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Updated: May 18, 2025
He spoke the truth, and drew up a statement of the case; it was presented to the Court, and which I shall here insert. "The complaints brought against him did not require a court-martial. Trenck had broken some officers by his own authority; their demands ought to be satisfied by the payment of 12,000 florins.
The Empress received him with distinction. He appeared on crutches; she, by her condescending speech, inflamed his zeal to extravagance. Who would have supposed that the favourite of the people would that year be abandoned to the power of his enemies; who had not rendered, during their whole lives, so much essential service to the state as Trenck had done in a single day?
They have heard of the "third degree," "the cooler," "the sweat-box," and "the bracelets," yet they have never seen the inside of a station-house; and their knowledge of jails, if they have any at all, is derived from reading in their childhood of the miraculous escapes of Baron Trenck or the Fall of the Bastille.
The mighty power of his great misfortunes won him friends. The soldiers who guarded him were seized with shuddering horror and pity at the sight of this sunken form, reminding them of the picture of the skeleton and the hour-glass which hung in the village church. Trenck knew how to profit by this.
The fourth day will dawn upon your weary eyes, and whisper in your ear that Trenck is free, and that it is you who have given him his freedom." "Yes, let us be gay, let us laugh, dance, and be merry," exclaimed Princess Amelia.
The soldiers were struck and touched with it their low murmurs of applause taught the commandant that he had committed a mistake in having so many witnesses to his conversation with the universally pitied and admired prisoner. "You will not name your accomplices?" said he. "No," said Trenck, "I will not betray my friends. And what good would it do you to know their names?
I demand of my officers that they shall be punctual in my service. More than once I have shown you consideration, and you seem to be incurable. I will now try the power of severity. Colonel Jaschinsky, Lieutenant Trenck is in arrest, till you hear further from me; take his sword from him, and transport him to Potsdam."
Soon after the departure of Bernes, the Prussian minister, taking me aside, in the house of the Palatine envoy, M. Becker, proposed my return to Berlin, assured me the King had forgotten all that was past, was convinced of my innocence, that my good fortune would there be certain, and be pledged his honour to recover the inheritance of Trenck.
"Go on: he recognized you, then?" "He knew me, and said laughingly, he had sent to take Frederick, King of Prussia, and not Frederick von Trenck, prisoner. I was free, I might go where I wished, and as I could not go on foot, he presented me with one of his best horses; and now I am here, will not your majesty do me the honor to mount this horse?"
"Will you deny that you wrote this letter?" cried the commandant, in a threatening voice. Trenck did not answer. His head was bowed upon his breast; he was gazing down in silence. "You will be forced to name your accomplices," cried the enraged commandant; "there is no palliation for a traitor, and if you do not name them at once, I shall subject you to the lash."
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