The Life and Adventures of Baron Trenck Volume 1
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Baron Trenck >> The Life and Adventures of Baron Trenck Volume 1
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12 *END THE SMALL PRINT! FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS*Ver.04.29.93*END*
This etext was scanned by David Price, email ccx074@coventry.ac.uk
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LIFE AND ADVENTURE OF BARON TRENCK - VOLUME 1
TRANSLATED BY THOMAS HOLCROFT
INTRODUCTION.
There were two cousins Von der Trenck, who were barons descended
from an ancient house in East Prussia, and were adventurous
soldiers, to whom, as to the adventurous, there were adventures that
lost nothing in the telling, for they were told by the authors' most
admiring friends--themselves. Franz, the elder, was born in 1711,
the son of an Austrian general; and Frederick, whose adventures are
here told, was the son of a Prussian major-general. Franz, at the
age of seventeen, fought duels, and cut off the head of a man who
refused to lend him money. He stood six feet three inches in his
shoes, knocked down his commanding officer, was put under arrest,
offered to pay for his release by bringing in three Turks' heads
within an hour, was released on that condition, and actually brought
in four Turks' heads. When afterwards cashiered, he settled on his
estates in Croatia, and drilled a thousand of his tenantry to act as
"Pandours" against the banditti. In 1740, he served with his
Pandours under Maria Theresa, and behaved himself as one of the more
brutal sort of banditti. He offered to capture Frederick of
Prussia, and did capture his tent. Many more of his adventures are
vaingloriously recounted by himself in the Memoires du Baron Franz
de Trenck, published at Paris in 1787. This Trenck took poison when
imprisoned at Gratz, and died in October, 1747, at the age of
thirty-six.
His cousin Frederick is the Trenck who here tells a story of himself
that abounds in lively illustration of the days of Frederick the
Great. He professes that Frederick the King owed him a grudge,
because Frederick the Trenck had, when eighteen years old,
fascinated the Princess Amalie at a ball. But as Frederick the
Greater was in correspondence with his cousin Franz at the time when
that redoubtable personage was planning the seizure of Frederick the
Great, there may have been better ground for the Trenck's arrest
than he allows us to imagine. Mr. Carlyle shows that Frederick von
der Trenck had been three months in prison, and was still in prison,
at the time of the battle of the Sohr, in which he professes to have
been engaged. Frederick von der Trenck, after his release from
imprisonment in 1763, married a burgomaster's daughter, and went
into business as a wine merchant. Then he became adventurous again.
His adventures, published in German in 1786-7, and in his own French
version in 1788, formed one of the most popular books of its time.
Seven plays were founded on them, and ladies in Paris wore their
bonnets a la Trenck. But the French finally guillotined the author,
when within a year of threescore and ten, on the 26th of July, 1794.
He had gone to Paris in 1792, and joined there in the strife of
parties. At the guillotine he struggled with the executioner.
H.M.
THE LIFE OF BARON TRENCK.
CHAPTER I.
I was born at Konigsberg in Prussia, February 16, 1726, of one of
the most ancient families of the country. My father, who was lord
of Great Scharlach, Schakulack, and Meichen, and major-general of
cavalry, died in 1740, after receiving eighteen wounds in the
Prussian service. My mother was daughter of the president of the
high court at Konigsberg. After my father's death she married Count
Lostange, lieutenant-colonel in the Kiow regiment of cuirassiers,
with whom she went and resided at Breslau. I had two brothers and a
sister; my youngest brother was taken by my mother into Silesia; the
other was a cornet in this last-named regiment of Kiow; and my
sister was married to the only son of the aged General Valdow.
My ancestors are famous in the Chronicles of the North, among the
ancient Teutonic knights, who conquered Courland, Prussia, and
Livonia.
By temperament I was choleric, and addicted to pleasure and
dissipation; my tutors found this last defect most difficult to
overcome; happily, they were aided by a love of knowledge inherent
in me, an emulative spirit, and a thirst for fame, which disposition
it was my father's care to cherish. A too great consciousness of
innate worth gave me a too great degree of pride, but the endeavours
of my instructor to inspire humility were not all lost; and habitual
reading, well-timed praise, and the pleasures flowing from science,
made the labours of study at length my recreation.
My memory became remarkable; I am well read in the Scriptures, the
classics, and ancient history; was acquainted with geography; could
draw; learnt fencing, riding, and other necessary exercises.
My religion was Lutheran; but morality was taught me by my father,
and by the worthy man to whose care he committed the forming of my
heart, whose memory I shall ever hold in veneration. While a boy, I
was enterprising in all the tricks of boys, and exercised my wit in
crafty excuses; the warmth of my passions gave a satiric, biting
cast to my writings, whence it has been imagined, by those who knew
but little of me, I was a dangerous man; though, I am conscious,
this was a false judgment.
A soldier himself, my father would have all his sons the same; thus,
when we quarrelled, we terminated our disputes with wooden sabres,
and, brandishing these, contested by blows for victory, while our
father sat laughing, pleased at our valour and address. This
practice, and the praises he bestowed, encouraged a disposition
which ought to have been counteracted.
Accustomed to obtain the prize, and be the hero of scholastic
contentions, I acquired the bad habit of disputation, and of
imagining myself a sage when little more than a boy. I became
stubborn in argument.; hasty to correct others, instead of patiently
attentive: and, by presumption, continually liable to incite
enmity. Gentle to my inferiors, but impatient of contradiction, and
proud of resisting power, I may hence date, the origin of all my
evils.
How might a man, imbued with the heroic principles of liberty, hope
for advancement and happiness, under the despotic and iron
Government of Frederic? I was taught neither to know nor to avoid,
but to despise the whip of slavery. Had I learnt hypocrisy, craft,
and meanness, I had long since become field-marshal, had been in
possession of my Hungarian estates, and had not passed the best
years of my life in the dungeons of Magdeburg. I was addicted to no
vice: I laboured in the cause of science, honour, and virtue; kept
no vicious company; was never in the whole of my life intoxicated;
was no gamester, no consumer of time in idleness nor brutal
pleasures; but devoted many hundred laborious nights to studies that
might make me useful to my country; yet was I punished with a
severity too cruel even for the most worthless, or most villanous.
I mean, in my narrative, to make candour and veracity my guides, and
not to conceal my failings; I wish my work may remain a moral lesson
to the world. Yet it is an innate satisfaction that I am conscious
of never having acted with dishonour, even to the last act of this
distressful tragedy.
I shall say little of the first years of my life, except that my
father took especial care of my education, and sent me, at the age
of thirteen, to the University of Konigsberg, where, under the
tuition of Kowalewsky, my progress was rapid. There were fourteen
other noblemen in the same house, and under the same master.
In the year following, 1740, I quarrelled with one young Wallenrodt,
a fellow-student, much stronger than myself, and who, despising my
weakness, thought proper to give me a blow. I demanded
satisfaction. He came not to the appointed place, but treated my
demand with contempt; and I, forgetting all further respect,
procured a second, and attacked him in open day. We fought, and I
had the fortune to wound him twice; the first time in the arm, the
second in the hand.
This affair incited inquiry:- Doctor Kowalewsky, our tutor, laid
complaints before the University, and I was condemned to three
hours' confinement; but my grandfather and guardian, President
Derschau, was so pleased with my courage, that he took me from this
house and placed me under Professor Christiani.
Here I first began to enjoy full liberty, and from this worthy man I
learnt all I know of experimental philosophy and science. He loved
me as his own son, and continued instructing me till midnight.
Under his auspices, in 1742, I maintained, with great success, two
public theses, although I was then but sixteen; an effort and an
honour till then unknown.
Three days after my last public exordium, a contemptible fellow
sought a quarrel with me, and obliged me to draw in my own defence,
whom, on this occasion, I wounded in the groin.
This success inflated my valour, and from that time I began to
assume the air and appearance of a Hector.
Scarcely had a fortnight elapsed before I had another with a
lieutenant of the garrison, whom I had insulted, who received two
wounds in the contest.
I ought to remark, that at this time, the University of Konigsberg
was still highly privileged. To send a challenge was held
honourable; and this was not only permitted, but would have been
difficult to prevent, considering the great number of proud, hot-
headed, and turbulent nobility from Livonia, Courland, Sweden,
Denmark, and Poland, who came thither to study, and of whom there
were more than five hundred. This brought the University into
disrepute, and endeavours have been made to remedy the abuse. Men
have acquired a greater extent of true knowledge, and have begun to
perceive that a University ought to be a place of instruction, and
not a field of battle; and that blood cannot be honourably shed,
except in defence of life or country.
In November, 1742, the King sent his adjutant-general, Baron Lottum,
who was related to my mother, to Konigsberg, with whom I dined at my
grandfather's. He conversed much with me, and, after putting
various questions, purposely, to discover what my talents and
inclinations were, he demanded, as if in joke, whether I had any
inclination to go with him to Berlin, and serve my country, as my
ancestors had ever done: adding that, in the army, I should find
much better opportunities of sending challenges than at the
University. Inflamed with the desire of distinguishing myself, I
listened with rapture to the proposition, and in a few days we
departed for Potzdam.
On the morrow after my arrival, I was presented to the King, as
indeed I had before been in the year 1740, with the character of
being, then, one of the most hopeful youths of the University. My
reception was most flattering; the justness of my replies to the
questions he asked, my height, figure, and confidence, pleased him;
and I soon obtained permission to enter as a cadet in his body
guards, with a promise of quick preferment.
The body guards formed, at this time, a model and school for the
Prussian cavalry; they consisted of one single squadron of men
selected from the whole army, and their uniform was the most
splendid in all Europe. Two thousand rix-dollars were necessary to
equip an officer: the cuirass was wholly plated with silver; and
the horse, furniture, and accoutrements alone cost four hundred rix-
dollars.
This squadron only contained six officers and a hundred and forty-
four men; but there were always fifty or sixty supernumeraries, and
as many horses, for the King incorporated all the most handsome men
he found in the guards. The officers were the best taught of any
the army contained; the King himself was their tutor, and he
afterwards sent them to instruct the cavalry in the manoeuvres they
had learnt. Their rise was rapid if they behaved well; but they
were broken for the least fault, and punished by being sent to
garrison regiments. It was likewise necessary they should be
tolerably rich, as well as possess such talents as might be
successfully employed, both at court and in the army.
There are no soldiers in the world who undergo so much as this body
guard; and during the time I was in the service of Frederic, I often
had not eight hours' sleep in eight days. Exercise began at four in
the morning, and experiments were made of all the alterations the
King meant to introduce in his cavalry. Ditches of three, four,
five, six feet, and still wider, were leaped, till that someone
broke his neck; hedges, in like manner, were freed, and the horses
ran careers, meeting each other full speed in a kind of lists of
more than half a league in length. We had often, in these our
exercises, several men and horses killed or wounded.
It happened more frequently than otherwise that the same experiments
were repeated after dinner with fresh horses; and it was not
uncommon, at Potzdam, to hear the alarm sounded twice in a night.
The horses stood in the King's stables; and whoever had not dressed,
armed himself, saddled his horse, mounted, and appeared before the
palace in eight minutes, was put under arrest for fourteen days.
Scarcely were the eyes closed before the trumpet again sounded, to
accustom youth to vigilance. I lost, in one year, three horses,
which had either broken their legs, in leaping ditches, or died of
fatigue.
I cannot give a stronger picture of this service than by saying that
the body guard lost more men and horses in one year's peace than
they did, during the following year, in two battles.
We had, at this time, three stations; our service, in the winter,
was at Berlin, where we attended the opera, and all public
festivals: in the spring we were exercised at Charlottenberg; and
at Potzdam, or wherever the King went, during the summer. The six
officers of the guard dined with the King, and, on gala days, with
the Queen. It may be presumed there was not at that time on earth a
better school to form an officer and a man of the world than was the
court of Berlin.
I had scarcely been six weeks a cadet before the King took me aside,
one day, after the parade, and having examined me near half an hour,
on various subjects, commanded me to come and speak to him on the
morrow.
His intention was to find whether the accounts that had been given
him of my memory had not been exaggerated; and that he might be
convinced, he first gave me the names of fifty soldiers to learn by
rote, which I did in five minutes. He next repeated the subjects of
two letters, which I immediately composed in French and Latin; the
one I wrote, the other I dictated. He afterwards ordered me to
trace, with promptitude, a landscape from nature, which I executed
with equal success; and he then gave me a cornet's commission in his
body guards.
Each mark of bounty from the monarch increased an ardour already
great, inspired me with gratitude, and the first of my wishes was to
devote my whole life to the service of my King and country. He
spoke to me as a Sovereign should speak, like a father, like one who
knew well how to estimate the gifts bestowed on me by nature; and
perceiving, or rather feeling, how much he might expect from me,
became at once my instructor and my friend.
Thus did I remain a cadet only six weeks, and few Prussians can
vaunt, under the reign of Frederic, of equal good fortune.
The King not only presented me with a commission, but equipped me
splendidly for the service. Thus did I suddenly find myself a
courtier, and an officer in the finest, bravest, and best
disciplined corps in Europe. My good fortune seemed unlimited,
when, in the month of August, 1743, the King selected me to go and
instruct the Silesian cavalry in the new manoeuvres: an honour
never before granted to a youth of eighteen.
I have already said we were garrisoned at Berlin during winter,
where the officers' table was at court: and, as my reputation had
preceded me, no person whatever could be better received there, or
live more pleasantly.
Frederic commanded me to visit the literati, whom he had invited to
his court: Maupertuis, Jordan, La Mettrie, and Pollnitz, were all
my acquaintance. My days were employed in the duties of an officer,
and my nights in acquiring knowledge. Pollnitz was my guide, and
the friend of my heart. My happiness was well worthy of being
envied. In 1743, I was five feet eleven inches in height, and
Nature had endowed me with every requisite to please. I lived, as I
vainly imagined, without inciting enmity or malice, and my mind was
wholly occupied by the desire of earning well-founded fame.
I had hitherto remained ignorant of love, and had been terrified
from illicit commerce by beholding the dreadful objects of the
hospital at Potzdam. During the winter of 1743, the nuptials of his
Majesty's sister were celebrated, who was married to the King of
Sweden, where she is at present Queen Dowager, mother of the
reigning Gustavus. I, as officer of my corps, had the honour to
mount guard and escort her as far as Stettin. Here first did my
heart feel a passion of which, in the course of my history, I shall
have frequent occasion to speak. The object of my love was one whom
I can only remember at present with reverence; and, as I write not
romance, but facts, I shall here briefly say, ours were mutually the
first-fruits of affection, and that to this hour I regret no
misfortune, no misery, with which, from a stock so noble, my destiny
was overshadowed.
Amid the tumult inseparable to occasions like these, on which it was
my duty to maintain order, a thief had the address to steal my
watch, and cut away part of the gold fringe which hung from the
waistcoat of my uniform, and afterwards to escape unperceived. This
accident brought on me the raillery of my comrades; and the lady
alluded to thence took occasion to console me, by saying it should
be her care that I should be no loser. Her words were accompanied
by a look I could not misunderstand, and a few days after I thought
myself the happiest of mortals. The name, however, of this high-
born lady is a secret, which must descend with me to the grave; and,
though my silence concerning this incident heaves a void in my life,
and indeed throws obscurity over a part of it, which might else be
clear, I would much rather incur this reproach than become
ungrateful towards my best friend and benefactress. To her
conversation, to her prudence, to the power by which she fixed my
affections wholly on herself, am I indebted for the improvement and
polishing of my bodily and mental qualities. She never despised,
betrayed, or abandoned me, even in the deepest of my distress; and
my children alone, on my death-bed, shall be taught the name of her
to whom they owe the preservation of their father, and consequently
their own existence.
I lived at this time perfectly happy at Berlin, and highly esteemed.
The King took every opportunity to testify his approbation; my
mistress supplied me with more money than I could expend; and I was
presently the best equipped, and made the greatest figure, of any
officer in the whole corps. The style in which I lived was
remarked, for I had only received from my father's heritage the
estate of Great Scharlach; the rent of which was eight hundred
dollars a year, which was far from sufficient to supply my then
expenses. My amour, in the meantime, remained a secret from my best
and most intimate friends. Twice was my absence from Potzdam and
Charlottenberg discovered, and I was put under arrest; but the King
seemed satisfied with the excuse I made, under the pretext of having
been hunting, and smiled as he granted my pardon.
Never did the days of youth glide away with more apparent success
and pleasure than during these my first years at Berlin. This good
fortune was, alas, of short duration. Many are the incidents I
might relate, but which I shall omit. My other adventures are
sufficiently numerous, without mingling such as may any way seem
foreign to the subject. In this gloomy history of my life, I wish
to paint myself such as I am; and, by the recital of my sufferings,
afford a memorable example to the world, and interest the heart of
sensibility. I would also show how my fatal destiny has deprived my
children of an immense fortune; and, though I want a hundred
thousand men to enforce and ensure my rights, I will leave
demonstration to my heirs that they are incontestable.
CHAPTER II.
In the beginning of September, 1744, war again broke out between the
Houses of Austria and Prussia. We marched with all speed towards
Prague, traversing Saxony without opposition. I will not relate in
this place what the great Frederic said to us, with evident emotion,
when surrounded by all his officers, on the morning of our departure
from Potzdam.
Should any one be desirous of writing the lives of him and his
opponent, Maria Theresa, without flattery and without fear, let him
apply to me, and I will relate anecdotes most surprising on this
subject, unknown to all but myself, and which never must appear
under my own name.
All monarchs going to war have reason on their side; and the
churches of both parties resound with prayers, and appeals to Divine
Justice, for the success of their arms. Frederic, on this occasion,
had recourse to them with regret, of which I was a witness.
If I am not mistaken, the King's army came before Prague on the 14th
of September, and that of General Schwerin, which had passed through
Silesia, arrived the next day on the other side of the Moldau. In
this position we were obliged to wait some days for pontoons,
without which we could not establish a communication between the two
armies.
The height called Zischka, which overlooks the city, being guarded
only by a few Croats, was instantly seized, without opposition, by
some grenadiers, and the batteries, erected at the foot of that
mountain, being ready on the fifth day, played with such success on
the old town with bombs and red-hot balls that it was set on fire.
The King made every effort to take the city before Prince Charles
could bring his army from the Rhine to its relief.
General Harsh thought proper to capitulate, after a siege of twelve
days, during which not more than five hundred men of the garrison,
at the utmost, were killed and wounded, though eighteen thousand men
were made prisoners.
Thus far we had met with no impediment. The Imperial army, however,
under the command of Prince Charles of Lorraine, having quitted the
banks of the Rhine, was advancing to save Bohemia.
During this campaign we saw the enemy only at a distance; but the
Austrian light troops being thrice as numerous as ours, prevented us
from all foraging. Winter was approaching, dearth and hunger made
Frederic determine to retreat, without the least hope from the
countries in our rear, which we had entirely laid waste as we had
advanced. The severity of the season, in the month of November,
rendered the soldiers excessively impatient of their hardships; and,
accustomed to conquer, the Prussians were ashamed of and repined at
retreat: the enemy's light troops facilitated desertion, and we
lost, in a few weeks, above thirty thousand men. The pandours of my
kinsman, the Austrian Trenck, were incessantly at our heels, gave us
frequent alarms, did us great injury, and, by their alertness, we
never could make any impression upon them with our cannon. Trenck
at length passed the Elbe, and went and burnt and destroyed our
magazines at Pardubitz: it was therefore resolved wholly to
evacuate Bohemia.
The King hoped to have brought Prince Charles to the battle between
Benneschan and Kannupitz, but in vain: the Saxons, during the
night, had entered a battery of three-and-twenty cannon on a mound
which separated two ponds: this was the precise road by which the
King meant to make the attack.
Thus were we obliged to abandon Bohemia. The dearth, both for man
and horse, began to grow extreme. The weather was bad; the roads
and ruts were deep; marches were continual, and alarms and attacks
from the enemy's light troops became incessant. The discontent all
these inspired was universal, and this occasioned the great loss of
the army.
Under such circumstances, had Prince Charles continued to harass us,
by persuading us into Silesia, had he made a winter campaign,
instead of remaining indolently at ease in Bohemia, we certainly
should not have vanquished him, the year following, at Strigau; but
he only followed at a distance, as far as the Bohemian frontiers.
This gave Frederic time to recover, and the more effectually because
the Austrians had the imprudence to permit the return of deserters.
This was a repetition of what had happened to Charles XII. when he
suffered his Russian prisoners to return home, who afterwards so
effectually punished his contempt of them at the battle of Pultawa.
Prague was obliged to be abandoned, with considerable loss; and
Trenck seized on Tabor, Budweis, and Frauenberg, where he took
prisoners the regiments of Walrabe Kreutz.
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