Scarcely had I been six weeks in this city before I had an adventure
which I shall here relate; for, myself excepted, all the persons
concerned in it are now dead. Intrigues properly belong to novels. This
book is intended for a more serious purpose, and they are therefore here
usually suppressed. It cannot be supposed I was a woman-hater. Most of
the good or bad fortune I experienced originated in love. I was not by
nature inconstant, and was incapable of deceit even in amours. In the
very ardour of youth I always shunned mere sensual pleasures. I loved
for more exalted reasons, and for such sought to be beloved again. Love
and friendship were with me always united; and these I was capable of
inciting, maintaining, and deserving. The most difficult of access, the
noblest, and the fairest, were ever my choice: and my veneration for
these always deterred me from grosser gratifications. By woman I was
formed; by the faith of woman supported under misfortunes; in the company
of woman enjoyed the few hours of delight my life of sorrows has
experienced. Woman, beautiful and well instructed, even now, lightens
the burden of age, the world's tediousness and its woes; and, when these
are ended, I would rather wish mine eyes might be closed by fair and
virgin hands, than, when expiring, fixed on a hypocritical priest.
My adventures with women would amply furnish a romance: but enough of
this, I should not relate the present, were it not necessary to my story.
Dining one public day with Lord Hyndford, I was seated beside a charming
young lady of one of the best families in Russia, who had been promised
in marriage, though only seventeen, to an old invalid minister. Her eyes
soon told me she thought me preferable to her intended bridegroom. I
understood them, lamented her hard fate, and was surprised to hear her
exclaim, "Oh, heavens! that it were possible you could deliver me from my
misfortune: I would engage to do whatever you would direct."
The impression such an appeal must make on a man of four and twenty, of a
temperament like mine, may easily be supposed. The lady was ravishingly
beautiful; her soul was candour itself, and her rank that of a princess;
but the court commands had already been given in favour of the marriage;
and flight, with all its inseparable dangers, was the only expedient. A
public table was no place for long explanations. Our hearts were already
one. I requested an interview, and the next day was appointed, the place
the Trotzer garden, where I passed three rapturous hours in her company:
thanks to her woman, who was a Georgian.
To escape, however, from Moscow, was impossible. The distance thence to
any foreign country was too great. The court was not to remove to
Petersburg till the next spring, and her marriage was fixed for the first
of August. The misfortune was not to be remedied, and nothing was left
us but patience perforce. We could only resolve to fly from Petersburg
when there, the soonest possible, and to take refuge in some corner of
the earth, where we might remain unknown of all. The marriage,
therefore, was celebrated with pomp, though I, in despite of forms, was
the true husband of the princess. Such was the state of the husband
imposed upon her, that to describe it, and not give disgust, were
impossible.
The princess gave me her jewels, and several thousand roubles, which she
had received as a nuptial present, that I might purchase every thing
necessary for flight; my evil destiny, however, had otherwise determined.
I was playing at ombre with her, one night, at the house of the Countess
of Bestuchef, when she complained of a violent headache, appointed me to
meet her on the morrow, in the Trotzer gardens, clasped my hand with
inexpressible emotion, and departed. Alas! I never beheld her more,
till stretched upon the bier!
She grew delirious that very night, and so continued till her death,
which happened on the sixth day, when the small-pox began to appear.
During her delirium she discovered our love, and incessantly called on me
to deliver her from her tyrant. Thus, in the flower of her age, perished
one of the most lovely women I ever knew, and with her fled all I held
most dear.
All my plans were now to be newly arranged. Lord Hyndford alone was in
the secret, for I hid no secrets from him: he strengthened me in my first
resolution, and owned that he himself, for such a mistress, might perhaps
have been weak enough to have acted as I had done. Almost as much moved
as myself, he sympathised with me as a friend, and his advice deterred me
from ending my miseries, and descending with her, whom I have loved and
lost, to the grave. This was the severest trial I had ever felt. Our
affection was unbounded, and such only as noble hearts can feel. She
being gone, the whole world became a desert. There is not a man on
earth, whose life affords more various turns of fate than mine. Swiftly
raised to the highest pinnacle of hope, as suddenly was I cast headlong
down, and so remarkable were these revolutions that he who has read my
history will at last find it difficult to say whether he envies or pities
me most. And yet these were, in reality, but preparatory to the evils
that hovered over my devoted head. Had not the remembrance of past joys
soothed and supported me under my sufferings, I certainly should not have
endured the ten years' torture of the Magdeburg dungeon, with a fortitude
that might have been worthy even of Socrates.
Enough of this. My blood again courses swifter through my veins as I
write! Rest, gentle maiden, noble and lovely as thou wert! For thee
ought Heaven to have united a form so fair, animated as it was, by a soul
so pure, to ever-blooming youth and immortality.
My love for this lady became well-known in Moscow; yet her corpulent
overgrown husband had not understanding enough to suppose there was any
meaning in her rhapsodies during her delirium.
Her gifts to me amounted in value to about seven thousand ducats. Lord
Hyndford and Count Bernes both adjudged them legally mine, and well am I
assured her heart had bequeathed me much more.
To this event succeeded another, by which my fortune was greatly
influenced. The Countess of Bestuchef was then the most amiable and
witty woman at Court. Her husband, cunning, selfish, and shallow, had
the name of minister, while she, in reality, governed with a genius, at
once daring and comprehensive. The too pliant Elizabeth carelessly left
the most important things to the direction of others. Thus the Countess
was the first person of the Empire, and on whom the attention of the
foreign ministers was fixed.
Haughty and majestic in her demeanour, she was supposed to be the only
woman at court who continued faithful to her husband; which supposition
probably originated in her art and education, she being a German born:
for I afterwards found her virtue was only pride, and a knowledge of the
national character. The Russian lover rules despotic over his mistress:
requires money, submission, and should he meet opposition, threatens her
with blows, and the discovery of her secret.
During Elizabeth's reign foreigners could neither appear at court, nor in
the best company, without the introduction of Bestuchef. I and Sievers,
gentlemen of the chamber, were at that time the only Germans who had free
egress and regress in all houses of fashion; my being protected by the
English and Austrian ambassadors gave me very peculiar advantages, and
made my company everywhere courted.
Bestuchef had been resident, during the late reign, at Hamburg, in which
inferior station he married the countess, at that time, though young and
handsome, only the widow of the merchant Boettger. Under Elizabeth,
Bestuchef rose to the summit of rank and power, and the widow Boettger
became the first lady of the empire. When I knew her she was eight and
thirty, consequently no beauty, though a woman highly endowed in mind and
manners, of keen discernment, disliking the Russians, protecting the
Prussians, and at whose aversions all trembled.
Her carriage towards the Russians was, what it must be in her situation,
lofty, cautious, and ironical, rather than kind. To me she showed the
utmost esteem on all occasions, welcomed me at her table, and often
admitted me to drink coffee in company with herself alone and Colonel
Oettinger. The countess never failed giving me to understand she had
perceived my love for the princess N---; and, though I constantly denied
the fact, she related circumstances which she could have known, as I
thought, only from my mistress herself; my silence pleased her; for the
Russians, when a lady had a partiality for them, never fail to vaunt of
their good fortune. She wished to persuade me she had observed us in
company, had read the language of our eyes, and had long penetrated our
secret. I was ignorant at that time that she had then, and long before,
entertained the maid of my mistress as a spy in her pay.
About a week after the death of the princess, the countess invited me to
take coffee with her, in her chamber; lamented my loss, and the violence
of that passion which had deprived me of all my customary vivacity, and
altered my very appearance. She seemed so interested in my behalf, and
expressed so many wishes, and so ardent to better my fate, that I could
no longer doubt. Another opportunity soon happened, which confirmed
these my suspicions: her mouth confessed her sentiments. Discretion,
secrecy, and fidelity, were the laws she imposed, and never did I
experience a more ardent passion from woman. Such was her understanding
and penetration, she knew how to rivet my affections.
Caution was the thing most necessary. She contrived, however, to make
opportunity. The chancellor valued, confided in me, and employed me in
his cabinet; so that I remained whole days in his house. My captainship
of cavalry was now no longer thought of: I was destined to political
employment. My first was to be gentleman of the chamber, which in Russia
is an office of importance, and the prospect of futurity became to me
most resplendent. Lord Hyndford, ever the repository of my secrets,
counselled me, formed plans for my conduct, rejoiced at my success, and
refused to be reimbursed the expense he had been at, though now my
circumstances were prosperous.
The degree of credit I enjoyed was soon noticed: foreign ministers began
to pay their court to me: Goltz, the Prussian minister, made every effort
to win me, but found me incorruptible.
The Russian alliance was at this time highly courted by foreign powers;
the humbling of Prussia was the thing generally wished and planned: and
nobody was better informed than myself of ministerial and family factions
at this court.
My mistress, a year after my acquaintance with her, fell into her
enemies' power, and with her husband, was delivered over to the
executioner. Chancellor Bestuchef, in the year 1756, was forced to
confession by the knout. Apraxin, minister of war, had a similar fate.
The wife of his brother, then envoy in Poland, was, by the treachery of a
certain Lieutenant Berger, with three others of the first ladies of the
court, knouted, branded, and had their tongues cut out. This happened in
the year 1741, when Elizabeth ascended the throne. Her husband, however,
faithfully served: I knew him as Russian envoy, at Vienna, 1751. This
may indeed be called the love of our country, and thus does it happen to
the first men of the state: what then can a foreigner hope for, if
persecuted, and in the power of those in authority?
No man, in so short a space of time, had greater opportunities than I, to
discover the secrets of state; especially when guided by Hyndford and
Bernes, under the reign of a well-meaning but short-sighted Empress,
whose first minister was a weak man, directed by the will of an able and
ambitious wife, and which wife loved me, a stranger, an acquaintance of
only a few months, so passionately that to this passion she would have
sacrificed every other object. She might, in fact, be considered as
Empress of Russia, disposing of peace or war, and had I been more prudent
or less sincere, I might in such a situation, have amassed treasures, and
deposited them in full security. Her generosity was boundless; and,
though obliged to pay above a hundred thousand roubles, in one year, to
discharge her son's debts, yet might I have saved a still larger sum; but
half of the gifts she obliged me to receive, I lent to this son, and
lost. So far was I from selfish, and so negligent of wealth, that by
supplying the wants of others, I often, on a reverse of fortune, suffered
want myself.
This my splendid success in Russia displeased the great Frederic, whose
persecution everywhere attended me, and who supposed his interest injured
by my success in Russia. The incident I am going to relate was, at the
time it happened, well known to, and caused much agitation among all the
foreign ambassadors.
Lord Hyndford desired I would make him a fair copy of a plan of
Cronstadt, for which he furnished the materials, with three additional
drawings of the various ships in the harbour, and their names. There was
neither danger nor suspicion attending this; the plan of Cronstadt being
no secret, but publicly sold in the shops of Petersburg. England was
likewise then in the closest alliance with Russia. Hyndford showed the
drawing to Funk, the Saxon envoy, his intimate friend, who asked his
permission to copy it himself. Hyndford gave him the plan signed with my
name; and after Funk had been some days employed copying it, the Prussian
minister, Goltz, who lived in his neighbourhood, came in, as he
frequently paid him friendly visits. Funk, unsuspectingly, showed him my
drawing, and both lamented that Frederic had lost so useful a subject.
Goltz asked to borrow it for a couple of days, in order to correct his
own; and Funk, one of the worthiest, most honest, and least suspicious of
men, who loved me like a brother, accordingly lent the plan.
No sooner was Goltz in possession of it than he hurried to the
chancellor, with whose weakness he was well acquainted, told him his
intent in coming was to prove that a man, who had once been unfaithful to
his king and country, where he had been loaded with favours, would
certainly betray, for his own private interest, every state where he was
trusted. He continued his preface, by speaking of the rapid progress I
had made in Russia, and the free entrance I had found in the chancellor's
house, where I was received as a son, and initiated in the secrets of the
cabinet.
The chancellor defended me: Goltz then endeavoured to incite his
jealousy, and told him my private interviews with his wife, especially in
the palace-garden, were publicly spoken of. This he had learned from his
spies, he having endeavoured, by the snares he laid, to make my
destruction certain.
He likewise led Bestuchef to suspect his secretary, S-n, was a party in
the intrigue; till at last the chancellor became very angry; Goltz then
took my plan of Cronstadt from his pocket, and added, "Your excellency is
nourishing a serpent in your bosom. This drawing have I received from
Trenck, copied from your cabinet designs, for two hundred ducats." He
knew I was employed there sometimes with Oettinger, whose office it was
to inspect the buildings and repairs of the Russian fortifications.
Bestuchef was astonished; his anger became violent, and Goltz added fuel
to the flame, by insinuating, I should not be so powerfully protected by
Bernes, the Austrian ambassador, were it not to favour the views of his
own court. Bestuchef mentioned prosecution and the knout; Goltz replied
my friends were too powerful, my pardon would be procured, and the evil
this way increased. They therefore determined to have me secretly
secured, and privately conveyed to Siberia.
Thus, while I unsuspectingly dreamed of nothing but happiness, the
gathering storm threatened destruction, which only was averted by
accident, or God's good providence.
Goltz had scarcely left the place triumphant, when the chancellor
entered, with bitterness and rancour in his heart, into his lady's
apartment, reproached her with my conduct, and while she endeavoured to
soothe him, related all that had passed. Her penetration was much deeper
than her husband's: she perceived there was a plot against me: she indeed
knew my heart better than any other, and particularly that I was not in
want of a poor two hundred ducats. She could not, however, appease him,
and my arrest was determined. She therefore instantly wrote me a line to
the following purport.
"You are threatened, dear friend, by a very imminent danger. Do not
sleep to-night at home, but secure yourself at Lord Hyndford's till you
hear farther from me."
Secretary S-n, her confidant (the same who, not long since, was Russian
envoy at Ratisbon) was sent with the note. He found me, after dinner, at
the English ambassador's, and called me aside. I read the billet, was
astonished at its contents, and showed it Lord Hyndford. My conscience
was void of reproach, except that we suspected my secret with the
countess had been betrayed to the chancellor, and fearing his jealousy,
Hyndford commanded me to remain in his house till we should make further
discovery.
We placed spies round the house where I lived; I was inquired for after
midnight, and the lieutenant of the police came himself and searched the
house.
Lord Hyndford went, about ten in the morning, to visit the chancellor,
that he might obtain some intelligence, who immediately reproached him
for having granted an asylum to a traitor. "What has this traitor done?"
said Hyndford. "Faithlessly copied a plan of Cronstadt, from my cabinet
drawings," said the chancellor; "which he has sold to the Prussian
minister for two hundred ducats."
Hyndford was astonished; he knew me well, and also knew that he had then
in money and jewels, more than eight thousand ducats of mine in his own
hands: nor was he less ignorant of the value I set on money, or of the
sources whence I could obtain it, when I pleased. "Has your excellency
actually seen this drawing of Trenck's?"--"Yes, I have been shown it by
Goltz."--"I wish I might likewise be permitted to see it; I know Trenck's
drawing, and make myself responsible that he is no traitor. Here is some
mystery; be so kind as to desire M. Goltz will come and bring his plan of
Cronstadt. Trenck is at my house, shall be forthcoming instantly, and I
will not protect him if he proves guilty."
The Chancellor wrote to Goltz; but he, artful as he was, had no doubt
taken care to be informed that the lieutenant of the police had missed
his prey. He therefore sent an excuse, and did not appear. In the
meantime I entered; Hyndford then addressed me, with the openness of an
Englishman, and asked, "Are you a traitor, Trenck? If so, you do not
merit my protection, but stand here as a state prisoner. Have you sold a
plan of Cronstadt to M. Goltz?" My answer may easily be supposed.
Hyndford rehearsed what the chancellor had told him; I was desired to
leave the room, and Funk was sent for. The moment he came in, Hyndford
said, "Sir, where is that plan of Cronstadt which Trenck copied?" Funk,
hesitating, replied, "I will go for it." "Have you it," continued
Hyndford, "at home? Speak, upon your honour."--"No, my Lord, I have lent
it, for a few days, to M. Goltz, that he may take a copy."
Hyndford immediately then saw the whole affair, told the chancellor the
history of this plan, which belonged to him, and which he had lent to
Funk, and requested a trusty person might be sent with him to make a
proper search. Bestuchef named his first secretary, and to him were
added Funk and the Dutch envoy, Schwart, who happened then to enter. All
went together to the house of Goltz. Funk demanded his plan of
Cronstadt; Goltz gave it him, and Funk returned it to Lord Hyndford.
The secretary and Hyndford both then desired he would produce the plan of
Cronstadt which he had bought of Trenck for two hundred ducats. His
confusion now was great, and Hyndford firmly insisted this plan should be
forthcoming, to vindicate the honour of Trenck, whom he held to be an
honest man. On this, Goltz answered, "I have received my king's commands
to prevent the preferment of Trenck in Russia, and I have only fulfilled
the duty of a minister."
Hyndford spat on the ground, and said more than I choose to repeat; after
which the four gentlemen returned to the chancellor, and I was again
called. Everybody complimented me, related to me what had passed, and
the chancellor promised I should be recompensed; strictly, however,
forbidding me to take any revenge on the Prussian ambassador, I having
sworn, in the first transports of anger, to punish him wherever I should
find him, even were it at the altar's foot.
The chancellor soothed me, kept me to dine with him, and endeavoured to
assuage my boiling passions. The countess affected indifference, and
asked me if suchlike actions characterised the Prussian nation. Funk and
Schwart were at table. All present congratulated me on my victory, but
none knew to whom I was indebted for my deliverance from the hasty and
unjust condemnation of the chancellor, although my protectress was one of
the company. I received a present of two thousand roubles the next day
from the chancellor, with orders to thank the Empress for this mark of
her bounty, and accept it as a sign of her special favour. I paid these
my thanks some days after. The money I disregarded, but the amiable
Empress, by her enchanting benevolence, made me forget the past. The
story became public, and Goltz appeared neither in public, nor at court.
The manner in which the countess personally reproached him, I shall out
of respect pass over. Bernes, the crafty Piedmontese, assured me of
revenge, without my troubling myself in the matter, and--what happened
after I know not; Goltz appeared but little in company, fell ill when I
had left Russia, and died soon after of a consumption.
This vile man was, no doubt, the cause of all the calamities which fell
upon me. I should have become one of the first men in Russia: the
misfortune that befel Bestuchef and his family some years afterward might
have been averted: I should never have returned to Vienna, a city so
fatal to the name of Trenck: by the mediation of the Russian Court, I
should have recovered my great Sclavonian estates; my days of persecution
at Vienna would have passed in peace and pleasure: nor should I have
entered the dungeon of Magdeburg.