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The Life and Adventures of Baron Trenck, Volume 1 By: Friedrich Trenck (1726-1794) |
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Transcribed from the 1892 Cassell & Co. edition by David Price, email
ccx074@pglaf.org, proofed by Bridie, Rab Hughes and Roland Chapman. THE
LIFE AND ADVENTURES
OF
BARON TRENCK
TRANSLATED BY
THOMAS HOLCROFT. VOL. I. CASSELL & COMPANY, LIMITED:
LONDON , PARIS & MELBOURNE .
1892.
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.
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... Continue reading book >>
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Adventure |
Biography |
History |
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