The Life and Adventures of Baron Trenck, Volume 1

After having defrayed the expenses of travelling for me and my friend Schell, for whose remarkable history I will endeavour to find a few pages in due course, I divided the thre...

Could I have read the book of fate, and have seen the forty years' fearful afflictions that were to follow, I certainly should not have rejoiced at this my escape from Glatz. On...

And herewith ended my pleadings and my hopes. I had sacrificed my property, laboured through sixty-three inferior suits, and lost this great cause without a trial. I could have...

A maidservant came to the door, whom I knew; her name was Mary, and she had been born and brought up in my father's house. She was terrified at seeing a sturdy fellow in a begga...

Since accounts so various, contradictory, and dishonourable to the name of Trenck, have been circulated in Vienna, concerning facts which happened thirty-seven years ago, I will...

Scarcely had I been six weeks in this city before I had an adventure which I shall here relate; for, myself excepted, all the persons concerned in it are now dead. Intrigues pro...

Arrived here, I was lodged over the grand guardhouse, with two sentinels in my chamber, and one at the door. The King was at Potzdam, and here I remained three days; on the thir...

A few days after the battle of Sorau, the usual camp postman brought me a letter from my cousin Trenck, the colonel of pandours, antedated at Effek four months, of which the fol...

It was about the middle of December when we came to Berlin, where I was received with open arms. I became less cautious than formerly, and, perhaps, more narrowly observed. A li...

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,...

How little did the Great Frederic know my heart. Without having offended, he had rendered me miserable, had condemned me to imprisonment at Glatz on mere suspicion, and on my fl...

I was now first informed that the King had only condemned me to a year's imprisonment, in order to learn whether his suspicions were well founded. My mother had petitioned for m...

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 oppositio...

The sun had just set as we took to flight; the hoar frost fell. No one would run the risk that we had done, by making so dangerous a leap. We heard a terrible noise behind us. E...

And now behold me at sea, on my voyage to Riga. I had eaten heartily before I went on board; a storm came on; I worked half the night, to aid the crew, but at length became sea-...