Since accounts so various, contradictory, and dishonourable to the name
of Trenck, have been circulated in Vienna, concerning facts which
happened thirty-seven years ago, I will here give a short abstract of
them, and such as may he verified by the records of the court. I pledge
my honour to the truth of the statement, and were I so allowed, would
prove it, to the conviction of any unprejudiced court of justice: but
this I cannot hope, as princes are much more disposed to bestow unmerited
favours than to make retribution to those whom they have unjustly
punished.
Francis Baron Trenck died in the Spielberg, October 4th, 1749. It has
been erroneously believed in Vienna that his estates were confiscated by
the sentence which condemned him to the Spielberg. He had committed no
offence against the state, was accused of none, much less convicted. The
court sentence was that the administration of his estate should be
committed to Counsellor Kempf and Baron Peyaczewitz, who were selected by
himself, and the accounts of his stewards and farmers were to be sent him
yearly. He continued, till his death, to have the free and entire
disposal of his property.
Although, before his death, he sent for his advocate, Doctor Berger, and
by him petitioned the Empress she would issue the necessary orders to the
Governor of the Spielberg, to permit the entrance of witnesses, and all
things necessary to make a legal will, it by no means follows that he
petitioned her for permission to make this will. The case is too clear
to admit of doubt. The royal commands were given, that he should enjoy
all freedom of making his will. Permission was also given that, during
his sickness, he might be removed to the capuchin convent, which was
equal to liberty, but this he refused to accept.
Neither was his ability to make a will questioned. The advocate was only
to request the Queen's permission to supply some formalities, which had
been neglected, when he purchased the lordships of Velika and Nustar,
which petition was likewise granted. The royal mandate still exists,
which commissioned the persons therein named as trustees to the estate
and effects of Trenck, and this mandate runs thus: "Let the last will of
Trenck be duly executed: let dispatch be used, and the heir protected in
all his rights." Confiscation, therefore, had never been thought of, nor
his power to make a will questioned.
I will now show how I have been deprived of this valuable inheritance,
while I have been obliged to pay above sixty thousand florins, to defray
legacies he had left; and when this narrative is read, it will no longer
be affirmed at Vienna, that by the favours of the court I inherited
seventy-six thousand florins, or the lordship of Zwerbach from Trenck, I
shall proceed to my proofs.
The father of Baron Trenck, who died in the year 1743, governor of
Leitschau, in Hungary, named me in his will the successor of his son,
should he die without heirs male.
This will was sent to be proved, according to form, at Vienna, after
having been authenticated in the most legal manner in Hungary. The court
called Hofkriegsrath, at Vienna, neglected to provide a curator for the
security of the next heir; yet this could not annul my right of
succession. When Trenck succeeded his father, he entered no protest to
this, his father's will; therefore, dying without children, in the year
1749, my claim was indisputable. I was heir had he made no will: and
even in case of confiscation, my title to his father's estates still
remained valid.
Trenck knew this but too well: he, as I have before related, was my worst
enemy, and even attempted my life. I will therefore proceed to show the
real intent of this his crafty testament.
Determined no longer to live in confinement, or to ask forgiveness, by
which, it is well known, he might have obtained his freedom, having lost
all hopes of reimbursing his losses, his avarice was reduced to despair.
His desire of fame was unbounded, and this could no way be gratified but
by having himself canonized for a saint, after spending his life in
committing all the ravages of a pandour. Hence originated the following
facts:--
He knew I was the legal claimant to his father's estates. His father had
bought with the family money, remitted from Prussia, the lordships of
Prestowacz and Pleternitz, in Sclavonia, and he himself, during his
father's life, and with his father's money, had purchased the lordship of
Pakratz, for forty thousand florins: this must therefore descend also to
me, he having no more power to will this from me, than he had the
remainder of his paternal inheritance. The property he himself had
gained was consigned to administrators, but a hundred thousand florins
had been expended in lawsuits, and sixty-three suits continued actually
pending against him in court; the legacies he bequeathed amounted to
eighty thousand florins. These, he saw, could not be paid, should I
claim nothing more than the paternal inheritance; he, therefore, to
render me unfortunate after his death, craftily named me his universal
heir, without mentioning his father's will, but endeavoured, by his
mysterious death, and the following conditions, to enforce the execution
of his own will.
First,--I was to become a Catholic.
Secondly,--I was to serve only the house of Austria; and,
Lastly,--He made his whole estate, without excepting the paternal
inheritance, a _Fidei commissum_.
Hence arose all my misfortunes, as indeed was his intention; for, but a
short time before his death, he said to the Governor, Baron Kottulinsky,
"I shall now die contented, since I have been able to trick my cousin,
and render him wretched."
His death, believed in Vienna to be miraculous, happened after the
following manner; and by this he had induced many weak people, who really
believed him a saint, to further his views.
Three days before his death, while in perfect health, he desired the
governor of the Spielberg would send for his confessor, for that St.
Francis had revealed to him he should be removed into life everlasting on
his birth-day at twelve o'clock. The capuchin was sent for, but the
prediction laughed at.
The day, however, after the departure of his confessor, he said, "Praise
be to God, my end approaches; my confessor is dead, and has appeared to
me." Strange as it may seem; it was actually found to be true that the
priest was dead. He now had all the officers of the garrison of Brunn
assembled, tonsured his head like a capuchin, took the habit of the
order, publicly confessed himself in a sermon of an hour's length,
exhorted them all to holiness, acted the part of a most exemplary
penitent, embraced all present, spoke with a smile of the insignificance
of all earthly possessions, took his leave, knelt down to prayers, slept
calmly, rose, prayed again, and about eleven in the forenoon, October
4th, taking his watch in his hand, said, "Thanks be to my God, my last
hour approaches." All laughed at such a farce from a man of such a
character; yet they remarked that the left side of his face grew pale. He
then leaned his arm on the table, prayed, and remained motionless, with
his eyes closed. The clock struck twelve--no signs of life or motion
could be discovered; they spoke to him, and found he was really dead.
The word miracle was echoed through the whole country, and the
transmigration of the Pandour Trenck, from earth to heaven, by St.
Francis, proclaimed. The clue to this labyrinth of miracles, known only
to me, is truly as follows:--He possessed the secret of what is called
the _aqua tofana_, and had determined on death. His confessor had been
entrusted with all his secrets, and with promissory notes, which he
wished to invalidate. I am perfectly certain that he had returned a
promissory note of a great prince, given for two hundred thousand
florins, which has never been brought to account. The confessor,
therefore, was to be provided for, that Trenck might not be betrayed, and
a dose of poison was given him before he set off for Vienna: his death
was the consequence. He took similar means with himself, and thus knew
the hour of his exit; finding he could not become the first on earth, he
wished to be adored as a saint in heaven. He knew he should work
miracles when dead, because he ordered a chapel to be built, willed a
perpetual mass, and bequeathed the capuchins sixty thousand florins.
Thus died this most extraordinary man, in the thirty-fourth year of his
age, to whom nature had denied none of her gifts; who had been the
scourge of Bavaria; the terror of France; and who had, with his supposed
contemptible pandours, taken above six thousand Prussian prisoners. He
lived a tyrant and enemy of men, and died a sanctified impostor.
Such was the state of affairs, as willed by Trenck, when I came to
Vienna, in 1759, where I arrived with money and jewels to the amount of
twenty thousand florins.
Instead of profiting by the wealth Trenck had acquired, I expended a
hundred and twenty thousand florins of my own money, including what
devolved to me from my uncle, his father, in the prosecution of his
suits. Trenck had paid two hundred ducats to the tribunal of Vienna, in
the year 1743, to procure its very reprehensible silence concerning a
curator, to which I was sacrificed, as the new judges of this court
refused to correct the error of their predecessors. Such are the
proceedings of courts of justice in Vienna!
On my first audience, no one could be received more kindly than I was, by
the Empress Queen. She spoke of my deceased cousin with much emotion and
esteem, promised me all grace and favour, and informed me of the
particular recommendations she had received, on my behalf, from Count
Bernes. Finding sixty-three cases hang over my head, in consequence of
the inheritance of Trenck, to obtain justice in any one of which in
Vienna, would have employed the whole life of an honest man, I determined
to renounce this inheritance, and claim only under the will and as the
heir of my uncle.
With this view I applied for and obtained a copy of that will, with which
I personally appeared, and declared to the court that I renounced the
inheritance of Francis Trenck, would undertake none of his suits, nor be
responsible for his legacies, and required only his father's estates,
according to the legal will, which I produced; that is to say, the three
lordships of Pakratz, Prestowacz, and Pleneritz, without chattels or
personal effects. Nothing could be more just or incontrovertible than
this claim. What was my astonishment, to be told, in open court, that
Her Majesty had declared I must either wholly perform the articles of the
will of Trenck, or be excluded the entire inheritance, and have nothing
further to hope. What could be done? I ventured to remonstrate, but the
will of the court was determined and absolute: I must become a Roman
Catholic.
In this extremity I bribed a priest, who gave me a signed attestation,
"That I had abjured the accursed heresy of Lutheranism." My religion,
however, remained what it had ever been. General Bernes about this time
returned from his embassy, and I related to him the lamentable state in
which I found my affairs. He spoke to the Empress in my behalf, and she
promised everything. He advised me to have patience, to perform all that
was required of me, and to make myself responsible for the depending
suits. Some family concerns obliged him, as he informed me, to make a
journey to Turin, but his return would be speedy: he would then take the
management of my affairs upon himself, and insure my good fortune in
Austria. Bernes loved me as his son, and I had reason to hope, from his
assurance, I should be largely remembered in his will, which was the more
probable, as he had neither child nor relations. He parted from me, like
a father, with tears in his eyes; but he had scarcely been absent six
weeks before the news arrived of his death, which, if report may be
credited, was effected by poison, administered by _a friend_. Ever the
sport of fortune, thus were my supporters snatched from me at the very
moment they became most necessary.
The same year was I, likewise, deprived by death of my friend and
protector, Field-marshal Konigseck, Governor of Vienna, when he had
determined to interest himself in my behalf. I have been beloved by the
greatest men Austria ever produced, but unfortunately have been
persecuted by the chicanery of pettifoggers, fools, fanatics, and
priests, who have deprived me of the favour of my Empress, guiltless as I
was of crime or deceit, and left my old age in poverty.
My ills were increased by a new accident. Soon after the departure of
Bernes, the Prussian minister, taking me aside, in the house of the
Palatine envoy, M. Becker, proposed my return to Berlin, assured me the
King had forgotten all that was past, was convinced of my innocence, that
my good fortune would there be certain, and be pledged his honour to
recover the inheritance of Trenck. I answered, the favour came too late;
I had suffered injustice too flagrant, in my own country, and that I
would trust no prince on earth whose will might annihilate all the rights
of men. My good faith to the King had been too ill repaid; my talents
might gain me bread in any part of the world, and I would not again
subject myself to the danger of unmerited imprisonment.
His persuasions were strong, but ineffectual. "My dear Trenck," said he,
"God is my judge that my intentions are honest; I will pledge myself,
that my sovereign will insure your fortune: you do not know Vienna; you
will lose all by the suits in which you are involved, and will be
persecuted because you do not carry a rosary."
How often have I repented I did not then return to Berlin! I should have
escaped ten years' imprisonment; should have recovered the estates of
Trenck: should not have wasted the prime of life in the litigation of
suits, and the writing of memorials; and should have certainly been
ranked among the first men in my native country. Vienna was no place for
a man who could not fawn and flatter: yet here was I destined to remain
six-and-thirty years, unrewarded, unemployed; and through youth and age,
to continue on the list of invalid majors.
Having rejected the proposition of the Prussian envoy, all my hopes in
Vienna were ruined; for Frederic, by his residents and emissaries, knew
how to effect whatever he pleased in foreign courts, and determined that
the Trenck who would no longer serve or confide in him should at least
find no opportunity of serving against him: I soon became painted to the
Empress as an arch heretic who never would be faithful to the house of
Austria, and only endeavoured to obtain the inheritance of Trenck that he
might devote himself to Prussia. This I shall hereafter prove; and
display a scene that shall be the disgrace of many, by whom the Empress
was induced to harbour unjust suspicions of an able and honest man. I
here stand erect and confident before the world; publish the truth, and
take everlasting shame to myself, if any man on earth can prove me guilty
of one treacherous thought. I owe no thanks; but so far from having
received favours, I have six and thirty years remained unable to obtain
justice, though I have all the while been desirous of shedding my blood
in defence of the monarchy where I have thus been treated. Till the year
1746, I was equally zealous and faithful to Prussia; yet my estates
there, though confiscated, were liable to recovery: in Hungary, on the
contrary, the sentence of confiscation is irrevocable. This is a
remarkable proof in favour of my honour, and my children's claims.
Surely no reader will be offended at these digressions; my mind is
agitated, my feelings roused, remembering that my age and grey hairs
deprive me of the sweet hope of at length vanquishing opposition, either
by patience, or forcing justice, by eminent services, or noble efforts.
This my history will never reach a monarch's eye, consequently no
monarch, by perceiving, will be induced to protect truth. It may,
indeed, be criticised by literati; it will certainly be decried by my
persecutors, who, through life, have been my false accusers, and will
probably, therefore, be prohibited by the priests. All Germany, however,
will read, and posterity perhaps may pity, should my book escape the
misfortune of being classed among improbable romances; to which it is the
more liable, because that the biographers of Frederic and Maria Theresa,
for manifest reasons, have never so much as mentioned the name of Trenck.
Once more to my story: I was now obliged to declare myself heir, but
always _cum reservatione juris mei_, not as simply claiming under the
will of Francis Trenck I was obliged to take upon myself the management
of the sixty-three suits, and the expenses attending any one of these are
well known in Vienna. My situation may be imagined, when I inform the
reader I only received, from the whole estate of Trenck, 3,600 florins in
three years, which were scarcely sufficient to defray the expenses of new
year's gifts to the solicitors and masters in chancery. How did I labour
in stating and transcribing proofs for the court! The money I possessed
soon vanished. My Prussian relations supported me, and the Countess
Bestuchef sent me the four thousand roubles I had refused at Petersburg.
I had also remittances from my faithful mistress in Prussia; and, in
addition, was obliged to borrow money at the usurious rate of sixty per
cent. Bewildered as I was among lawyers and knaves, my ambition still
prompted me to proceed, and all things are possible to labour and
perseverance; but my property was expended: and, at length, I could only
obtain that the contested estates should be made a _Fidei commissum_, or
put under trust; whereby, though they were protected from being the
further prey of others, I did not inherit them as mine. In this pursuit
was my prime of life wasted, which might have been profitably and
honourably spent.
In three years, however, I brought my sixty-three suits to a kind of
conclusion; the probabilities were this could not have been effected in
fifty. Exclusive of my assiduity, the means I took must not be told; it
is sufficient that I here learnt what judges were, and thus am enabled to
describe them to others.
For a few ducats, the president's servant used to admit me into a closet
where I could see everything as perfectly as if I had myself been one of
the council. This often was useful, and taught me to prevent evil; and
often was I scarcely able to refrain bursting in upon this court.
Their appointed hour of meeting was nine in the morning, but they seldom
assembled before eleven. The president then told his beads, and muttered
his prayers. Someone got up and harangued, while the remainder, in
pairs, amused themselves with talking instead of listening, after which
the news of the day became the common topic of conversation, and the
council broke up, the court being first adjourned some three weeks,
without coming to any determination. This was called _judicium delegatum
in causis Trenkiansis_; and when at last they came to a conclusion, the
sentence was such as I shall ever shudder at and abhor.
The real estates of Trenck consisted in the great Sclavonian manors,
called the lordships of Pakratz, Prestowatz, and Pleternitz, which he had
inherited from his father, and were the family property, together with
Velika and Nustak, which he himself had purchased: the annual income of
these was 60,000 florins, and they contained more than two hundred
villages and hamlets. The laws of Hungary require--
1st. That those who purchase estates shall obtain the _consensus regius_
(royal consent).
2nd. That the seller shall possess, and make over the right of property,
together with that of transferring or alienating, and
3dly. That the purchaser shall be a native born, or have bought his
naturalisation.
In default of all, or any of these, the Fiscus, on the death of the
purchaser, takes possession, repaying the _summa emptitia_, or purchase-
money, together within what can be shown to have been laid out in
improvements, or the _summa inscriptitia_, the sum at which it stands
rated in the fiscal register.
Without form or notice, the Hungarian Fiscal President, Count
Grassalkowitz, took possession of all the Trenck estates on his decease,
in the name of the Fiscus. The prize was great, not so much because of
the estates themselves, as of the personal property upon them. Trenck
had sent loads of merchandise to his estates, of linen, ingots of gold
and silver from Bavaria, Alsatia, and Silesia. He had a vast storehouse
of arms, and of saddles; also the great silver service of the Emperor
Charles VII., which he had brought from Munich, with the service of plate
of the King of Prussia; and the personal property on these estates was
affirmed considerably to exceed in value the estates themselves.
I was not long since informed by one of the first generals, whose honour
is undoubted, that several waggons were laden with these rich effects and
sent to Mihalefze. His testimony was indubitable; he knew the two
pandours, who were the confidants of Trenck, and the keepers of his
treasures; and these, during the general plunder, each seized a bag of
pearls, and fled to Turkey, where they became wealthy merchants. His
rich stud of horses were taken, and the very cows driven off the farms.
His stand of arms consisted of more than three thousand rare pieces.
Trenck had affirmed he had sent linen to the amount of fifty thousand
florins, in chests from Dunnhausen and Cersdorf, in the county of Glatz,
to his estates. The pillage was general; and when orders came to send
all the property of Trenck and deliver it to his universal heir, nothing
remained that any person would accept. I have myself seen, in a certain
Hungarian nobleman's house, some valuable arms, which I knew I had been
robbed of! and I bought at Esseck some silver plates on which were the
arms of Prussia, that had been sold by Counsellor D-n, who had been
empowered to take possession of these estates, and had thus rendered
himself rich. Of this I procured an attestation, and proved the theft: I
complained aloud at Vienna, but received an order from the court to be
silent, under pain of displeasure, and also to go no more into Sclavonia.
The principal reason of my loss of the landed property in Hungary was my
having dared to make inquiries concerning the personal, not one guinea of
which was ever brought to account. I then proved my right to the family
estates, left by my uncle, beyond all dispute, and also of those
purchased by my cousin. The commissions appointed to inquire into these
rights even confirmed them; yet after they had been thus established, I
received the following order from the court, in the hand of the Empress
herself:--"The president, Count Grassalkowitz, takes it upon his
conscience that the Sclavonian estates do not descend to Trenck, _in
natura_; he must therefore receive the _summa emptitia et inscriptitia_,
together with the money he can show to have been expended in
improvements."