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. One year's patience might have appeased the irritated monarch, and, taking a retrospect of all that has passed, I now find it would have been a fortunate circumstance, had the good and faithful Schell and I never met, since he also fell into a train of misfortunes, which I shall hereafter relate, and from which he could never extricate himself, but by death. The sufferings which I have since undergone will be read with astonishment.
It is my consolation that both the laws of honour and nature justify the action. I may serve as an example of the fortitude with which danger ought to be encountered, and show monarchs that in Germany, as well as in Rome, there are men who refuse to crouch beneath the yoke of despotism, and that philosophy and resolution are stronger than even those lords of slaves, with all their threats, whips, tortures, and instruments of death.
In Prussia, where my sufferings might have made me supposed the worst of traitors, is my innocence universally acknowledged; and instead of contempt, there have I gained the love of the whole nation, which is the best compensation for all the ills I have suffered, and for having persevered in the virtuous principles taught me in my youth, persecuted as I have been by envy and malicious power. I have not time further to moralise; the numerous incidents of my life would otherwise swell this volume to too great an extent.
Thus in freedom at Braunau, on the Bohemian frontiers, I sent the two horses, with the corporal's sword, back to General Fouquet, at Glatz. The letter accompanying them was so pleasing to him that all the sentinels before my prison door, as well as the guard under arms, and all those we passed, were obliged to run the gauntlet, although the very day before he had himself declared my escape was now rendered impossible. He, however, was deceived; and thus do the mean revenge themselves on the miserable, and the tyrant on the innocent.
And now for the first time did I quit my country, and fly like Joseph from the pit into which his false brethren had cast him; and in this the present moment of joy for my escape, the loss even of friends and country appeared to me the excess of good fortune.
The estates which had been purchased by the blood of my forefathers were confiscated; and thus was a youth, of one of the noblest families in the land, whose heart was all zeal for the service of his King and country, and who was among those most capable to render them service, banished by his unjust and misled King, and treated like the worst of miscreants, malefactors, and traitors.
I wrote to the King, and sent him a true state of my case; sent indubitable proofs of my innocence, and supplicated justice, but received no answer.
In this the monarch may be justified, at least in my apprehension.
A wicked man had maliciously and falsely accused me; Colonel Jaschinsky had made him suspect me for a traitor, and it was impossible he should read my heart. The first act of injustice had been hastily committed; I had been condemned unheard, unjudged; and the injustice that had been done me was known too late; Frederic the Great found he was not infallible. Pardon I would not ask, for Ihad committed no offence; and the King would not probably own, by a reverse of conduct, he had been guilty of injustice. My resolution increased his obstinacy: but, in the discussion of the cause, our power was very unequal.
The monarch once really loved me; he meant my punishment should only be temporary, and as a trial of my fidelity. That I had been condemned to no more than a year's imprisonment had never been told me, and was a fact I did not learn till long after.
Major Doo, who, as I have said, was the creature of Fouquet, a mean and covetous man, knowing I had money, had always acted the part of a protector as he pretended to me, and continually told me I was condemned for life. He perpetually turned the conversation on the great credit of his general with the King, and his own great credit with the general. For the present of a horse, on which I rode to Glatz, he gave me freedom of walking about the fortress; and for another, worth a hundred ducats, I rescued Ensign Reitz from death, who had been betrayed when endeavouring to effect our escape. Ihave been assured that on that very day on which I snatched his sword from his side, desperately passed through the garrison, and leaped the walls of the rampart, he was expressly come to tell me, after some prefatory threats, that by his general's intercession, my punishment was only to be a year's imprisonment, and that consequently I should be released in a few days.
How vile were means like these to wrest money from the unfortunate!
The King, after this my mad flight, certainly was never informed of the major's base cunning; he could only be told that, rather than wait a few days, I had chosen, in this desperate manner, to make my escape, and go over to the enemy.
Thus deceived and strengthened in his suspicion, must he not imagine my desire to forsake my country, and desert to the enemy, was unbounded? How could he do otherwise than imprison a subject who thus endeavoured to injure him and aid his foes? Thus, by the calumnies of wicked men, did my cruel destiny daily become more severe; and at length render the deceived monarch irreconcilable and cruel.
Yet how could it be supposed that I would not willingly have remained three weeks longer in prison, to have been honourably restored to liberty, to have prevented the confiscation of my estate, and to have once more returned to my beloved mistress at Berlin.
And now was I in Bohemia, a fugitive stranger without money, protector, or friend, and only twenty years of age.
