FRIEDRICH VON DER TRENCK AT MAGDEBURG
Two barons Von der Trenck--Friedrich a cornet of the Gardes du
Corps--Favoured by the Princess Amelia--Incurs the displeasure
of Frederick the Great--Sent to the fortress of Glatz--Escaped
to Bohemia and passed into Russia--Re-arrested at Danzig and
sent to Magdeburg--Plans for escape--The grenadier Gefhardt
a faithful friend--Communication established with friends
outside--Funds obtained--Plot discovered--Removed to the Star
Fort and loaded with irons--Terrible suffering--Attempt to
cut through the doors discovered--His prison is strengthened
but his courage is unbroken--Fresh plans made--A new tunnel
begun--Plot discovered--The sympathy of the Empress-Queen of
Austria aroused--Released on Christmas Eve, 1763--Married and
settled in Aix-la-Chapelle--His death on the scaffold during
the French Revolution.
There were two barons Von der Trenck, Franz and Friedrich, in the
middle of the 18th century, both intimately associated with the prisons
of their respective countries, for although cousins, Franz was an
Austrian, and the other, Friedrich, a Prussian. Both were military
officers. Franz was a wild Pandour, a reckless leader of irregular
cavalry, who for his sins was shut up for life in the Spielberg,
the famous prison fortress near Brünn, where he committed suicide.
Friedrich, after enjoying the favour of Frederick the Great and
winning the rank of cadet in the Gardes du Corps, was eventually
disgraced and imprisoned in the fortress of Magdeburg, where he was
detained for ten years and treated with implacable severity. Friedrich
von der Trenck was richly endowed by nature; he was a gallant young
soldier with good mental gifts and a handsome person which enabled him
to shine in court society and achieve many successes. He was fortunate
enough to gain the good graces of the king’s sister, the Princess
Amelia of Prussia, who greatly resembled her celebrated brother both
physically and mentally. She possessed the same sparkling wit, the same
gracious vivacity and, like Friedrich, was a distinguished musician.
She was a warm votary of art, science and literature and was always
surrounded and courted by the most cultured German princes. All her
contemporaries describe her beauty with enthusiasm. So far, she had
declined the many proposals of marriage, which, as a matter of course,
she had received. Her heart belonged to the cornet of the Gardes du
Corps, and a secret understanding existed between them. The lovers were
at first cautious, but soon became bolder, and the king’s suspicions
were aroused. At first he tried fatherly remonstrances, but in vain.
The extraordinary liaison became the talk of the hour. A lieutenant of
the Prussian Foot Guards taunted the favoured lover about his relations
with the princess, they quarrelled, and a duel followed. The king
was furious, and a catastrophe was imminent, but was avoided by the
outbreak of war. Then this gay and reckless courtier allowed himself
to be drawn into a correspondence with his cousin in Vienna, the
notorious colonel of the Pandours, and the measure of the king’s wrath
overflowed. Trenck was cashiered and sent to the fortress of Glatz. The
king wrote with his own hand to the commandant of the fortress on the
28th June, 1745, “Watch this rogue well; he wished to become a Pandour
under his cousin.” Undoubtedly Frederick intended to keep Trenck
imprisoned for a short time only, but he was detained for a whole year,
during which time he made more than one attempt to escape.
The following account is in his own words: “At last, after I had spent
about five months in confinement (at Glatz) peace had been proclaimed,
the king had returned to Berlin and my place in the _gardes_ had been
filled. A certain lieutenant Piaschky of the Fouquet regiment and
the ensign Reitz, who was often on sentinel duty outside my cell,
offered to make preparations to enable me to escape and take them
with me. Everything was settled and agreed upon. At that time there
was in the cell next to mine a certain Captain von Manget, a native
of Switzerland. He had been cashiered, was condemned to ten years’
imprisonment and had only four rix dollars to spend. I had shown this
man much kindness out of pity, and I wished to save him as well as
myself, and this was discussed and proposed to him. We were betrayed
by this rascal on the first opportunity, he in consequence earning
his pardon and liberty. Piaschky had wind that Reitz was already
a prisoner, and saved himself by deserting. I denied everything,
was confronted with Manget, and because I could bribe the judge
with a hundred ducats, Reitz escaped with castigation and a year’s
imprisonment. I, on the contrary, was now considered as a corrupter of
the officers and was locked up in a narrow cell and strictly confined.
Left to myself, I still meditated flight, as the seclusion in a small
cell was too irksome to my fiery temperament. The garrison was always
on my side, therefore it was impossible to deprive me of friends and
assistance. I was known to have money, so that all was possible to me.
The first plan was as follows. My window was above the ramparts, about
ninety feet from the ground, and looked towards the town. I could not
therefore get out of the citadel and must find a place of safety in
the town. This was assured to me through an officer, in the house of
an honest soap-boiler. I then cut with a pen knife that had been made
jagged at the end, right through three iron bars of enormous thickness,
but as this took up too much time, as eight bars must be sawn through
before I could get out of the window, an officer provided me with a
file, with which I had to work very carefully so as not to be heard
by the sentries. As soon as this was accomplished, I cut my leather
knapsack into strips, sewed them together with the thread from an
unravelled stocking, brought my sheet likewise into requisition, and
let myself down from this astounding height in safety. It was raining,
the night was dark and everything went off well. I had, however, to
wade through the public drain and this I had not foreseen. I only sank
into it just above the knees, but was not able to work my way out of
it. I did all I could, but stuck so fast that at last I lost all my
strength and called to the sentry on the rampart, ‘Tell the commandant
that Trenck is sticking in the mire!’
“Now to augment my misfortune, it happened that General Fouquet was at
that time commandant in Glatz. He was a well known misanthrope, had
fought a duel with my father and been wounded by him, and the Austrian
Trenck had taken his baggage from him in 1744. He was therefore a great
enemy to the Trenck name, and consequently made me remain in the filth
for some hours as a public spectacle to the garrison, then had me
pulled out and confined in my cell, allowing no water to be taken to me
for cleaning purposes. No one can imagine how I looked; my long hair
had got into the mud, and my condition was really pitiable until some
prisoners were permitted to wash and cleanse me.”
When he finally escaped from Glatz, he went to Bohemia, to Nürnberg and
to Vienna, whence he passed into Russia and entered the service of
the czar for a time. Then he again travelled through northern Europe
and returned to Vienna, where he was coldly received, and he started
once more for Russia, but was intercepted at Danzig and again arrested
in 1753, after which he suffered a more severe imprisonment for nearly
ten years, characterised with such inhuman treatment that it must
ever tarnish the reputation of the monarch who posed as a poet and a
philosopher, the friend of Voltaire. Frederick the Great would hardly
have earned his ambitious epithet had it depended upon the measure he
meted out to his turbulent subject, Friedrich von der Trenck. He hated
him cordially and persecuted him cruelly, behaving with a pitiless
severity, and exhibiting such a contemptible spirit of revenge that he
has been hopelessly disgraced by the enlightened verdict of history.
Von der Trenck has told his own story in one of the most remarkable
books published in the eighteenth century, as the following excerpts
will show. He was taken into custody at Danzig, despoiled of all his
cash and valuables, and carried in a closed coach under escort to
Lauenberg, and thence via Spandau to Magdeburg, where he was lodged in
the destined prison. “It was a casemate,” according to his own account
of the cell, “the forepart of which was six feet wide and ten feet
long, and divided by a separation wall in which were double doors with
a third at the entrance of the casemate. The outer wall was seven feet
thick, with one window giving upon the top of the magazine, sufficient
for light, but I could see neither the heaven nor the earth. It was
barred inside and outside, and there was a narrow grating in the
middle, through which nothing could be seen. Six feet beyond my wall
stood a row of palisades which prevented the sentry or any one from
coming near enough to pass anything in. I had a bed with a mattress,
the bedstead clamped down to the floor so that I might not drag it to
the window and climb upon it to look out. A small stove and night table
were fixed in like manner near the door.
“I was not ironed, and my daily ration was one pound and a half of
ammunition bread and a jar of water. I had an excellent appetite, but
the bread was mouldy and I could barely touch it. Through the avarice
of the town major, the supplies were almost uneatable and for many
months following I suffered torture from raging hunger.... I begged for
an increase, but prayers and entreaties were of no avail. ‘It is the
king’s order,’ I was told; ‘we dare not give you more.’ The commandant,
General Borck, cruelly reminded me that I had long enough eaten patties
out of the king’s silver service, I must learn now to be satisfied with
ammunition bread.”
Von der Trenck turned his thoughts at once to the possibilities of
escape. He soon found that he was left very much to himself; his food
was brought every day and passed in to him through a slit in the door;
but his cell was actually opened only once a week for the visit and
inspection of the major of the fortress. He might work, therefore, for
seven days without fear of interruption, and he proceeded forthwith to
execute a plan he had formed of breaking through the wall of his cell
into an adjoining casemate, which he learned from a friendly sentry was
unoccupied and unlocked. This sentry and another spoke to him through
the window, despite strict orders to the contrary. They gave him a good
idea of the interior arrangements of the fortress, and told him that
the Elbe was within easy reach. He might cross it by swimming or by a
boat, and so gain the Saxon frontier.
Thus encouraged, he devoted himself with unremitting energy to his
gigantic task of making a practicable hole in the wall. He found bricks
in the first outward layers, and then came upon large quarry stones.
His first difficulty was to dispose of the debris and material produced
by the excavation; after reserving a part to replace and so conceal the
aperture formed, the rest he gradually distributed when ground down
into dust. The quarry stones gave infinite trouble, but he tackled them
with the irons extracted from his bedstead, and he got other tools from
his sentries,--an old ramrod and a soldier’s clasp knife. The labour of
piercing this wall of seven feet in thickness was incredible. It was an
ancient building, the mortar was very hard, and it was necessary to
grind the stones into dust. It lasted over six months, and at length
the outer layer of bricks on the side of the adjoining casemate was
reached.
Fortune now favoured Von der Trenck in the discovery of a veteran
grenadier among his guards, named Gefhardt, who proved to be of
inestimable service then and afterwards, and a devoted ally. Through
the sentries’ good offices, Trenck was enabled to communicate with his
friends outside, and through Gefhardt he made the acquaintance across
the palisades of a Jewish girl of Dessau, Esther Heymannin, whose
father was serving a sentence of ten years’ imprisonment in Magdeburg.
With splinters cut from his bed board, the prisoner manufactured a long
staff which reached from his window beyond the palisades, and by means
of it obtained writing materials, a knife and a file. This was effected
by Esther with the assistance of two friendly sentries. Trenck wrote
to his sister, who resided at Hammer, a village fourteen miles from
Berlin, begging her to hand over a sum in cash to the girl when she
called; he wrote another letter to the Austrian ambassador in Berlin,
enclosing a bill on his agent in Vienna, for Trenck, although in the
Prussian service, was of Austrian extraction and owned estates in that
country. The girl succeeded in her mission to Hammer and took the money
to Berlin, where the Austrian minister’s secretary, Weingarten, assured
her that a larger sum was on its way from Vienna, and that if she
would return to Berlin after carrying her first good news to Magdeburg,
it would be handed over to her. But on approaching the prison, the
wife of one of the sentries met her with the sad news that both men
had been arrested and lay in irons awaiting sentence, and Esther,
rightly judging that all was discovered, hurriedly fled to Dessau.
It may be added that the thousand florins to come from Vienna were
retained by the Austrian secretary, and although Trenck years later,
after his release, made constant applications to both Count Puebla and
Weingarten, he never recovered the money. Weingarten had acted the
traitor throughout and it was on his information, extracted from the
Jewish girl, that the plot to escape became known. The consequences
were far reaching, and entailed cruel reprisals upon Von der Trenck’s
friends. The two sentries, as has been said, were arrested, tried and
condemned, one to be hanged and the other to be flogged up and down
the streets of Magdeburg on three successive days. Trenck’s sister was
cruelly persecuted; she was fined heavily and plundered of her fortune,
a portion of which was ingloriously applied to the construction of an
entirely new prison in the Star Fort of the Magdeburg fortress, for the
special confinement of her brother.
Von der Trenck, as his measures for evasion had become ripe, was on the
point of breaking prison when a more terrible blow fell upon him. The
new prison in the Star Fort had been finished most expeditiously, and
orders were suddenly issued for his removal after nightfall. The major
and a party of officers, carrying lanterns, entered his cell. He was
roused and directed to put on his clothes, and manacles were slipped on
his hands and feet, but not before he had managed to conceal the knife
on his person; he was blindfolded, lifted under the arms and conveyed
to a coach, which drove through the citadel and down toward the Star
Fort, where it had been rumoured he was to be beheaded. He was thrown
into his new place of durance, and forthwith subjected to the pain and
ignominy of being loaded with fetters; his feet were attached to a
ring in the wall about three feet high by a ponderous chain, allowing
movement of about two feet to the right and left; an iron belt as
broad as the palm of a hand was riveted around his naked body, a thick
iron bar was fixed to the belt, and his hands were fastened to the bar
two feet apart. “Here,” says Trenck, “was I left to my own melancholy
reflections, without comfort or aid, and sitting in gloomy darkness
upon the wet floor. My fetters seemed to me insupportable, until I
became accustomed to them; and I thanked God that my knife had not been
discovered, with which I was about to end my sufferings forthwith. This
is a true consolation for the unfortunate man, who is elevated above
the prejudices of the vulgar, and with this a man may bid defiance
to fate and monarchs.... In these thoughts I passed the night; the
day appeared, but not its brightness to me; however, I could, by its
glimmerings, observe my prison. The breadth was eight feet, the length
ten; four bricks were raised from the ground and built in the corner,
upon which I could sit and lean my head against the wall. Opposite
to the ring to which I was chained was a window, in the form of a
semicircle, one foot high and two feet in diameter. This aperture was
built upwards as far as the centre of the wall which was six feet
thick, and at this point there was a narrow grating, secured both
without and within with strong close iron bars from which, outward,
the aperture sloped downward and its extremity was again secured with
strong iron bars. My prison was built in the great ditch, close to the
rampart, which was about eight feet broad on the inside; but the window
reached almost to the second wall, so that I could receive no direct
light from above and had only its reflection through a narrow hole.
However, in the course of time my organs became so accustomed to this
dimness that I could perceive a mouse run, but in winter, when the sun
seldom or never shone in the ditch, it was eternal night with me. On
the inside, before the grating, was a glass window, the middle pane of
which might be opened to let in the air. In the wall my name, ‘Trenck,’
might be read, built with red bricks; and at my feet was a gravestone,
with a death’s head and my name inscribed upon it, beneath which I was
to have been interred. My gaol had double doors made of oak; in
front of them was a sort of antechamber, with a window, and this was
likewise fastened with two doors. As the king had given positive orders
that all connection and opportunities of speaking with sentries should
be debarred me, that I might not have it in my power to seduce them,
my den was built so as not to be penetrated; and the ditch in which
the prison stood was crossed on each side by palisades twelve feet
high, the key being kept by the officer of the guards. I had no other
exercise than leaping up and down on the spot where I was chained, or
shaking the upper part of my body till I grew warm. In time I could
move about four feet from side to side, but my shin bones suffered by
this increase of territory.
[_Baron Friedrich von der Trenck_
_After the painting by Marckl_
A love affair with the Princess Amelia was the cause of the long
imprisonment of Von der Trenck by Frederick the Great, first in Glatz,
from which he escaped, and afterward in the Star Fort of the Fortress
of Magdeburg. He endured almost untold hardships, and his numerous
attempts to escape showed marvellous persistence and almost superhuman
endurance. His life was romantic and stormy. He went to Paris during
the French Revolution and was finally guillotined by Robespierre.
Illustration]
“In this prison I sat for six months, constantly in water, which was
perpetually dropping down upon me from the roof of the arch. I can
assure my reader that my body was never dry during the first three
months and yet I continued in health. As often as I was visited,
which was every day at twelve o’clock after guard mounting, the doors
were obliged to be left open some minutes, or the stifled vapour and
dampness would have extinguished the candles of the lantern. In this
condition I remained, abandoned by friends, without help or comfort;
where reflection was my only employment and where, during the first
days, until my constancy became confirmed and my heart more obdurate,
nothing but the most frightful images of grief and woe were perpetually
presenting themselves to my diseased imagination. The situation could
not have been more calculated for despair, nor can I describe the cause
which restrained my arm from suicide, for I was far above all narrow
prejudices and never felt the least fear for occurrences beyond the
grave. My design was to challenge fortune and obtain my victory in
spite of every impediment. The ambition to accomplish this victory was
perhaps the strongest inducement to my resolve, which at length rose to
such a degree of heroism and perseverance, that Socrates, in his old
days, could not boast of more. He was old, ceased to feel, and drank
the poison with indifference. I, on the contrary, was in the fire of
my youth, and the aim to which I aspired seemed to be on all sides far
distant. The present situation of my body and the tortures of my soul
were of such a nature as gave me but little reason to expect that my
frame could support them for any length of time.
“With these thoughts I struggled till midday, when my cage was for
the first time opened. Sorrow and compassion were painted on the
countenances of my guards; not one spoke a word, not so much as a
good-morrow, and terrible was their arrival, for not being used to
the monstrous bolts and locks, they rattled nearly half an hour at
the doors before the last could be opened. A wooden bedstead with a
mattress and a woollen cover were brought in, likewise an ammunition
loaf of six pounds; upon which the town-major said: ‘That you may no
longer complain of hunger, you shall have as much bread as you can
eat.’ A water jar, containing about two quarts, was placed beside
me, the doors were again shut and I was left to myself. How shall
I describe the luxurious delight I felt in the moment I had an
opportunity, for the first time, of satiating the raging hunger which
had been eleven months gnawing at me! No joy seemed to be more perfect
than this, and no mill could grind the hard corn with more expedition
than my teeth devoured my ammunition loaf; no fiery lover, after a long
and tedious languishing, could fall with more eagerness into the arms
of his yielding bride, nor any tiger be more ravenous on his prey,
than I on my humble repast. I ate, I rested, ate again, shed tears;
took one piece after another, and before night all was devoured. My
first transports did not last long and I soon learned that enjoyment
without moderation creates disgust. My stomach was enfeebled by long
abstinence, and digestion was impeded; my whole body swelled, my water
jar was empty; cramps, colics and at last thirst, with incredible
pains, tortured me continually until the next day. I already cursed
those whom a short time before I had blessed for giving me enough to
eat. Without a bed that night, I should certainly have despaired. I
was not accustomed to my cruel chains, nor had I learned the art of
lying extended in them, which afterward time and habitude taught me;
however, I could sit on my dry mattress. That night was one of the most
severe I ever endured. The following day, when my prison was opened,
I was found in the most wretched condition. The officers were amazed
at my appetite and offered me a loaf. I refused it, believing that I
should have no occasion for more. However, they brought me one, gave me
water, shrugged their shoulders and wished me happiness, for to every
appearance I could not suffer long; and the door was shut again without
my being asked if I wanted any further assistance.... During the first
three days of my melancholy incarceration my condition appeared to me
quite insupportable and deliverance impossible. I found a thousand
reasons which convinced me that it was now time to put an end to my
sufferings.”
Yet we read that this man’s indomitable pluck survived and once more
his thoughts turned to escape. He was encouraged at finding that the
doors of his cell were only of wood, and he conceived the idea that he
might cut out the locks with the knife he had so fortunately brought
with him from the fortress. “I immediately made an attempt to rid
myself of my irons, and luckily forced the fetter from my right hand
though the blood trickled from my nails. I could not for a long time
remove the other; but with some pieces of the brick from my seat I
hammered so fortunately against the rivet, which was but negligently
fastened, that I finally effected this also, and thus freed both my
arms. To the belt round my body there was only one hasp fastened to
the chain or arm bar. I set my foot against the wall and found I could
bend it; there now remained only the principal chain between the wall
and my feet. Nature had given me great strength; I twisted it across,
sprang with force back from the wall, and two links instantly gave way.
Free from chains and fancying myself already happy, I hastened to the
door, groped in the dark for the points of the nails by which the lock
was fastened, and found that I had not a great deal of wood to cut out.
I immediately cut a small hole through the oak door with my knife and
discovered that the boards were only one inch thick, and that there was
a possibility of opening all the four doors in the space of one day.
Full of hope, I returned to put on my irons; but what difficulties had
I here to surmount!
“The broken link I found, after a long search, and threw into my sink.
Fortunately for me, nobody had examined my cell because they suspected
nothing. With a piece of my hair ribbon I bound the chain together,
but when I tried to put the irons on my hands, they were so swollen
that every attempt was in vain. I worked the whole night to no purpose.
Twelve o’clock, the visiting hour, approached. Necessity and danger
urged me on; fresh attempts were made with incredible torture, and
when my keepers entered everything was in proper order.”
After this Trenck concentrated all his efforts upon cutting out the
locks of his doors. The first yielded within an hour, but the second
was a far more difficult task, as it was also closed by a bar and the
lock was opened on the outside. The work was carried on in darkness and
his self-inflicted wounds bled profusely. But when the second door had
been cut through, he came out into half daylight, which enabled him to
cut out the third lock as readily as the first. The fourth, however,
was placed like the second and involved equal labour. He was attacking
it bravely when his knife broke in his hand and the blade fell to the
ground.
Despair then seized him, and picking up his knife blade he opened the
veins of his left arm and foot, meaning to bleed to death. When almost
insensible, a voice crying, “Baron Trenck!” roused him, and on asking
who called, he learned that it was his staunch friend and ally, the
grenadier Gefhardt, who had come to the rampart to comfort him. He told
Gefhardt that he was lying in his blood and at the point of death, but
the stout old soldier consoled him with the assurance that it would
be much easier to escape here, as there were no sentries over him and
only two in the whole fort. Trenck listened with revived hope and
determined on a new plan of action. The seat in his prison was built of
brickwork, still green, and he quickly tore it down to provide himself
with missiles, which he laid out ready for use against his gaolers at
their next visit. They came at midday and were horrified to find the
three inner doors opened, the last of them barred by a terrific figure,
wounded and bleeding, and in a posture of desperate defiance. In one
hand he held a brick and with the other he brandished his knife blade,
crying fiercely, “Let no one enter; I will kill all who attempt it. You
may shoot me down, but I will not live here in chains. Stand back. I am
armed.”
The commandant had inadvertently stepped forward but retired at these
threats, and ordered his grenadiers to storm the cell. The narrow
opening allowed only one to enter at a time and a combined attack was
impossible. All halted irresolute under the menace of the missiles,
and in the pause the major and chaplain tried to reason with Von der
Trenck. The former implored him to yield and surrender the knife blade,
as the major was responsible for his possession of it and would no
doubt lose his place. These entreaties prevailed, and Trenck gave in,
being promised milder treatment. His condition cried aloud for pity;
he lay there suffering and exhausted. A surgeon was called in to apply
restoratives and dress his wounds, and for four days he was relieved
of his irons and was well fed with meat soup. Meanwhile the cell doors
were repaired and bound with iron bands. The fetters were reimposed,
but that which chained the prisoner to the wall and which he had
broken was strengthened. No amelioration of his state was possible, for
the king was implacable and still ferociously angry. Von der Trenck
remained in extreme discomfort. As his arms were constantly fastened to
the iron cross bar and his feet to the wall, he could put on neither
his shirt nor his breeches; the former, a soldier’s shirt, was tied
together at the seams and renewed every fortnight; the breeches were
opened and buttoned up at the sides; on his body he wore a blue frock
of coarse common blue cloth, and on his feet were rough ammunition
stockings and slippers.
“It is certain,” says Trenck, “that nothing but pride and self-love,
or rather a consciousness of my innocence, together with a special
confidence in my resolutions, kept me afterward alive. The hard
exercise of my body and my mind, always busy in projects to obtain my
freedom, preserved at the same time my health. But who would believe
that a daily exercise could be taken in my chains? I shook the upper
part of my body and leaped up and down till the sweat poured from my
brows, and by this means I grew fatigued and slept soundly.
“By degrees I accustomed myself to my chains. I learned to comb my hair
and at length even to tie it with one hand. My beard, which had not
yet been shaved, gave me a frightful appearance. This I plucked out;
the pain was considerable, more especially about the lips; however,
I became accustomed to this also and performed the operation during
the following years, once every six weeks or two months, for the hairs
being pulled out by the roots required that length of time to grow
again long enough to lay hold of them with my nails. Vermin never
tormented me; the great dampness of the walls was not favourable to
them; neither did my limbs swell, because I took the exercise already
mentioned; the constant darkness alone was the greatest hardship.
However, I had read, learned and already seen and experienced much in
the world; therefore I always found matter to banish melancholy from
my thoughts, and in spite of every obstacle, could connect my ideas as
well as if I had read them, or written them on paper. Habit made me so
perfect in this mental exercise that I composed whole speeches, fables,
poems and satires, and repeated them aloud to myself. At the same time
they were impressed so forcibly on my memory that after I obtained my
freedom I could have written a couple of volumes of such works.
“I employed myself in projecting new plans. That I might be more nearly
observed, a sentry was posted at my door who was always chosen from
what were called the trusty men, or the married men and natives. These,
as will be related in the course of my memoirs, were easier and safer
to bring over to my relief than strangers; for the Pomeranian is honest
and blunt, and consequently easy to move and be persuaded into anything
you please. About three weeks after the last attempt, my honest
Gefhardt was posted sentry over me. As soon as he came upon his post we
had a free opportunity of conversing with each other, for when I stood
with one foot on my bedstead my head reached as high as the air-hole
of the window. He described the situation of my gaol to me, and the
first project we formed was to break under the foundation, which he
had seen built and assured me was only two feet deep. I wanted money
above all things, and this I contrived to get in the following manner:
After Gefhardt was first relieved, he returned with a wire round which
a sheet of paper was rolled, and also a piece of small wax candle which
luckily he could pass through the grating; I got likewise some sulphur,
a piece of burning tinder and a pen; I now had a light, pricked my
finger, and my blood served for ink. I wrote to my worthy friend,
Captain Ruckhardt, at Vienna, described to him my situation in a few
words, gave him a draft for three thousand florins upon my revenues and
settled the affair in the following manner: He was to keep one thousand
florins for the expenses of his journey and to arrive without fail on
the 15th of August in Gummern, a small Saxon town, only two miles from
Magdeburg; there he was to appear at twelve o’clock with a letter in
his hand, which with the two thousand florins he should give to a man
whom he would see there carrying a roll of tobacco. Gefhardt had these
instructions, received my letter through the window in the same manner
as he had given me the paper, sent his wife with it to Gummern and
there put it safely into the post office.
“At length the 15th of August arrived,--but some days passed before
Gefhardt was posted as sentry over me. How did my heart leap with
happiness when he suddenly called out to me:--‘All is well--we have
succeeded.’ In the evening it was agreed in what manner the money was
to be conveyed to me; as my hands were fettered, I could not reach to
the grate of the window, and as the air-hole was too small, we resolved
that he should do the work of cleaning my cell and should convey the
money to me by putting it into my water jar when he filled it. This
was fortunately effected, but judge of my astonishment when I found
the whole sum of two thousand florins, of which I had promised and
desired him to take the half. Only five pistoles were wanting, and
he absolutely refused any more. Generous Pomeranian, how rare is thy
example!
“I now had money to put my designs into execution. The first plan
was to undermine the foundation of my prison, and to do this it was
necessary that I should be free from chains. Gefhardt conveyed to me
a pair of fine files. The cap or staple of the foot-ring was made so
wide that I could draw it forward a quarter of an inch; therefore I
filed the inside of the iron which passed through it. The more I
cut out, the further I could draw the staple, till at last the whole
inside iron through which the chain passed was entirely cut through,
the cap remaining on the outside entire. Thus my feet were free from
the wall and it was impossible, with the most careful examination, to
find the cut, as only the outside could be searched. By squeezing my
hands every day, I made them more pliant and at last got them through
the irons. I then filed round the hinge, made myself a screw-driver
with a twelve-inch nail drawn from the floor, and turned the screws as
I pleased, so that no marks could be seen when I was visited. The belt
round my body did not at all hinder me. I filed a piece out of a link
of the chain which fastened the bar to my arms, and the link next to it
I filed so small as to be able to get it through the opening. I then
rubbed some wet ammunition bread upon the iron to give it the proper
colour, stopped the open link with dough, and let it dry over night
by the heat of my warm body, then put spittle upon it, to give it the
burnish of iron; by this invention, I was sure that without striking
upon each with a hammer it would be impossible to find out that which
was broken.
“It was now in my power to get loose when I chose. The window never
was examined; I took out the hooks with which it was fastened in
the wall, but I put them properly in again every morning and made
all as it should be with some lime. I procured wire from my friend
and endeavoured to make a new grating. This I likewise completed;
therefore I took the old one from the window and fixed mine in its
place; this opened a free communication with the outside, and by this
means I obtained light and fire materials. That my light might not be
seen, I hung my bed cover before the window, and thus I could work as
it was convenient.”
Trenck now proceeded to penetrate the floor, which was of oaken planks
in three layers, altogether nine inches thick. He used the bar which
had fastened his arms and was now removable, and which he had ground on
the gravestone till it formed an excellent chisel to serve in digging
into the boards. These he patiently cut through and pulled up, reaching
the fine sand below the foundation on which the Star Fort was built.
The wood splinters were hidden, the sand run over in long narrow linen
bags provided by Gefhardt, which could be dragged through the window.
By the same friendly help he obtained a number of useful implements; a
knife, a bayonet, a brace of pocket pistols, and even powder and shot,
all of which he concealed under the floor.
He ascertained now that the foundation was four feet thick and that a
very deep hole must be dug to get a passage underneath the outer wall,
a long, wearisome operation demanding time, labour and caution, and
especially difficult of execution, with his figure twisted into an
awkward shape so that his hands might extract the sand. There was no
stove in the cell and it was bitterly cold, but he was warmed by his
joyous anticipations of escape. Gefhardt kept him well supplied with
provisions, sausages and hung beef, brought in paper for writing and
supplies for light, so that the time did not hang heavily.
A sudden catastrophe nearly ruined everything. In replacing the
window sash, it slipped out of his hands and fell, breaking three
panes of glass. Detection was now imminent, as fresh panes must be
inserted before the sash was refixed. Trenck was in despair, and as a
last resource appealed to the sentry of the night, a stranger, whom
he offered thirty pistoles to seek new panes. The man was happily
agreeable, and by good fortune the gate of the palisades in the ditch
had been left unlocked, so he prevailed on a comrade to relieve him for
a short time and ran down into the town, taking with him the dimensions
of the glass, secured the panes, and returned with them in time to
allow Trenck to complete his task as glazier. But for this lucky
ending, Gefhardt’s complicity would have been discovered and he would
certainly have been hanged.
Misfortunes never come singly. Trenck wanted more money and wrote to
his friend in Vienna, enclosing a draft which he was to cash and asking
him to bring the effects to the Saxon village of Gummern, a few miles
from Magdeburg, and there await Trenck’s messenger. This letter was to
be despatched by Gefhardt’s wife from Gummern across the frontier.
The foolish woman told the Saxon postmaster that the letter was of the
utmost importance, affecting a law suit of Gefhardt’s in Vienna, and
she was so anxious for its safe transmission that she handed it over
with a large fee, ten rix dollars. The postmaster’s suspicions were
aroused; he opened the letter, read it, and thinking to curry favour,
brought it to Magdeburg, where it fell into the hands of the governor,
Prince Ferdinand of Brunswick. All the fat was then in the fire.
The first intimation Trenck received was from the prince who came
in person to his cell, followed by a large staff of officials. The
governor called upon the prisoner to confess who had carried his letter
to Gummern. Trenck denied that he had sent any letter, and his cell
was searched forthwith. Smiths, carpenters and masons entered, but
after an hour’s work failed to discover more than the false grating
in the window. The prince upbraided, argued, threatened; but Trenck
obstinately refused to speak. The governor had scarcely been gone an
hour when some one came in saying that one of his accomplices had
already hanged himself, and, fearing that it was his good friend, he
was on the point of betraying Gefhardt, when he heard by accident that
the suicide was some one else. He took fresh courage from the fact
that his diggings had not been exposed, and that he had five hundred
florins in gold safely concealed, with a good supply of candles and all
his implements. After this collapse, there was a change in Trenck’s
condition. The regiment in the garrison went off to the Seven Years’
War which had just broken out, and was relieved by a party of militia,
and a new commandant took charge, General Borck, who was informed
by the king that he must answer for Trenck with his head. Borck was
timorous and mistrustful, a stupid bully, who acted to his prisoner
“as an executioner to a criminal.” He increased Trenck’s irons, and
had a broad neck ring added with a chain that hung down and joined the
anklet; he removed the prisoner’s bedding, did not even give him straw,
and constantly abused him with “a thousand insulting expressions.”
“However,” says Trenck, “I did not remain a single word in his debt and
vexed him almost to madness.”
The object of the governor was to cut Trenck off from all communication
with mankind. To assure complete isolation, the four keys of his
four doors were kept by four different persons; the commandant held
one, the town-major another, the third was kept by the officer of
the day and the fourth by the lieutenant of the guard. The prisoner
had no opportunity for speaking to any of them singly, until the
rule slackened. The commandant rarely appeared; Magdeburg became so
filled with prisoners of war that the town-major gave up his key to
the officer of the day; and the other officers, when they dined with
General Walrabe, who was also confined in the Star Fort, passed their
keys to the lieutenant of the guard. So in this way Trenck sometimes
had a word with each of them alone, and in due course secured the
friendship of two of them.
At this period his situation was truly deplorable. “The enormous iron
round my neck,” he says, “pained me and impeded motion, and I dared not
attempt to disengage myself from the pendent chains till I had for some
months carefully observed the method of examination and learned 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 I was obliged to support, first with one
hand and then with the other, for, if thrown behind, they would have
strangled me, and if hanging forward occasioned excessive headaches.
The bar between my hands held me down, while, leaning on one elbow, I
supported my chains with the other, 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 the condition of
a sick prisoner, without bed, refreshment, or aid from a human being.
Reason, fortitude, heroism, all the noble qualities of the mind, decay
when the bodily 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 did not totally forsake me. Deliverance seemed possible,
especially should peace ensue; and I sustained, perhaps, such suffering
as mortal man never bore, 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 be the sufferings of that man 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 a consoling friend, and who under all
these afflictions must trust for his recovery to the efforts of nature
alone!”
The officers on guard all commiserated him, and one of them,
Lieutenant Sonntag, often came and sat with him when he could get all
the keys. This officer was poor and in debt and did not refuse the
money liberally offered by Trenck. A fresh plan of escape was soon
conceived. As before, the essential preliminary was to obtain more cash
to be employed in further bribery. The lieutenant, Sonntag, provided
false handcuffs so wide that Trenck could easily draw his hands out,
and he was soon able to disencumber himself at pleasure of all his
other chains except the neck-iron. It was no longer possible to get out
by the hole first constructed, as the sentinels had been doubled, and
Trenck began driving a new subterranean passage thirty-seven feet long
to the gallery in the principal rampart, through which, if gained, a
free exit was assured.
Another superhuman task was begun, which lasted for nearly a year. A
deep hole was sunk, and on reaching the sand below the foundation,
a transverse passage was driven through it, entailing such severe
fatigue that at the end of one day’s work Trenck was obliged to rest
for the three following days. It was necessary to work naked, as the
dirtiness on his shirt would have been observed; at the depth of four
feet the sand became wet and a stratum of gravel was reached. “The
labour toward the conclusion,” Trenck tells us, “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 to replace all things as they were. I
thought sometimes of abandoning my enterprise and leaving everything
in its present disorder. Recollecting, however, the prodigious efforts
and all the progress I had made, hope would again revive and exhausted
strength return; again would I begin my labours to preserve my secret
and my expectations. 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 foundations of
the rampart near where the sentinels stood. I could disencumber myself
of my fetters, except my neck-collar and its pendent chain. This,
although it had been fastened, got loose as I worked, 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, a smith and a 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 everything, as they thought, safe. Had they examined my
bed they would have seen the ticking and sheets were gone.”
A few days later the same sentinel, who had been called a blockhead
for raising a false alarm, again heard Trenck burrowing, and called
his comrades. The major came also to hear the noise, and it was now
realised that Trenck was working under the foundation toward the
gallery. The officials entered the gallery at the other end with
lanterns, and Trenck as he crawled along saw the light and their
heads. He knew the worst, and hurrying back to his cell, had still the
presence of mind to conceal his pistols, candles, paper and money in
various holes and hiding places, where they were never found. This was
barely accomplished before his guards arrived, headed by the brutal
and stupid major, Bruckhausen by name. The hole in the floor was at
once filled up and the planking reinstated; his foot-chains, instead
of being merely fastened as before, were screwed down and riveted. The
worst trial for the moment was the loss of his bed, which he had cut up
to make into bags for the removal of the sand.
At this time General Borck was ill with an ailment that soon ended
in mental derangement. Another general, Krusemarck, replaced him and
proceeded to visit Trenck. They had been old friends and brother
officers, but the general showed him no compassion; on the contrary,
he abused him roundly, promising him even more severe treatment. It
was then that the inhuman order was issued to the night guards to
waken Trenck every quarter of an hour,--a devilish form of cruelty
unsurpassed in prison punishments. Kindly nature, however, came to the
rescue, and Trenck learned to answer automatically in his sleep; yet
this cruel device was continued for four years and until within a few
months of his final release.
The precautions taken effectually debarred the prisoner from any fresh
attempt at evasion. A new governor had replaced the madman Borck,
Lieutenant-Colonel Reichmann, a humane and mild-mannered officer. About
this time, several members Of the royal family, including Princess
Amelia, came to reside at Magdeburg and showed a kindly interest in
Trenck’s grievous lot; his cell doors were presently opened each day
to admit daylight and fresh air. He found employment, too, for his
restless energies and was permitted to carve verses and figures upon
the pewter cup provided as part of his cell furniture. The first
rude attempt was much admired, the cup was impounded, and a new one
served out; several, indeed, were provided in succession, so that
Trenck became quite expert in this artistic employment and laboured
at it continuously until the day of his release. By means of these
cups he opened up communication with the outside world. Hitherto all
correspondence had been forbidden; no one under pain of death might
converse with him or supply him with pen, ink or paper. Strange to
say, he was allowed to engrave what he pleased upon the pewter, and
the cups were in great demand and passed into many hands. One reached
the empress-queen of Austria and stimulated her to plead for Trenck’s
pardon through her minister accredited to the court of Frederick. The
engraving that touched her feelings was that of a bird in a cage held
by a Turk, with the inscription, “The bird sings even in the storm:
open his cage and break his fetters, ye friends of virtue, and his
songs shall be the delight of your abodes.” The demand for these cups
was so keen that Trenck worked at them by candle light for eighteen
hours a day, and the reflected lustre from the pewter seriously injured
his eyesight. It is a pathetic picture,--that of the active-minded,
undefeated captive, labouring incessantly although weighed down by
chains and the terrible encumbrance of a huge collar which pressed
on the arteries at the back of his neck and occasioned intolerable
headache.
Although repeatedly foiled in his assiduous attempts to break prison,
the indomitable Trenck never abated his unshaken desire to compass
freedom. At length opportunity offered for a larger and more dangerous
project: the seizure of the Star Fort and the capture of Magdeburg. At
that time the war was in full progress and the garrison of the fortress
consisted of only nine hundred discontented men of the militia. Trenck
had already won over two majors and two lieutenants to his interest.
The guard of the Star Fort was limited to one hundred and fifteen men.
The town gate immediately opposite was held by no more than twelve
men under a sergeant; just within it was a barrack filled with seven
thousand Croat prisoners of war, several of whose officers were
willing to join in an uprising. It was arranged that a whole company of
Prussians should turn out at a moment’s notice with muskets loaded and
bayonets fixed, to head the attack as soon as Trenck had overpowered
the two sentinels who stood over him, secured them and locked them into
his cell. It was an ambitious plan and was well worth the attempt.
Magdeburg was the great national storehouse, holding all the sinews
of war, treasure and munitions, and Trenck in possession, backed with
sixteen thousand Croats, might have dictated his own terms. The plot
failed through the treachery of an agent despatched to Vienna with a
letter, seeking cooperation; it was given into the wrong hands and
was sent back to Magdeburg, where the governor, then the landgrave
of Hesse-Cassel, read it and took prompt precautions to secure the
fortress. An investigation was ordered, and Trenck was formally
arraigned as a traitor to his country, but he sturdily denied the
authorship of the incriminating letter, and the charge was not brought
home to him. The landgrave was more merciful than former governors and
showed great kindness to Trenck, relieved him of his intolerable iron
collar, sent his own private physician to attend him in his illness and
revoked the cruel order that prescribed his incessant awakening during
the night.
A fresh attempt to undermine the wall was soon undertaken by the
captive, but he was presently discovered at work and the hole in the
floor walled up. The humane landgrave did not punish him further, and
in the period of calm that followed, Trenck’s hopes were revived with
the prospect of approaching peace, for he was now at liberty to read
the newspapers. But when the landgrave succeeded to his throne and
left Magdeburg, Trenck in despair turned his thoughts once more to a
means of escape, and decided on the same method of driving a tunnel
underground. A dreadful accident befell him in this particular attempt.
While mining under the foundation, he struck his foot against a loose
stone which dropped into the passage and completely closed the opening.
Death by suffocation stared him in the face and paralyzed his powers.
For eight full hours he could not stir a finger to release himself, but
at last he managed to turn his body into a ball and excavate a hole
under the stone till it sank and left him sufficient space to crawl
over it and get out.
All was in a fair way to final evasion when Trenck had another narrow
escape from discovery. It occurred through a pet mouse he had tamed
and trained to come at his call, to play round him and eat from his
hand. One night Trenck had encouraged it to dance and caper on a
plate, and the noise made attracted the attention of the sentries,
who gave the alarm. An anxious visitation was made at daybreak;
smiths and masons closely scrutinised walls and floors and minutely
searched the prisoner. Trenck was asked to explain the disturbance,
and whistled to his mouse which came out and jumped upon his shoulder.
The alarm forthwith subsided, and yet he found what the searchers had
missed,--that his mouse had nibbled away the chewed bread with which he
had filled the interstices between the planks of the floor which he had
cut to penetrate below.
Trenck’s efforts did not flag till the very last hour of his
imprisonment, nor did his gaolers relax their determination to hold
him. One of their last devices was to reconstruct and strengthen his
prison cell by paving the floor with huge flagstones. His courage was
beginning to fail, but the darkest hour was before the dawn. Quite
unexpectedly on Christmas Eve, 1763, the governor appeared at his cell
door, accompanied by the blacksmith. “Rejoice,” he cried, “the king has
been graciously pleased to relieve you of your irons;” and again,--“The
king wills that you shall have a better apartment;” and last of
all,--“The king wills that you shall go free.”
It has been said that the empress-queen of Austria had been moved to
compassion for Trenck by the engraving on the pewter cup that came into
her hands. His beloved Princess Amelia had also been active in trying
to obtain his release. She employed a clever business man in Vienna,
who at her bidding and for a sum of two thousand ducats won over a
confidential servant of Maria Theresa, and caused him to intercede
for the wretched prisoner at Magdeburg, who after all was still an
Austrian officer. The kind-hearted Hapsburg sovereign wrote a personal
letter to Frederick, her great antagonist, and the king of Prussia at
last pardoned the miserable man who had dwelt for ten years in a living
tomb. Like all political prisoners, he was obliged to bind himself by
oath to the following conditions, which were not exactly performed by
him:--that he would take no revenge on anyone; that he would not cross
the Saxon or the Prussian frontiers to re-enter those states; that he
would neither speak nor write of what had happened to him; that he
would not, so long as the king lived, serve in any army either in a
civil or military capacity.
After his liberation, he first lived in Vienna, where he came into
personal contact with Maria Theresa and the emperors Francis and Joseph
II. Later he settled at Aix-la-Chapelle, where he married the daughter
of Burgomaster de Broe, and conducted a flourishing wine business. He
undertook long journeys, and published his poems and autobiography,
which had an immense success and were translated into almost every
European language; he was also the editor of a newspaper and another
periodical entitled _The Friend of Men_, and he amassed a handsome
fortune.
After the death of Frederick, Trenck was allowed to return to Berlin
and his confiscated goods were restored to him. His first visit was
to his liberator and earliest love, the Princess Amelia; the interview
was most affecting and heartrending. They were both greatly changed in
appearance and more like the ghosts of their former brilliant selves.
She inquired for his numerous children, for whom she assured him she
would do all in her power, and he parted from her full of gratitude
and greatly moved. It is a creditable trait in Trenck’s character that
in spite of all his sufferings he did not hate the Prussian king,
Frederick the Great.
One would think this aged adventurer would now seek rest, but far from
it. He was attracted to Paris by the outbreak of the French Revolution,
and he felt the necessity for playing an active part. He finally fell
into the hands of Robespierre, and was tried and guillotined at the
age of sixty-nine. On the scaffold his great stature, for he was much
above the average height, towered over his fellow-sufferers. He looked
quietly at the crowd and said, “Why do you stare? This is but a comedy
à la Robespierre!”
The day before his tragic death he gave to a fellow-prisoner, Count
B----, the last memento he possessed of the lady who had been the
first innocent cause of his sufferings, a tortoise-shell box with the
portrait of the Princess Amelia. The 9th Thermidor saved the count, and
the box was long preserved in his family.