Transcribed from the 1892 Cassell & Co. edition by David Price, email
ccx074@pglaf.org, proofed by Bridie, Rab Hughes and Roland Chapman.
THE
LIFE AND ADVENTURES
OF
BARON TRENCK
TRANSLATED BY
THOMAS HOLCROFT.
VOL. I.
CASSELL & COMPANY, LIMITED:
_LONDON_, _PARIS & MELBOURNE_.
1892.
INTRODUCTION.
There were two cousins Von der Trenck, who were barons descended from an
ancient house in East Prussia, and were adventurous soldiers, to whom, as
to the adventurous, there were adventures that lost nothing in the
telling, for they were told by the authors' most admiring
friends--themselves. Franz, the elder, was born in 1711, the son of an
Austrian general; and Frederick, whose adventures are here told, was the
son of a Prussian major-general. Franz, at the age of seventeen, fought
duels, and cut off the head of a man who refused to lend him money. He
stood six feet three inches in his shoes, knocked down his commanding
officer, was put under arrest, offered to pay for his release by bringing
in three Turks' heads within an hour, was released on that condition, and
actually brought in four Turks' heads. When afterwards cashiered, he
settled on his estates in Croatia, and drilled a thousand of his tenantry
to act as "Pandours" against the banditti. In 1740, he served with his
Pandours under Maria Theresa, and behaved himself as one of the more
brutal sort of banditti. He offered to capture Frederick of Prussia, and
did capture his tent. Many more of his adventures are vaingloriously
recounted by himself in the _Memoires du Baron Franz de Trenck_,
published at Paris in 1787. This Trenck took poison when imprisoned at
Gratz, and died in October, 1747, at the age of thirty-six.
His cousin Frederick is the Trenck who here tells a story of himself that
abounds in lively illustration of the days of Frederick the Great. He
professes that Frederick the King owed him a grudge, because Frederick
the Trenck had, when eighteen years old, fascinated the Princess Amalie
at a ball. But as Frederick the Greater was in correspondence with his
cousin Franz at the time when that redoubtable personage was planning the
seizure of Frederick the Great, there may have been better ground for the
Trenck's arrest than he allows us to imagine. Mr. Carlyle shows that
Frederick von der Trenck had been three months in prison, and was still
in prison, at the time of the battle of the Sohr, in which he professes
to have been engaged. Frederick von der Trenck, after his release from
imprisonment in 1763, married a burgomaster's daughter, and went into
business as a wine merchant. Then he became adventurous again. His
adventures, published in German in 1786-7, and in his own French version
in 1788, formed one of the most popular books of its time. Seven plays
were founded on them, and ladies in Paris wore their bonnets a la Trenck.
But the French finally guillotined the author, when within a year of
threescore and ten, on the 26th of July, 1794. He had gone to Paris in
1792, and joined there in the strife of parties. At the guillotine he
struggled with the executioner.
H.M.
CHAPTER I.
I was born at Konigsberg in Prussia, February 16, 1726, of one of the
most ancient families of the country. My father, who was lord of Great
Scharlach, Schakulack, and Meichen, and major-general of cavalry, died in
1740, after receiving eighteen wounds in the Prussian service. My mother
was daughter of the president of the high court at Konigsberg. After my
father's death she married Count Lostange, lieutenant-colonel in the Kiow
regiment of cuirassiers, with whom she went and resided at Breslau. I
had two brothers and a sister; my youngest brother was taken by my mother
into Silesia; the other was a cornet in this last-named regiment of Kiow;
and my sister was married to the only son of the aged General Valdow.
My ancestors are famous in the Chronicles of the North, among the ancient
Teutonic knights, who conquered Courland, Prussia, and Livonia.
By temperament I was choleric, and addicted to pleasure and dissipation;
my tutors found this last defect most difficult to overcome; happily,
they were aided by a love of knowledge inherent in me, an emulative
spirit, and a thirst for fame, which disposition it was my father's care
to cherish. A too great consciousness of innate worth gave me a too
great degree of pride, but the endeavours of my instructor to inspire
humility were not all lost; and habitual reading, well-timed praise, and
the pleasures flowing from science, made the labours of study at length
my recreation.
My memory became remarkable; I am well read in the Scriptures, the
classics, and ancient history; was acquainted with geography; could draw;
learnt fencing, riding, and other necessary exercises.
My religion was Lutheran; but morality was taught me by my father, and by
the worthy man to whose care he committed the forming of my heart, whose
memory I shall ever hold in veneration. While a boy, I was enterprising
in all the tricks of boys, and exercised my wit in crafty excuses; the
warmth of my passions gave a satiric, biting cast to my writings, whence
it has been imagined, by those who knew but little of me, I was a
dangerous man; though, I am conscious, this was a false judgment.
A soldier himself, my father would have all his sons the same; thus, when
we quarrelled, we terminated our disputes with wooden sabres, and,
brandishing these, contested by blows for victory, while our father sat
laughing, pleased at our valour and address. This practice, and the
praises he bestowed, encouraged a disposition which ought to have been
counteracted.
Accustomed to obtain the prize, and be the hero of scholastic
contentions, I acquired the bad habit of disputation, and of imagining
myself a sage when little more than a boy. I became stubborn in
argument; hasty to correct others, instead of patiently attentive: and,
by presumption, continually liable to incite enmity. Gentle to my
inferiors, but impatient of contradiction, and proud of resisting power,
I may hence date, the origin of all my evils.
How might a man, imbued with the heroic principles of liberty, hope for
advancement and happiness, under the despotic and iron Government of
Frederic? I was taught neither to know nor to avoid, but to despise the
whip of slavery. Had I learnt hypocrisy, craft, and meanness, I had long
since become field-marshal, had been in possession of my Hungarian
estates, and had not passed the best years of my life in the dungeons of
Magdeburg. I was addicted to no vice: I laboured in the cause of
science, honour, and virtue; kept no vicious company; was never in the
whole of my life intoxicated; was no gamester, no consumer of time in
idleness nor brutal pleasures; but devoted many hundred laborious nights
to studies that might make me useful to my country; yet was I punished
with a severity too cruel even for the most worthless, or most villanous.
I mean, in my narrative, to make candour and veracity my guides, and not
to conceal my failings; I wish my work may remain a moral lesson to the
world. Yet it is an innate satisfaction that I am conscious of never
having acted with dishonour, even to the last act of this distressful
tragedy.
I shall say little of the first years of my life, except that my father
took especial care of my education, and sent me, at the age of thirteen,
to the University of Konigsberg, where, under the tuition of Kowalewsky,
my progress was rapid. There were fourteen other noblemen in the same
house, and under the same master.
In the year following, 1740, I quarrelled with one young Wallenrodt, a
fellow-student, much stronger than myself, and who, despising my
weakness, thought proper to give me a blow. I demanded satisfaction. He
came not to the appointed place, but treated my demand with contempt; and
I, forgetting all further respect, procured a second, and attacked him in
open day. We fought, and I had the fortune to wound him twice; the first
time in the arm, the second in the hand.
This affair incited inquiry:--Doctor Kowalewsky, our tutor, laid
complaints before the University, and I was condemned to three hours'
confinement; but my grandfather and guardian, President Derschau, was so
pleased with my courage, that he took me from this house and placed me
under Professor Christiani.
Here I first began to enjoy full liberty, and from this worthy man I
learnt all I know of experimental philosophy and science. He loved me as
his own son, and continued instructing me till midnight. Under his
auspices, in 1742, I maintained, with great success, two public theses,
although I was then but sixteen; an effort and an honour till then
unknown.
Three days after my last public exordium, a contemptible fellow sought a
quarrel with me, and obliged me to draw in my own defence, whom, on this
occasion, I wounded in the groin.
This success inflated my valour, and from that time I began to assume the
air and appearance of a Hector.
Scarcely had a fortnight elapsed before I had another with a lieutenant
of the garrison, whom I had insulted, who received two wounds in the
contest.
I ought to remark, that at this time, the University of Konigsberg was
still highly privileged. To send a challenge was held honourable; and
this was not only permitted, but would have been difficult to prevent,
considering the great number of proud, hot-headed, and turbulent nobility
from Livonia, Courland, Sweden, Denmark, and Poland, who came thither to
study, and of whom there were more than five hundred. This brought the
University into disrepute, and endeavours have been made to remedy the
abuse. Men have acquired a greater extent of true knowledge, and have
begun to perceive that a University ought to be a place of instruction,
and not a field of battle; and that blood cannot be honourably shed,
except in defence of life or country.
In November, 1742, the King sent his adjutant-general, Baron Lottum, who
was related to my mother, to Konigsberg, with whom I dined at my
grandfather's. He conversed much with me, and, after putting various
questions, purposely, to discover what my talents and inclinations were,
he demanded, as if in joke, whether I had any inclination to go with him
to Berlin, and serve my country, as my ancestors had ever done: adding
that, in the army, I should find much better opportunities of sending
challenges than at the University. Inflamed with the desire of
distinguishing myself, I listened with rapture to the proposition, and in
a few days we departed for Potzdam.
On the morrow after my arrival, I was presented to the King, as indeed I
had before been in the year 1740, with the character of being, then, one
of the most hopeful youths of the University. My reception was most
flattering; the justness of my replies to the questions he asked, my
height, figure, and confidence, pleased him; and I soon obtained
permission to enter as a cadet in his body guards, with a promise of
quick preferment.
The body guards formed, at this time, a model and school for the Prussian
cavalry; they consisted of one single squadron of men selected from the
whole army, and their uniform was the most splendid in all Europe. Two
thousand rix-dollars were necessary to equip an officer: the cuirass was
wholly plated with silver; and the horse, furniture, and accoutrements
alone cost four hundred rix-dollars.
This squadron only contained six officers and a hundred and forty-four
men; but there were always fifty or sixty supernumeraries, and as many
horses, for the King incorporated all the most handsome men he found in
the guards. The officers were the best taught of any the army contained;
the King himself was their tutor, and he afterwards sent them to instruct
the cavalry in the manoeuvres they had learnt. Their rise was rapid if
they behaved well; but they were broken for the least fault, and punished
by being sent to garrison regiments. It was likewise necessary they
should be tolerably rich, as well as possess such talents as might be
successfully employed, both at court and in the army.
There are no soldiers in the world who undergo so much as this body
guard; and during the time I was in the service of Frederic, I often had
not eight hours' sleep in eight days. Exercise began at four in the
morning, and experiments were made of all the alterations the King meant
to introduce in his cavalry. Ditches of three, four, five, six feet, and
still wider, were leaped, till that someone broke his neck; hedges, in
like manner, were freed, and the horses ran careers, meeting each other
full speed in a kind of lists of more than half a league in length. We
had often, in these our exercises, several men and horses killed or
wounded.
It happened more frequently than otherwise that the same experiments were
repeated after dinner with fresh horses; and it was not uncommon, at
Potzdam, to hear the alarm sounded twice in a night. The horses stood in
the King's stables; and whoever had not dressed, armed himself, saddled
his horse, mounted, and appeared before the palace in eight minutes, was
put under arrest for fourteen days.
Scarcely were the eyes closed before the trumpet again sounded, to
accustom youth to vigilance. I lost, in one year, three horses, which
had either broken their legs, in leaping ditches, or died of fatigue.
I cannot give a stronger picture of this service than by saying that the
body guard lost more men and horses in one year's peace than they did,
during the following year, in two battles.
We had, at this time, three stations; our service, in the winter, was at
Berlin, where we attended the opera, and all public festivals: in the
spring we were exercised at Charlottenberg; and at Potzdam, or wherever
the King went, during the summer. The six officers of the guard dined
with the King, and, on gala days, with the Queen. It may be presumed
there was not at that time on earth a better school to form an officer
and a man of the world than was the court of Berlin.
I had scarcely been six weeks a cadet before the King took me aside, one
day, after the parade, and having examined me near half an hour, on
various subjects, commanded me to come and speak to him on the morrow.
His intention was to find whether the accounts that had been given him of
my memory had not been exaggerated; and that he might be convinced, he
first gave me the names of fifty soldiers to learn by rote, which I did
in five minutes. He next repeated the subjects of two letters, which I
immediately composed in French and Latin; the one I wrote, the other I
dictated. He afterwards ordered me to trace, with promptitude, a
landscape from nature, which I executed with equal success; and he then
gave me a cornet's commission in his body guards.
Each mark of bounty from the monarch increased an ardour already great,
inspired me with gratitude, and the first of my wishes was to devote my
whole life to the service of my King and country. He spoke to me as a
Sovereign should speak, like a father, like one who knew well how to
estimate the gifts bestowed on me by nature; and perceiving, or rather
feeling, how much he might expect from me, became at once my instructor
and my friend.
Thus did I remain a cadet only six weeks, and few Prussians can vaunt,
under the reign of Frederic, of equal good fortune.
The King not only presented me with a commission, but equipped me
splendidly for the service. Thus did I suddenly find myself a courtier,
and an officer in the finest, bravest, and best disciplined corps in
Europe. My good fortune seemed unlimited, when, in the month of August,
1743, the King selected me to go and instruct the Silesian cavalry in the
new manoeuvres: an honour never before granted to a youth of eighteen.
I have already said we were garrisoned at Berlin during winter, where the
officers' table was at court: and, as my reputation had preceded me, no
person whatever could be better received there, or live more pleasantly.
Frederic commanded me to visit the literati, whom he had invited to his
court: Maupertuis, Jordan, La Mettrie, and Pollnitz, were all my
acquaintance. My days were employed in the duties of an officer, and my
nights in acquiring knowledge. Pollnitz was my guide, and the friend of
my heart. My happiness was well worthy of being envied. In 1743, I was
five feet eleven inches in height, and Nature had endowed me with every
requisite to please. I lived, as I vainly imagined, without inciting
enmity or malice, and my mind was wholly occupied by the desire of
earning well-founded fame.
I had hitherto remained ignorant of love, and had been terrified from
illicit commerce by beholding the dreadful objects of the hospital at
Potzdam. During the winter of 1743, the nuptials of his Majesty's sister
were celebrated, who was married to the King of Sweden, where she is at
present Queen Dowager, mother of the reigning Gustavus. I, as officer of
my corps, had the honour to mount guard and escort her as far as Stettin.
Here first did my heart feel a passion of which, in the course of my
history, I shall have frequent occasion to speak. The object of my love
was one whom I can only remember at present with reverence; and, as I
write not romance, but facts, I shall here briefly say, ours were
mutually the first-fruits of affection, and that to this hour I regret no
misfortune, no misery, with which, from a stock so noble, my destiny was
overshadowed.
Amid the tumult inseparable to occasions like these, on which it was my
duty to maintain order, a thief had the address to steal my watch, and
cut away part of the gold fringe which hung from the waistcoat of my
uniform, and afterwards to escape unperceived. This accident brought on
me the raillery of my comrades; and the lady alluded to thence took
occasion to console me, by saying it should be her care that I should be
no loser. Her words were accompanied by a look I could not
misunderstand, and a few days after I thought myself the happiest of
mortals. The name, however, of this high-born lady is a secret, which
must descend with me to the grave; and, though my silence concerning this
incident heaves a void in my life, and indeed throws obscurity over a
part of it, which might else be clear, I would much rather incur this
reproach than become ungrateful towards my best friend and benefactress.
To her conversation, to her prudence, to the power by which she fixed my
affections wholly on herself, am I indebted for the improvement and
polishing of my bodily and mental qualities. She never despised,
betrayed, or abandoned me, even in the deepest of my distress; and my
children alone, on my death-bed, shall be taught the name of her to whom
they owe the preservation of their father, and consequently their own
existence.
I lived at this time perfectly happy at Berlin, and highly esteemed. The
King took every opportunity to testify his approbation; my mistress
supplied me with more money than I could expend; and I was presently the
best equipped, and made the greatest figure, of any officer in the whole
corps. The style in which I lived was remarked, for I had only received
from my father's heritage the estate of Great Scharlach; the rent of
which was eight hundred dollars a year, which was far from sufficient to
supply my then expenses. My amour, in the meantime, remained a secret
from my best and most intimate friends. Twice was my absence from
Potzdam and Charlottenberg discovered, and I was put under arrest; but
the King seemed satisfied with the excuse I made, under the pretext of
having been hunting, and smiled as he granted my pardon.
Never did the days of youth glide away with more apparent success and
pleasure than during these my first years at Berlin. This good fortune
was, alas, of short duration. Many are the incidents I might relate, but
which I shall omit. My other adventures are sufficiently numerous,
without mingling such as may any way seem foreign to the subject. In
this gloomy history of my life, I wish to paint myself such as I am; and,
by the recital of my sufferings, afford a memorable example to the world,
and interest the heart of sensibility. I would also show how my fatal
destiny has deprived my children of an immense fortune; and, though I
want a hundred thousand men to enforce and ensure my rights, I will leave
demonstration to my heirs that they are incontestable.