered.  I came to the knowledge of his persecutors too
late for the unfortunate Trenck.  And who are those who have divided his
spoils--who slew him that they might fatten themselves?  Your titles have
been paid for from the coffers of Trenck!  Yet neither can your cabals,
your wealthy protectors, your own riches, nor your credit at court,
deprive me of the right of vindicating his fame.

I have boldly written, have openly shown, that Trenck was pillaged by
you; that he served the house of Austria as a worthy man, with zeal; not
in court-martials and committees of inquiry, but fighting for his
country, sharing the soldier's glory, falling the victim of envy and
power; falling by the hands of those who are unworthy of judging merit.
He take the King of Prussia!  They might as well say he took the Emperor
of Morocco.

Yes, he is dead.  But should any man dare affirm that the Hungarian or
the Prussian Trenck were capable of treason, that either of them merited
punishment for having betrayed their country, he will not have long to
seek before he will be informed that he has done us both injustice.  After
this preface, I shall continue my narrative on the plan I proposed.
Trenck, the father, was a miser, yet a well-meaning man.  Trenck the son,
was a youthful soldier, who stood in need of money to indulge his
pleasures.  Many curious pranks he played, when an ensign in I know not
what regiment of foot.  He went to one of the collectors of his father's
rents, and demanded money; the collector refused to give him any, and
Trenck clove his skull with his sabre.  A prosecution was entered against
him, but, war breaking out in 1756, between the Russians and the Turks,
he raised a squadron of hussars, and went with it into the Russian
service, contrary to the will of his father.

In this war he distinguished himself highly, and acquired the protection
of Field-marshal Munich.  He was so successful as a leader against the
Tartars, that he became very famous in the army, and at the end of the
campaign, was appointed major.

It happened that flying parties of Turks approached his regiment when on
march, and Trenck seeing a favourable moment for attacking them, went to
Colonel Rumin, desiring the regiment might be led to the charge, and that
they might profit by so fair an opportunity.  The colonel answered, "I
have no such orders."  Trenck then demanded permission to charge the
Turks only with his own squadron; but this was refused.  He became
furious, for he had never been acquainted with contradiction or
subordination, and cried aloud to the soldiers, "If there be one brave
man among you, let him follow me."  About two hundred stepped from the
ranks; he put himself at their head, routed the enemy, made a horrible
carnage, and returned intoxicated with joy, accompanied by prisoners, and
loaded with dissevered heads.  Once more arrived in presence of the
regiment, he attacked the colonel, treated him like the rankest coward,
called him opprobrious names, without the other daring to make the least
resistance.  The adventure, however, became known; Trenck was arrested,
and ordered to be tried.  His judges condemned him to be shot, and the
day was appointed, but the evening before execution, Field-marshal Munich
passed near the tent in which he was confined, Trenck saw him, came
forward, and said, "Certainly your excellency will not suffer a foreign
cavalier to die an ignominious death because he has chastised a cowardly
Russian!  If I must die, at least give me permission to saddle my horse,
and with my sabre in my hand, let me fall surrounded by the enemy."

The Tartars happened to be at this time harassing the advanced posts; the
Field-marshal shrugged his shoulders, and was silent.  Trenck, not
discouraged, added, "I will undertake to bring your excellency three
heads or lose my own.  Will you, if I do, be pleased to grant me my
pardon?"  The Field-marshal replied, "Yes."  The horse of Trenck was
brought: he galloped to the enemy, and returned within four heads knotted
to the horse's mane, himself only slightly wounded in the shoulder.
Munich immediately appointed him major in another regiment.  Various and
almost incredible were his feats: among others, a Tartar ran him through
the belly with his lance: Trenck grasped the projecting end with his
hands, exerted his prodigious strength, broke the lance, set spurs to his
horse, and happily escaped.  Of this wound, dreadful as it was, he was
soon cured.  I myself have seen the two scars, and can affirm the fact; I
also learned this, and many others in 1746, from officers who had served
in the same army.

During this campaign he behaved with great honour, was wounded by an
arrow in the leg, and gained the affection of Field-marshal Munich, but
excited the envy of all the Russians.  Towards the conclusion of the war
he had a new misfortune; his regiment was incommoded on all sides by the
enemy: he entreated his colonel, for leave to attack them.  The colonel
was once more a Russian, and he was refused.  Trenck gave him a blow, and
called aloud to the soldiers to follow him.  They however being Russians,
remained motionless, and he was put under arrest.  The court-martial
sentenced him to death, and all hope of reprieve seemed over.  The
general would have granted his pardon, but as he was himself a foreigner,
he was fearful of offending the Russians.  The day of execution came, and
he was led to the place of death, Munich so contrived it that
Field-marshal Lowenthal should pass by, at this moment, in company within
his lady.  Trenck profited by the opportunity, spoke boldly, and
prevailed.  A reprieve was requested, and the sentence was changed into
banishment and labour in Siberia.

Trenck protested against this sentence.  The Field-marshal wrote to
Petersburg, and an order came that he should be broken, and conducted out
of the Russian territories.  This order was executed, and he returned
into Hungary to his father.  At this period he espoused the daughter of
Field-marshal Baron Tillier, one of the first families in Switzerland.
The two brothers of his wife each became lieutenant-general, one of whom
died honourably during the seven years' war.  The other was made
commander-general in Croatia, where he is still living, and is at the
head of a regiment of infantry that bears his name.  Trenck did not live
long with his lady.  She was pregnant, and he took her to hunt with him
in a marsh: she returned ill, and died without leaving him an heir.

Having no opportunity to indulge his warlike inclination, because of the
general peace, he conceived the project of extirpating the Sclavonian
banditti.

Trenck, to execute this enterprise, employed his own pandours.  The
contest now commenced and activity and courage were necessary to ensure
success in such a war.  Trenck seemed born for this murderous trade.  Day
and night he chased them like wild beasts, killing now one, then another,
and without distinction, treating them with the utmost barbarity.

Two incidents will sufficiently paint the character of this unaccountable
man.  He had impaled alive the father of a Harum-Bashaw.  One evening he
was going on patrol, along the banks of a brook, which separated two
provinces.  On the opposite shore was the son of this impaled father,
with his Croats.  It was moonlight, and the latter called aloud--"I heard
thy voice, Trenck!  Thou hast impaled my father!  If thou hast a heart in
thy body, come hither over the bridge, I will send away my followers;
leave thy firearms, come only with thy sabre, and we will then see who
shall remain the victor."  The agreement was made--and the Harum-Bashaw
sent away his Croats, and laid down his musket.  Trenck passed the wooden
bridge, both drew their sabres; but Trenck treacherously killed his
adversary with a pistol, that he had concealed, after which he severed
his head from his body, took it with him, and stuck it upon a pole.

One day, when hunting, he heard music in a lone house which belonged to
one of his vassals.  He was thirsty, entered, and found the guests seated
at table.  He sat down and ate within them, not knowing this was a
rendezvous for the banditti.  As he was seated opposite the door, he saw
two Harum-Bashaws enter.  His musket stood in a corner; he was struck
with terror, but one of them addressed him thus:--"Neither thee, nor thy
vassals, Trenck, have we ever injured, yet thou dost pursue us with
cruelty.  Eat thy fill.  When thou hast satisfied thy hunger, we will
then, sabre in thy hand, see who has most justice on his side, and
whether thou art as courageous as men speak thee."

Hereupon they sat down and began to eat and drink and make merry.  The
situation of Trenck could not be very pleasant.  He recollected that
besides these, there might be more of their companions, without, ready to
fall upon him; he, therefore, privately drew his pistols, held them under
the table while he cocked them, presented each hand to the body of a
Harum-Bashaw, fired them both at the same instant, overset the table on
the guests, and escaped from the house.  As he went he had time to seize
on one of their muskets, which was standing at the door.  One of the
Croats was left weltering in his blood; the other disengaged himself from
the table, and ran after Trenck, who suffered him to approach, killed him
within his own gun, struck off his head and brought it home in triumph.
By this action the banditti were deprived of their two most valorous
chiefs.

War broke out about this time, in 1740, when all the Hungarians took up
arms in defence of their beloved queen.  Trenck offered to raise a free
corps of pandours, and requested an amnesty for the banditti who should
join his troops.  His request was granted, he published the amnesty, and
began to raise recruits; he therefore enrolled his own vassals, formed a
corps of 500 men, went in search of the robbers, drove them into a strait
between the Save and Sarsaws, where they capitulated, and 300 of them
enrolled themselves with his pandours.  Most of these men were six feet
in height, determined, and experienced soldiers.  To indulge them on
certain occasions in their thirst of pillage were means which he
successfully employed to lead them where he pleased, and to render them
victorious.  By means like these Trenck became at once the terror of the
enemies of Austria, and rendered signal services to his Empress.

In 1741, while he was exercising his regiment, a company fired upon
Trenck, and killed his horse, and his servant that stood by his side.  He
ran to the company, counted one, two, three, and beheaded the fourth.  He
was continuing this, when a Harum-Bashaw left the ranks, drew his sword,
and called aloud, "It is I who fired upon thee, defend thyself."  The
soldiers stood motionless spectators.  Trenck attacked him and hewed him
down.  He was proceeding to continue the execution of the fourth man, but
the whole regiment presented their arms.  The revolt became general, and
Trenck, still holding his drawn sabre, ran amidst them, hacking about him
on all sides.  The excess of his rage was terrific; the soldiers all
called "Hold!" each fell on their knees, and promised obedience.  After
this he addressed them in language suitable to their character, and from
that time they became invincible soldiers whenever they were headed by
himself.  Let the situation of Trenck be considered; he was the chief of
a band of robbers who supposed they were authorised to take whatever they
pleased in an enemy's country, a banditti that had so often defied the
gallows, and had never known military subordination.  Let such men be led
to the field and opposed to regular troops.  That they are never actuated
by honour is evident: their leader is obliged to excite their avidity by
the hope of plunder to engage them in action; for if they perceive no
personal advantage, the interest of the sovereign is insufficient to make
them act.

Trenck had need of a particular species of officers.  They must be
daring, yet cautious.  They are partisans, and must be capable of
supporting fatigue, desirous of daily seeking the enemy, and hazarding
their lives.  As he was himself never absent at the time of action, he
soon became acquainted with those whom he called old women, and sent them
from his regiment.  These officers then repaired to Vienna, vented their
complaints, and were heard.  His avarice prevented him from making any
division of his booty with those gentlemen who constituted the military
courts, thus neglecting what was customary at Vienna: and in this
originated the prosecution to which he fell a victim.  Scarcely had he
entered Austria with his troops before he found an opportunity of reaping
laurels.  The French army was defeated at Lintz.  Trenck pursued them,
treated his prisoners with barbarity; and, never granting quarter in
battle, the very appearance of his pandours inspired terror.

Trenck was a great warrior, and knew how to profit by the slightest
advantage.  From this time he became renowned, gained the confidence of
Prince Charles, and the esteem of the Field-marshal Count Kevenhuller,
who discovered the worth of the man.  No partisan had ever before
obtained so much power as Trenck; he everywhere pursued the enemy as far
as Bavaria, carrying fire and sword wherever he went.  As it was known
Trenck gave no quarter, the Bavarians and the French flew at the sight of
a red mantle.  Pillage and murder attended the pandours wherever they
went, and their colonel bought up all the booty they acquired.  Chamb, in
particular, was a scene of a dreadful massacre.  The city was set on fire
and the people perished in the flames; women and children who endeavoured
to fly, were obliged to pass over a bridge, where they were first
stripped, and afterwards thrown into the water.  This action was one of
the accusations brought against Trenck when he was prosecuted, but he
alleged his justification.

The banks of the Iser to this day reverberate groans for the barbarities
of Trenck.  Deckendorf and Filtzhofen felt all his fury.  In the first of
these towns 600 French prisoners capitulated, although his forces were
four miles distant; but he formed a kind of straw men, on which he put
pandour caps and cloaks, and set them up as sentinels; and the garrison,
deceived by this stratagem, signed the capitulation.  The services he
rendered the army during the Bavarian war are well known in the history
of Maria Theresa.  The good he has done has been passed over in silence,
because he died under misfortunes, and did not leave his historian a
legacy.  He was informed that either at Deckendorf or Filtzhofen there
was a barrel containing 20,000 florins, concealed at the house of an
apothecary.  Impelled by the desire of booty, Trenck hastened to the
place, with a candle in his hand, searching everywhere, and, in his
hurry, dropped a spark into a quantity of gunpowder, by the explosion of
which he was dreadfully scorched.  They carried him off, but the scars
and the gunpowder with which his skin was blackened rendered his
countenance terrific.

The present Field-marshal Laudohn was at that time a lieutenant in his
regiment, and happened to be at the door when his colonel was burnt.
Scarcely was Trenck cured before his spies informed him that Laudohn had
plenty of money.  Immediately he suspected that Laudohn had found the
barrel of florins, and from that moment he persecuted him by all
imaginable arts.  Wherever there was danger he sent him, at the head of
30 men, against 300, hoping to have him cut off, and to make himself his
heir.  This was so often repeated that Laudohn returned to Vienna, where,
joining the crowd of the enemies of Trenck, he became instrumental in his
destruction.  Yet it is certain that, in the beginning, Trenck had shown
a friendship for Laudohn, had given him a commission, and that this great
man learned, under the command of Trenck, his military principles.
General Tillier was likewise formed in this nursery of soldiers, where
officers were taught activity, stratagem, and enterprise.  And who are
more capable of commanding a Hungarian army than Tillier and Laudohn?  I,
one day said to Trenck, when he was in Vienna, embarrassed by his
prosecution, and when he had published a defamatory writing against all
his accusers, excepting no man,--"You have always told me that Laudohn
was one of the most capable of your officers, and that he is a worthy
man.  Wherefore then do you class him among such wretches?"  He replied,
"What! would you have me praise a man who labours, at the head of my
enemies, to rob me of honour, property, and life!"  I have related this
incident to prove by the testimony of so honourable a man, that Trenck
was a great soldier, and a zealous patriot, and that he never took the
King of Prussia prisoner, as has been falsely affirmed, and as is still
believed by the multitude.  Had such a thing happened, Laudohn must have
been present, and would have supported this charge.

Bavaria was plundered by Trenck; barges were loaded with gold, silver,
and effects, which he sent to his estates in Sclavonia; Prince Charles
and Count Kevenhuller countenanced his proceedings; but when
Field-marshal Neuperg was at the head of the army, he had other
principles.  He was connected with Baron Tiebes, a counsellor of the
Hofkriegsrath who was the enemy of Trenck.  Persecution was at that time
instituted against him, and Trenck was imprisoned; but he defended
himself so powerfully that in a month he was set at liberty.  Mentzel,
meanwhile, had the command of the pandours; and this man appropriated to
himself the fame that Trenck had acquired by the warriors he himself had
formed.  Mentzel never was the equal of Trenck.  Trenck now increased the
number of his Croats to 4,000, from whom, in 1743, a regiment of
Hungarian regulars was formed, but who still retained the name of
pandours.  It was a regiment of infantry.  Trenck also had 600 hussars
and 150 chasseurs, whom he equipped at his own expense.  Yet, when this
corps was reduced, all was sold for the profit of the imperial treasury,
without bringing a shilling to account.

With a corps so numerous, he undertook great enterprises.  The enemy fled
wherever he appeared.  He led the van, raised contributions which
amounted to several millions, delivered unto the Empress, in five years,
7,000 prisoners, French and Bavarian, and more than 3,000 Prussians.  He
never was defeated.  He gained confidence among his troops, and will
remain in history the first man who rendered the savage Croats efficient
soldiers.  This it was impossible to perform among a bloodthirsty people
without being guilty himself of cruel acts.  The necessity of the
excesses he committed, when the army was in want of forage, was so
evident that he received permission of Prince Charles, though for this he
was afterwards prosecuted; while the plunders of Brenklau, Mentzel, and
the whole army, were never once questioned.  That Trenck advanced more
than 100,000 florins to his regiment, I clearly proved, in 1750.  This
proof came too late.  He was dead.  The evidence I brought occasioned a
quartermaster, Frederici, to be imprisoned.  He confessed the
embezzlement of this money, yet found so many friends among the enemies
of Trenck that he refunded nothing, but was released in the year 1754,
when I was thrown into the dungeon of Magdeburg.

My cousin, who had lived like a miser, did not, at his death, leave half
of the property he had inherited from his father, and which legally
descended to me; it was torn from me by violence.

In 1744 he obliged the French to retire beyond the Rhine, seized on a
fort near Phillipsburg, swam across the river with 70 pandours, attacked
the fortifications, slew the Marquis de Crevecoeur, with his own hand
manned the post, traversed the other arm of the Rhine, surprised two
Bavarian regiments of cavalry, and by this daring manoeuvre, secured the
passage of the Rhine to the whole army, which, but for him, would not
have been effected.  Wherever he came, he laid the country under
contribution, and, at this moment of triumph for the Austrian arms,
opened himself a passage to enter the territories of France.  In
September, 1744, war having broken out between Austria and Prussia, the
imperial army was obliged to return, abandon Alsatia, and hasten to the
succour of the Austrian states.  Trenck succeeded in covering its
retreat.  The history of Maria Theresa declares the damages he did the
enemy, during this campaign.  He gave proof of his capacity at Tabor and
Budweis.  With 300 men he attacked one of these towns, which was defended
by the two Prussian regiments of Walrabe and Kreutz.  He found the water
in the moats was deeper than his spies had declared, and the scaling
ladders too short: most of those led to the attack were killed, or
drowned in the water, and the small number that crossed the moats were
made prisoners.  The garrison of Tabor, of Budweis, and of the castle of
Frauenburg, were, nevertheless, induced to capitulate, and yield
themselves prisoners, although the main body under Trenck was more than
five miles distant.  His corps did not come up till the morrow, and it
was ridiculous enough to see the pandours dressed in the caps of the
Prussian fusiliers and pioneers, which they wore instead of their own,
and which they afterwards continued to wear.

The campaign to him was glorious, and the enemy's want of light troops
gave free scope to his enterprises, highly to their prejudice.  He never
returned without prisoners.  He passed the Elbe near Pardubitz, took the
magazines, and was the cause of the great dearth and desertion among the
Prussians, and of that hasty retreat to which they were forced.  The King
was at Cohn with his headquarters, where I was with him, when Trenck
attacked the town, which he must have carried, had he not been wounded by
a cannon-ball, which shattered his foot.  He was taken away, the attack
did not succeed, and his men, without him, remained but so many ciphers.

In 1745, he went to Vienna, where his entrance resembled a triumph.  The
Empress received him with distinction.  He appeared on crutches; she, by
her condescending speech, inflamed his zeal to extravagance.  Who would
have supposed that the favourite of the people would that year be
abandoned to the power of his enemies; who had not rendered, during their
whole lives, so much essential service to the state as Trenck had done in
a single day?  He returned to his estate, raised eight hundred recruits
that he might aid in the next campaign, and gather new laurels.  He
rejoined the army.  At the battle of Sorau he fell upon the Prussian
camp, and seized upon the tent of the King, but he came too late to
attack the rear, as had been preconcerted.  Frederic gave up his camp to
be plundered, for the Croats could not be drawn off to attack the army,
and the King was prepared to receive them, even if they should.  In the
meantime, the imperial army was defeated.

Here was a field for the enemies of Trenck to incite the people against
him.  They accused him of having made the King of Prussia a prisoner in
his tent; that he also pillaged the camp instead of attacking the rear of
the army.  After having ended the campaign, he returned to Vienna to
defend himself.  Here he found twenty-three officers, whom he expelled
his regiment, most of them for cowardice or mean actions.  They were
ready to bear false testimony.  Counsellor Weber and Gen. Loewenwalde,
had sworn his downfall, which they effected.  Trenck despised their
attacks.  While things remained thus, they instructed one of the
Empress's attendants to profit by every opportunity to deprive him of her
confidence.  It was affirmed, Trenck is an atheist! who never prayed to
the holy Virgin!  The officers, whom he had broken, whispered it in
coffee-houses, that Trenck had taken and set free the King of Prussia!
This raised the cry among the fanatical mob of Vienna.  Teased by their
complaints, and at the requisition of Trenck himself, the Empress
commanded that examination should be undertaken of these accusations.
Field-marshal Cordova was chosen to preside over this inquiry.  He spoke
the truth, and drew up a statement of the case; it was presented to the
Court, and which I shall here insert.

"The complaints brought against him did not require a court-martial.
Trenck had broken some officers by his own authority; their demands ought
to be satisfied by the payment of 12,000 florins.  The remaining
accusations were all the attempts of revenge and calumny, and were
insufficient to detain at Vienna, entangled in law-suits, a man so
necessary to the army.  Moreover, it would be prudent not to inquire into
trifles, in consideration of his important services."

Trenck, dissatisfied by this sentence, and animated by avarice and pride,
refused to pay a single florin, and returned to Sclavonia.  His presence
was necessary at Vienna, to obtain other advantages against his enemies.
They gave the Empress to understand, that being a man excessively
dangerous, whenever he supposed himself injured, Trenck had spread
pernicious views in Sclavonia, where all men were dependent on him.  He
raised six hundred more men, with whom he made a campaign in the
Netherlands, and in October, 1746, returned to Vienna.  After the peace
of Dresden, his regiment was incorporated among the regulars, and served
against France.

Scarcely had he arrived at Vienna, before an order came from the Empress
that he must remain under arrest in his chamber.  Here he rendered
himself guilty by the most imprudent action of his whole life.  He
ordered his carriage and horses, despising the imperial mandate, went to
the theatre, when the Empress was present.  In one of the boxes he saw
Count Gossau, in company with a comrade of his own, whom he had
cashiered: these persons were among the foremost of his accusers.
Inflamed with the desire of revenge, he entered the box, seized Count
Gossau, and would have thrown him into the pit in the presence of the
Sovereign herself.  Gossau drew his sword, and tried to run him through,
but the latter seizing it, wounded himself in the hand.  Everybody ran to
save Gossau, who was unable to defend himself.  After this exploit, the
colonel of the pandours returned foaming home.

Such an action rendered it impossible for Maria Theresa to declare
herself the protectress of a man so rash.  Sentinels were placed over
him, and his enemies profiting by his imprudence and passion, he was
ordered to be tried by a court-martial.  General Loewenwalde intrigued so
successfully, that he procured himself to be named, by the Hofkriegsrath,
president of the court-martial, and to be charged with the sequestration
of the property of Trenck.  In vain did the latter protest against his
judge.  The very man, whom the year before he had kicked out of the ante-
chamber of Prince Charles, received full power to denounce him guilty.
Then was it that public notice was given that all those who would prefer
complaints against Colonel Baron Trenck should receive a ducat per day
while the council continued to sit.  They soon amounted to fifty-four,
who, in a space of four months, received 15,000 florins from the property
of Trenck.  The judge himself purchased the depositions of false
witnesses; and Count Loewenwalde offered me one thousand ducats, if I
would betray the secrets of my cousin, and promised me I should be put in
possession of my confiscated estates in Prussia, and have a company in a
regiment.

That the indictment and the examinations of the witnesses were falsified,
has already been proved in the revision of the cause; but as the
indictment did not contain one article that could affect his life, they
invented the following stratagem.  A courtesan, a mistress of Baron
Rippenda, who was a member of the court-martial, was bribed, and made
oath she was the daughter of Count Schwerin, Field-marshal in the
Prussian service, and that she was in bed with the King of Prussia, when
Trenck surprised the camp at Sorau, made her and the King prisoners, and
restored them their freedom.  She even ventured to name Baron Hilaire,
aide-de-camp to Frederic, whom she affirmed was then present.  Hilaire,
who afterwards married the Baroness Tillier, and who consequently was
brother-in-law to Trenck, fortunately happened to be in Vienna.  He was
confronted with this woman, and through her falsehoods, the gentleman was
obliged to remain in prison, where they offered him bribes, which be
refused to accept; and, to prevent his speaking, he continued in prison
some weeks, and was not released till this shameful proceeding was made
public.

Count Loewenwalde invented another artifice; he drew up a false
indictment; and, that he might be prevented all means of justification,
he chose a day to put it in practice, when the Emperor and Prince Charles
were hunting at Holitzsch.  Loewenwalde's court-martial had already
signed a sentence of death, and every preparation for the erection of a
scaffold was made.  His intention was then to go to the Empress and
induce her to sign the sentence, under a pretence that there was some
imminent peril at hand, if a man so dangerous to the state was not
immediately put out of the way, and that it would be necessary to execute
the sentence of death before the Emperor could return.  He well knew the
Emperor was better acquainted with Trenck, and had ever been his
protector.

Had this succeeded, Trenck would have died like a traitor; Miss Schwerin
would have espoused the aide-de-camp of Loewenwalde, with fifty thousand
florins, taken from the funds of Trenck, and his property would have been
divided between his judges and his accusers.  As it happened, however,
the valet-de-chambre of Count Loewenwalde, who was an honest man, and who
had an intimacy with a former mistress of Trenck, confided the whole
secret to her.  She immediately flew to Colonel Baron Lopresti, who was
the sincere friend of my kinsman, and, being then powerful at Court, was
his deliverer.  The Emperor and Prince Charles were informed of what was
in agitation, but they thought proper to keep it secret.  The hunting at
Holitzsch took place on the appointed day.  Count Loewenwalde made his
appearance before the Empress, and solicited her to sign the sentence.
She, however, had been pre-informed, the Emperor having returned on the
same day, and their abominable project proved abortive.  Miss Schwerin
was imprisoned; Loewenwalde was deprived of his power, as well as of the
sequestration of the effects of Trenck; a total revision of the
proceedings of the court-martial, and of the prosecution of my cousin,
was ordered, which was an event, that, till then, was unexampled at
Vienna.

Trenck was freed from his fetters, removed to the arsenal, an officer
guarded him, and he had every convenience he could wish.  He was also
permitted the use of a counsellor to defend his cause.  I obtained by the
influence of the Emperor leave to visit him and to aid him in all things.
It was at this epoch that I arrived at Vienna, and, at this very instant,
when the revision of the prosecution was commanded and determined on.
Count Loewenwalde, supposing me a needy, thoughtless youth, endeavoured
to bribe me, and prevail on me to betray my kinsman.  Prince Charles of
Lorraine then desired me seriously to represent to Trenck that his
avarice had been the cause of all these troubles, for he hind refused to
pay the paltry sum of 12,000 florins, by which he might have silenced all
his accusers; but that, as at present, affairs had become so serious, he
ought himself to secure his judges for the revision of the suit; to spare
no money, and then he might be certain of every protection the prince
could afford.

The respectable Field-marshal Konigseck, governor of Vienna, was
appointed president; but, being an old man, he was unable to preside at
any one sitting of the court.  Count S--- was the vice-president, a
subtle, insatiable judge, who never thought he had money enough.  I took
3,000 ducats, which Baron Lopresti gave me, to this most worthy
counsellor.  The two counsellors, Komerkansquy and Zetto, each received
4,000 rix-dollars, with a promise of double the sum if Trenck were
acquitted; there was a formal contract drawn up, which a certain noble
lord secretly signed.  Trenck was defended by the advocate Gerhauer and
by Berger.  They began with the self-created daughter of Marshal
Schwerin; and, to conceal the iniquitous proceedings of the late court-
martial, it was thought proper that she should appear insane, and return
incoherent answers to the questions put by the examiners.  Trenck
insisted that a more severe inquiry should be instituted; but they
affirmed that she had been conducted out of the Austrian territories.

Trenck was accused of having ordered a certain pandour, named Paul Diack,
to suffer the bastinado of 1,000 blows, and that he had died under the
punishment.  This was sworn to by two officers, now great men in the
army, who said they were eye-witnesses of the fact.  When the revision of
the suit began, Trenck sent me into Sclavonia, where I found the dead
Paul Diack alive, and brought him to Vienna.  He was examined by the
court, where it appeared that the two officers, who had sworn they were
present when he expired, and had seen him buried, were at that time 160
miles from the regiment, and recruiting in Sclavonia.  Paul Diack had
engaged in plots, and had mutinied three times.  Trenck had pardoned him,
but afterwards mutinying once more, with forty others, he was condemned
to death.  At the place of execution he called to his colonel: "Father,
if I receive a thousand blows, will you pardon me?"  Trenck replied in
the affirmative.  He received the punishment, was taken to the hospital,
and cured.

I brought fourteen more witnesses from Sclavonia, who attested the
falsity of other articles of accusation which were not worthy of
attention.  The cause wore a new aspect; and the wickedness of those who
were so desirous to have seen Trenck executed became apparent.

One of the chief articles in the prosecution, which for ever deprived him
of favour from his virtuous and apostolic mistress, and for which alone
he was condemned to the Spielberg, was, that he had ravished the daughter
of a miller in Silesia.  This was made oath of, and he was not entirely
cleared of the charge in the revision, because his accusers had excluded
all means of justification.  Two years after his death, I discovered the
truth of this affair.  Mainstein accused him of this crime that he might
prevent his return to the regiment; his motive was, because he, in
conjunction with Frederici, had appropriated to their own purposes 8,000
florins of regimental money.

This miller's daughter was the mistress of Mainstein, before she had been
seen by Trenck.  Maria Theresa, however, would never forgive him; and, to
satisfy the honour of this damsel, he was condemned to pay 8,000 florins
to her, and 15,000 to the chest of the invalids, and to suffer perpetual
imprisonment.  Sixty-three civil suits had I to defend, and all the
appeals of his accusers to terminate after his death.  I gained them all
and his accusers were condemned in costs, also to refund the so much per
day which had been paid them by General Loewenwalde; but they were all
poor, and I might seek the money where I could.  In justice, Loewenwalde
ought to have reimbursed me.  The total of the sum they received was
15,000 florins.

Most of the other articles of accusation consisted in Trenck's having
beheaded some mutinous pandours, and broken his officers without a court-
martial; that he had bought of his soldiers, and melted down the holy
vessels of the church, chalices, and rosaries; had bastinadoed some
priests, had not heard mass every Sunday, and had dragged malefactors
from convents, in which they had taken refuge.  When the officers were no
longer protected by Loewenwalde, or Weber, they decamped, but did not
cease to labour to gain their purpose, which they attained by the aid of
the Court-confessor.  This monk found means to render Maria Theresa
insensible of pity towards a man who had been so prodigal of his blood in
her defence.  Loewenwalde knew how to profit by the opportunity.  Gerhauer
discovered the secret proceedings; and Loewenwalde, now deeply interested
in the ruin of Trenck, went to the Empress, related the manner in which
the judges had been bribed, and threatened that should he, through the
protection of the Emperor and Prince Charles, be declared innocent, he
would publicly vindicate the honour of the court-martial.

Had my cousin followed my advice and plan of flight he would not have
died in prison nor should I have lain in the dungeon of Magdeburg.  With
respect to individuals whom he robbed, innocent men whom he massacred,
and many other worthy people whom he made miserable; with respect to his
father, aged eighty-four, and his virtuous wife, whom he treated with
barbarity; with respect to myself, to the duties of consanguinity and of
man, he merited punishment, the pursuit of the avenging arm of justice,
and to be extirpated from all human society.




EPILOGUE.


Thomas Carlyle's opinion of the author of this History is expressed in
the following passages from his _History of Friedrich II. of Prussia_:
"'Frederick Baron Trenck,' loud sounding phantasm, once famous in the
world, now gone to the nurseries as mythical, was of this carnival (1742-
3.) . . . A tall actuality in that time, swaggering about in sumptuous
Life Guard uniform in his mess-rooms and assembly-rooms; much in love
with himself, the fool!  And I rather think, in spite of his dog
insinuations, neither Princess had heard of him till twenty years hence,
in a very different phasis of his life!  The empty, noisy, quasi-tragic
fellow; sounds throughout quasi-tragical, like an empty barrel;
well-built, longing to be filled."--Book xiv., ch. 3.





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