The life of Baron Frederick Trenck; containing his adventures, and also his excessive sufferings during ten years imprisonment at the fortress of Magdeburgh

Introduction

Among all the heroes of imprisonment over whom the most of us have sighed in our childhood, none have made a deeper impression than the subject of this work. Besides his own memoirs, which we now present in a new form, several biographers, at different times, have found sufficient additional particulars of his eventful life from which to form several large volumes. The latest of these is Maj. Whittingham, who, in his Personal Recollections of a Ten Months^ Residence in Berlin, published in 1849, says:

" Whilst a handsome young officer, he attracted the regards and won the affections of Frederick's youngest and favorite sister, the Princess Amelia, who was as much distinguished by her beauty and wit as by her exalted rank. Alas, she was also a philosopher like her brother. Her affections, therefore, had their full play in the absence of all religious restraint.

" Oh! that ever fresh from below

The course of youthful love might flow."

" But Shakspeare has said that that course * never did run smooth,' and the present case was no exception to the illustrious rule. The Great Frederick decidedly objected to his sister becoming Mrs. Trenck. He, at the same time, wished to avoid all scandal, and to combine these objects no time was to be lost. He therefore gave Trenck, who was his own aid-de-camp, strong hints to mind and mend his conduct. His hints were thrown away. Who that has been young himself can wonder at the young lieutenant's blindness and obstinacy? It is not every day 2

6 Introduction.

that a beautiful, witty and accomplished princess sacrifices every thing for the love of a simple gentleman. And was the favored object to risk nothing in return? The secret interviews continued, but were, in fact, no secret to the penetrating eye of an allpowerful king. Arrests for pretended military crimes were the next measures adopted to warn the lover and to protect the lady in spite of herself. But Trenck was no sooner freed from these restraints than he again flew for consolation to the arms of his illustrious mistress. A longer incarceration was next decreed. From this, however, Trenck made his escape, and fled to a town beyond the Prussian dominions. Therein his indignation against W'hat he styled Frederick's tyranny, he soon forgot what he owed to one who had sacrificed for him every thing that the world holds dear. In his blind anger he irreparably injured his royal mistress.

He

' Robbed her of that which not enriched him, And left her poor indeed.'

He had the audacity to display at a large dinner party the portrait of the Princess Amelia. Frederick could, therefore, no longer pretend ignorance of her conduct, nor endeavor to provide her with a suitable husband. Nothing but vengeance remained; and for this the imprudence of Trenck soon furnished the enraged monarch with an opportunity which he did not neglect. The rest is told by Trenck himself, who as regards the Princess Amelia, endeavors to atone by his silence in his book for his verbal garrulity. But it was too late; he had betrayed the secret; and his subsequently affected reserve was a work of supererogation.

" After the death of Frederick, and in the closing winter of their lives, the unhappy lovers again met; he a broken down old man, she an unusually plain old woman; for in her deep despair she had, while still young, purposely destroyed her beauty. The interview between them — they who had parted so young, so beautiful, so devoted to each other — must have been strange and affecting. She had always remained faithful to her absent or imprisoned lover; and this fact throws a redeeming grace over the weakness of her youth, and gives an additional interest to her misfortunes. Frederick, who respected his sister's abilities, M^as up to the period of his death kinder and more attentive to her than to any other member of his family. She, on the other hand, probably aware that he, after his own fashion, had acted all along for her advantage, returned his affection, and in her life of sorrow she appeared to have no other consolation than the fraternal kindness of one of the most cold-hearted beinafs who ever

Introduction, existed. A more melancholy history is scarcely to be found even in the immortal fiction of ofenius."

We are not aware that the elaborate German and French biographies of Trenck have been translated, but the sim{)le narrative of his own life which follows, is, as far as it goes, a faithful portraiture of his imprudence and obstinacy. Possessed of a remarkably fine person, a bodily strength almost Heiculean, a good deal of talent, but a hot temper, his life was little else than a series of dangers without motive, and misfortunes scarcely deserving compassion.

He distinguished himself very early by his precocity; in his thirteenth year he was entered as a student of law and belleslettres at the university of his native place, and passed the usual examination with great distinction. One year later, he fought a duel with one of the most celebrated swordsmen of Konigsberg, whom he wounded and disarmed. In his sixteenth year, his kinsman, who was an officer in the Prussian service, took him to Berlin, where his birth and advantages of person recomujended him to the king, Frederick the Great, who had a passion for "tall fellows,"' immediately appointed him cadet, and soon afterwards, having himself upon one occasion been surprised at the young man's talents, he promoted him to a cornetcy in his body guard, at that time considered the most splendid and gallant regiment in Europe. The king's favor and his own amiable manners procured him many friends at court, but at the same time excited envy and malice. Scarcely less eager of literary than martial renown, the young king was then striving to render Berlin one of the capitals of learning and science, by attracting men of that character to his court, and heaping honors upon them.

Trenck became, through the favor which he enjoyed, the acquaintance and the friend of Frederick's philosophers, Voltaire, Maupertius, and others, whose familiarity was little calculated to abate his native presumption. The distinction which he enjoyed presently blinded him to the imprudent point of aspiring to please the young princess Amelia, the pretty and indiscreet sister of that foolish Margravine of Barenth, whose absurd memoirs give us an account so curious of that old brute, the elder Frederick, and his doings; how he starved his children, beat the officers of his palace, and, to solace their starvation, banged his queen and progeny. One would not think this just the education to make princesses romantic; yet Amelia must either, in the ignorance in which she was kept, have read, what serves so admirably to deepen the ignorance of young ladies, novels, or the learned company her brother afterwards kept, infected her with liberalism,

8 Introduction.

and she encouraged Trenck until the silly catastrophe, told by Major Whittingham, was brought about.

The foundation of his cruel fate is said to have been laid at a ball given at the royal castle at Stettin, in celebration of the marriage of the king's eldest sister to the king of Sweden. It was here that the princess Amelia is said to have noticed him, to have invited him to see her at her private apartments, and to have cherished a violent passion for him ever afterwards. In an unguarded moment he is said to have boasted of the favors shown him by his royal mistress. This was reported to the king, who, although he did not think proper to punish his indiscretion, took a decided dislike to him, and watched every opportunity of visiting him most severely for trifling faults in military discipline. This story, embellished with many romantic incidents, originates principally with French writers, who in many instances contradict themselves as to dates and other matters. That an imprudent attachment between Trenck and the princess existed, can not be doubted; but that Frederick, violent and passionate as he was, in all his private concerns, should have pretended blindness in so important a matter, and should have continued to bestow favors upon a man who had dishonored his sister's name, is difficult to credit.

It would be supererogatory to attempt to forestall the narrative by a recapitulation of the principal events in the life of Trenck; it is only proposed to present a brief outline of what seems to have been settled upon by subsequent writers of his eventful history, tending to give a more intelligent understanding of his own account of himself.

During the war between Prussia and Austria he was placed on the king's staff, and distinguished himself on several occasions, particularly when his cousin, Franz Trenck, attempted to take the king prisoner by surprise at Collin. A short time afterwards his cousin addressed him a letter, returning him some of his horses, which had been captured in a foraging expedition. This circumstance he mentioned in presence of Col. Jachinsky, who owed him a considerable sum of money, and who at Berlin was known to be his secret enemy. This man artfully persuaded him to a correspondence with his cousin in the Austrian service, he himself undertaking to forward the letters by means of his mistress, the wife of the Saxon resident, Madame de Bossart. Several letters passed in this way open, through Jachinsky's hands, until he got one in w^hich some highly imprudent expressions were found, which he immediately caused to be laid before the king. The result was that Trenck was immediately cashiered and sent prisoner to the fortification of Glatz; not by a formal sentence,

Introduction.

but by an order from the king, who expressed his intention at the time to keep him there for one year; evidence enough, it would seem, that he only meant to punish his correspondence with the enemy, and no other or greater crime. At first he was treated according to his rank, and with all possible indulgence; but when it was discovered that he had several times, by bribes, attempted and nearly effected his escape, he was placed in close confinement. On the 24th December, 1746, he nevertheless succeeded in making his escape, by the assistance of and together with Major Schell. With great fatigue and danger he reached his mother's residence in Brandenburgh, whence he proceeded to Vienna, amply furnished with money. A strict investigation was ordered by the king, for the purpose of finding out how he had effected his escape; the result of which was the discovery that large sums had been remitted to him by the princess Amelia. It is highly probable that this was the first time that Frederick knew of his sister's attachment, and from this period must be dated his intense and obdurate hatred of Trenck. In the mean time Trenck had got into fresh troubles at Vienna, which he himself principally attributes to the intrigues of his cousin Franz, notwithstanding he was in prison at the time on a criminal charge.

He left Vienna in disgust, went to Russia, where, through the recommendation of the English ambassador (to whom Frederick himself had introduced him at Berlin, under the flattering title of Metador ma jeunesse), he was well received, and appointed captain of a troop of hussars. Here he might have lived peaceably and content, being in high favor with the empress, and having acquired considerable wealth through a legacy of a Russian princess; but the Prussian ambassador. Count Goctz, left nothing undone to injure him, pretending that he acted thus in accordance with instructions from the king his master.

His cousin at Vienna, who died in 1749, had made him his heir. Upon this he determined to leave Russia; and after having visited Sweden, Denmark and Holland, he returned to Vienna to take possession of his inheritance. Fresh difficulties awaited him there. His cousin's estates were under sequestration, and after vexatious and expensive suits he agreed to a compromise, by which he received 75,000 florins and the appointment of a captaincy in a regiment of hussars.

In 1758 he had the folly to go to Dantzic,in order to settle there, with his family, the patrimony left by his mother, lately dead. Philosopher Frederick, besides being one of the least forgiving of mankind, was in the habit of keeping his eyes open, and had by no means lost sight of his fugitive ex-favorite. Trenck re-

10 Introduction.

ceived some hints of bis impending danger, and v.'as on the point of embarking for Sweden, when he was seized by a party of hussars, and taken to Berlin. He was at first treated well, but his intemperate language hurried on his fate, and he was sent to JVlagdeburg to cultivate an acquaintance with mice and spiders, which were to be his chief society for many a year.

His sufferings, and his bold, desperate and almost successful attempts to escape, may be read in his own memoirs. The king had determined that he should never be set free while he lived, and after two soldiers had suffered death for conniving at his attempts to regain his liberty, and several other plots had been discovered, a prison was at last built on purpose for him, in which he was chained to the walls with fetters of sixty-seven pounds weight. Here he remained four years, when the intercession of his relatives, and those of Amelia too, it is presumed, succeeded in softening Frederick's obduraracy, and on the 24th of December, 1763 (some authorities say 1774), he was released upon condition of leaving the king-dom.

He seems next to have fixed himself at Aix-la-Chapelle, where he married the daughter of one of the burgomasters. This might seem incongruous; but if one levels up to princesses, why not down to a burgomaster's daughter? It was here, probably, that he wrote the story of his captivity. Indeed he dabbled in several things beside biography, for he had soothed in part his confinement by writing verses — a vice which once contracted is seldom wholly recovered from; dabbled in politics; published a satire against Frederick under the title of The Macedonian Hero; entered into the wine trade, and set up for a newspaper writer. This pleasant diversity of occupations ended, rather naturally, in a sort of bankruptcy. After this new misfortune, he wrote articles of rather a democratic tendency for several periodicals. He also obtained from the kindness of Maria Theresa some diplomatic employment and a pension for his wife. At the death of the empress he retired to his castle at Zwarback, in Hungary, where he occupied himself for some six years in agricultural pursuits. In 1787, after the death of Frederick the Great, he published his memoirs, for the copy right of which he received a very large sum. From that time he became a distinguished man in the world. His book was translated into almost all European languages; the ladies at Paris, Berlin and Vienna wore rings, necklaces, bonnets and gowns, a la Trenck, and not less than seven different theatrical pieces, in which he was the hero, were brought out on the French stage.

In the following year, after an exile of forty years, he was allowed to revisit Prussia, and once more to see his ancient in-

Inlroductioih. H amorata. Time and suffering had in the mean time made Amelia wise. It is singular indeed, what opposite effects may flow from the same cause; reading the romances in which other folks are actors, makes one sillier and sillier; but acting a tragic novel of our own makes us sadly wise. Not even that, however, can make every body wise; Trenck himself must have still been as light-brained as ever; whence the inference is fair that he had suffered comparatively little, and that his love of the princess was no affair of the heart. At any event, incorrigible by either duels, or philosophy or dungeons, or wine-selling, or farming, or getting broke, or even turning newspaper editor (which more than any thing else, cures one's illusions), Trenck next, at above the age of sixty, took a fancy, it was to be his last, for a revolution.

Although he was kindly received at Berlin, by the successor of the great Frederick, it seems that he was disappointed in his expectations; for he returned to Aix-la-Chapelle, where he commenced the publication of a weekly paper called UAmi des Homines (the friend of men), in which he proclaims himself a friend of the new French doctrines. The first consequence of his publication was a loss of the pension which the empress had given to his burgo-baroness. Next came a renewal of his old diversion of going to prison. This time, however, he had not to deal with philosophic kings; so he was soon let out. Satiated, no doubt, of chains, he now resolved to go and take his fill of emancipation; he made his way in 1791 to Paris. Here, as one who had been so much a victim of despotism, he was received with delight. For his own part, being above any feeling of jealousy toward any rival reputation, he appears to have sought and contracted a very particular intimacy with Latude, the man who had been thirty-five years a prisoner in the Bastile. He joined a Jacobin club, and was afterwards a zealous adherent of the Mountain party; but in 1793, on his offering to lead against the Prussian refugees and republicans, he was suspected of being a Prussian spy. No doubt he would have been equally suspected if his conduct had been just the opposite. He was thrown into his old mansion, a prison; but there being no proof found of his being a spy, they accused him of entering into some plot in his dungeon, and brought him to the guillotine on the 25lh of July, 1794. Yet on the scaffold, and in his sixty-eighth year, he gave proofs of his ungovernable passions. He harrangued the surrounding multitude, and when his head was on the block, he once more attempted to give utterance to his vehemence, and the executioner had to hold him by his silver locks to meet the fatal i/ stroke. He was still as strong, it is said, and as fresh as a man of thirty.

THE LIFE

BARON FREDERICK TRENCK.

I was born in Konigsberg, in Prussia, February 16, 1726, of one of the most ancient families of the country. My father, a knight of the military order, lord of Great Sharlack, Shackulack and Meicken, and major-general of cavalry, died in 1740, after having received eighteen wounds in the Prussian service. My mother, descended from the house of Derschau, was daughter of the president of the high court at Konigsberg. She had two brothers, generals of infantry, and a third, minister of state and postmaster-general at Berlin. After my father's death in 1740, she married count Lostonge, lieutenant-colonel in the Kiow regiment of cuirassiers, WMth whom, leaving Prussia, 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 also a cornet in this last named regiment of Kiow, and my sister was married to the only son of the aged general Valdow, who quitted the service, and with whom she lived in Brandenburgh on his estates.

My ancestors, both of the male and female line, are famous in the chronicles of the north, among the ancient Teutonic knights, who conquered Courland, Prussia and Livonia.

While a boy, I was enterprising in all the tricks of boys, and exercised my wit in crafty excuses; the warmth of my passions, then and afterwards, 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 hasty and false judgment. I kept no vicious company; was never, during the whole course of my life, intoxicated; was no gamester, no consumer of time in idleness nor brutal pleasures; but devoted many hundred laborious nights to make myself useful to my country; yet I was punished with a severity too cruel even for the most worthless or most villainous.

I shall say little more of the first years of my life, except that my father, who had a tender affection for me, took special care of my education; sent meat the age of thirteen to the university at Konigsberg, where, under the tuition of Kowalosky, my progress was rapid. There were fourteen other noblemen of the best families in the same house, and under the same master.

In November, 1742, the king sent his adjutant general, Baron Lotum, who was related to my mother, to Konigsberg, with whom I dined at my grandfather's. He conversed much with me, and after various questions, meant to discover what my talents and inclinations were, he demanded, as if in a joke, whether I had any inclination to go- with him to Berlin, and serve my country, as my ancestors had ever done. Inflamed with the desire of distinguishing myself, I listened with rapture to the proposition, and in a few days departed for Potsdam.

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 put, my height, figure and confidence, pleased him, and I soon obtained permission to enter as a cadet in his guards, with promise of quick preferment.

The body guard formed, at this time, a model and school for the Prussian cavalry. It consisted of one single squadron, of men selected from the w^hole army, whose uniform w^as 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.

Life of Baron Trcnck. 16

There are no soldieis in the world N\ho undergo so much as this body guard; for during the time I wtis in the service of Frederick, I often had not eight hours sleep in eight days. , Exercise began at four in the morning, and expeiiments were i made of all the alterations the king meifnt to introduce in his { cavalry. Ditches of four, five, six feet, and still wider, were leaped, till that some one broke his neck; hedges in like manner , . . ^ were freed, and his horses ran careers, meeting each other full in 1 \^ a kind of lists of more than half a league in length. We had often, in these our exercises, several men or horses killed or wounded.

I can not give a stronger picture of this service, than by saying that the body guard lost more men and hoises in one year's peace, than during the following year they did in two battles.

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 account that had been given him of my memory had not been exaggerated; and that he might be convinced, he 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 dictated. He next ordered me to trace, with promptitude, a landscape trora nature, which I executed with equal success; and he then gave me a cornet's commission in his body guards.

Thus did I remain a cadet only six weeks, and few Prussians can vaunt, under the reign of Frederick, of equal good fortune.

The king not only presented me with a commission, but equipped me most splendidly for the service. Thus did I suddenly find myself a courtier, and an officer in the finest, bravest and best taught 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:

'a an honor never before granted to a youth of eighteen.

I have already said we were garrisoned at Berlin during llie winter, where the officer 's table was at courtj and, as my reputation had preceded me, no person whatever could be better received there, or live more pleasantly.

I had hitherto remained ignorant of love, and had been terrified from illicit commerce, by beholding the dreadful objects at the hospital at Potsdam. During the winter of 1743, the nuptials of his majesty's sister were held, 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 honor to mount guard and escort her as far as Stettin. Here did my heart first 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 WTite not romance, but facts, I shall briefly say, ours was 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 Avas interwoven. 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 a part of the gold fringe which hung from the waistcoat of my uniform, and escaped unperceived. This accident brought on me the raillery of my comrades; and the lady alluded to thence took occasion to console me, by saying I should be no loser. Her words were accompanied by a look I could not misunderstand, and a few days afterwards 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 ray silence concerning this incident leaves 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 riveted my affections wholly to 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 deathbed, shall be taught the name of her to whom they ow'e the preservation of their father and, consequently, their own existence.

I lived at this time, perfectly happy at Berlin, and highly esteemed. The king testified his approbation at every opportunity; 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 Scharlack; the rent of which was only 800 dollars a year, which was far from sufficient to supply my theK expenses. My amour, in the mean time, remained a secret from the best and most intimate friends. Twice was ray absence from Potzdam and Charlottenberg discovered, and I was put under arrest; but the king seemed satisfied with the excuses I made, under the pretext of having been hunting, and smiled as he granted my pardon.

Never did the days of youth glide with more apparent success and pleasure, than during these my first year at Berlin. This good fortune was, alas ! of short duration. Many are the incidents I might relate, but these I shall omit. My other adventures are numerous enough, without mingling such as may any way seem foreign to the subject. In this gloomy history of my life, I would paint myself to the world as I am, and by the recital of my sufferings afford a memorable example, 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 an hundred thousand men to enforce and ensure my rights, I will still show my heirs they are incontestible.

In the beginning of September, 1744, war again broke out between the houses of Austria and Prussia. We marched with all expedition towards Prague, traversing Saxony without opposition. I will not relate, in this place, what the great Frederick 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.

Here I must recount an event that happened, which became the souice of all my misfortunes. I must entreat my readers to pay the utmost attention to this, since the error, if innocence can be error, was the cause that the most faithful and the best of subjects became bewildered in scenes of wretchedness, and was the victim of misery, from his 19th to the 60th year of his age. I dare presume, this true narrative, supported by testimonies the most authentic, may fully vindicate my present honor, and my future memory.