The respectable Field-marshal Konigseck, governor of Vienna, was appointed president; but, being an old man, he was unable to preside at any one sitting of the court. Count S- was the vice-president, a subtle, insatiable judge, who never thought he had money enough. Itook 3,000 ducats, which Baron Lopresti gave me, to this most worthy counsellor. The two counsellors, Komerkansquy and Zetto, each received 4,000 rix-dollars, with a promise of double the sum if Trenck were acquitted; there was a formal contract drawn up, which a certain noble lord secretly signed. Trenck was defended by the advocate Gerhauer and by Berger. They began with the self-created daughter of Marshal Schwerin; and, to conceal the iniquitous proceedings of the late court-martial, it was thought proper that she should appear insane, and return incoherent answers to the questions put by the examiners. Trenck insisted that a more severe inquiry should be instituted; but they affirmed that she had been conducted out of the Austrian territories.
Trenck was accused of having ordered a certain pandour, named Paul Diack, to suffer the bastinado of 1,000 blows, and that he had died under the punishment. This was sworn to by two officers, now great men in the army, who said they were eye-witnesses of the fact. When the revision of the suit began, Trenck sent me into Sclavonia, where I found the dead Paul Diack alive, and brought him to Vienna. He was examined by the court, where it appeared that the two officers, who had sworn they were present when he expired, and had seen him buried, were at that time 160 miles from the regiment, and recruiting in Sclavonia. Paul Diack had engaged in plots, and had mutinied three times. Trenck had pardoned him, but afterwards mutinying once more, with forty others, he was condemned to death.
At the place of execution he called to his colonel: "Father, if Ireceive a thousand blows, will you pardon me?" Trenck replied in the affirmative. He received the punishment, was taken to the hospital, and cured.
I brought fourteen more witnesses from Sclavonia, who attested the falsity of other articles of accusation which were not worthy of attention. The cause wore a new aspect; and the wickedness of those who were so desirous to have seen Trenck executed became apparent.
One of the chief articles in the prosecution, which for ever deprived him of favour from his virtuous and apostolic mistress, and for which alone he was condemned to the Spielberg, was, that he had ravished the daughter of a miller in Silesia. This was made oath of, and he was not entirely cleared of the charge in the revision, because his accusers had excluded all means of justification. Two years after his death, I discovered the truth of this affair.
Mainstein accused him of this crime that he might prevent his return to the regiment; his motive was, because he, in conjunction with Frederici, had appropriated to their own purposes 8,000 florins of regimental money.
This miller's daughter was the mistress of Mainstein, before she had been seen by Trenck. Maria Theresa, however, would never forgive him; and, to satisfy the honour of this damsel, he was condemned to pay 8,000 florins to her, and 15,000 to the chest of the invalids, and to suffer perpetual imprisonment. Sixty-three civil suits had Ito defend, and all the appeals of his accusers to terminate after his death. I gained them all and his accusers were condemned in costs, also to refund the so much per day which had been paid them by General Loewenwalde; but they were all poor, and I might seek the money where I could. In justice, Loewenwalde ought to have reimbursed me. The total of the sum they received was 15,000florins.
Most of the other articles of accusation consisted in Trenck's having beheaded some mutinous pandours, and broken his officers without a court-martial; that he had bought of his soldiers, and melted down the holy vessels of the church, chalices, and rosaries;had bastinadoed some priests, had not heard mass every Sunday, and had dragged malefactors from convents, in which they had taken refuge. When the officers were no longer protected by Loewenwalde, or Weber, they decamped, but did not cease to labour to gain their purpose, which they attained by the aid of the Court-confessor.
This monk found means to render Maria Theresa insensible of pity towards a man who had been so prodigal of his blood in her defence.
Loewenwalde knew how to profit by the opportunity. Gerhauer discovered the secret proceedings; and Loewenwalde, now deeply interested in the ruin of Trenck, went to the Empress, related the manner in which the judges had been bribed, and threatened that should he, through the protection of the Emperor and Prince Charles, be declared innocent, he would publicly vindicate the honour of the court-martial.
Had my cousin followed my advice and plan of flight he would not have died in prison nor should I have lain in the dungeon of Magdeburg. With respect to individuals whom he robbed, innocent men whom he massacred, and many other worthy people whom he made miserable; with respect to his father, aged eighty-four, and his virtuous wife, whom he treated with barbarity; with respect to myself, to the duties of consanguinity and of man, he merited punishment, the pursuit of the avenging arm of justice, and to be extirpated from all human society.
EPILOGUE.
Thomas Carlyle's opinion of the author of this History is expressed in the following passages from his History of Friedrich II. of Prussia: "'Frederick Baron Trenck,' loud sounding phantasm, once famous in the world, now gone to the nurseries as mythical, was of this carnival (1742-3.) . . . A tall actuality in that time, swaggering about in sumptuous Life Guard uniform in his mess-rooms and assembly-rooms; much in love with himself, the fool! And Irather think, in spite of his dog insinuations, neither Princess had heard of him till twenty years hence, in a very different phasis of his life! The empty, noisy, quasi-tragic fellow; sounds throughout quasi-tragical, like an empty barrel; well-built, longing to be filled."--Book xiv., ch. 3.
