The Life and Adventures of Baron Trenck, vol 1 | Page 3

Defect.
DISTRIBUTION UNDER "PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm"

You may distribute copies of this etext electronically, or by disk, book
or any other medium if you either delete this "Small Print!" and all
other references to Project Gutenberg, or:
[1] Only give exact copies of it. Among other things, this requires that
you do not remove, alter or modify the etext or this "small print!"
statement. You may however, if you wish, distribute this etext in
machine readable binary, compressed, mark-up, or proprietary form,
including any form resulting from conversion by word pro- cessing or
hypertext software, but only so long as *EITHER*:
[*] The etext, when displayed, is clearly readable, and does *not*
contain characters other than those intended by the author of the work,
although tilde (~), asterisk (*) and underline (_) characters may be used
to convey punctuation intended by the author, and additional characters
may be used to indicate hypertext links; OR
[*] The etext may be readily converted by the reader at no expense into
plain ASCII, EBCDIC or equivalent form by the program that displays
the etext (as is the case, for instance, with most word processors); OR
[*] You provide, or agree to also provide on request at no additional
cost, fee or expense, a copy of the etext in its original plain ASCII form
(or in EBCDIC or other equivalent proprietary form).
[2] Honor the etext refund and replacement provisions of this "Small
Print!" statement.
[3] Pay a trademark license fee to the Project of 20% of the net profits
you derive calculated using the method you already use to calculate
your applicable taxes. If you don't derive profits, no royalty is due.
Royalties are payable to "Project Gutenberg
Association/Carnegie-Mellon University" within the 60 days following
each date you prepare (or were legally required to prepare) your annual
(or equivalent periodic) tax return.
WHAT IF YOU *WANT* TO SEND MONEY EVEN IF YOU
DON'T HAVE TO?

The Project gratefully accepts contributions in money, time, scanning
machines, OCR software, public domain etexts, royalty free copyright
licenses, and every other sort of contribution you can think of. Money
should be paid to "Project Gutenberg Association / Carnegie-Mellon
University".
We are planning on making some changes in our donation structure in
2000, so you might want to email me, [email protected] beforehand.

*END THE SMALL PRINT! FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN
ETEXTS*Ver.04.29.93*END*

This etext was scanned by David Price, email [email protected]
from the 1892 Cassell & Co. edition. Proofing was by Bridie, Rab
Hughes and Roland Chapman.

LIFE AND ADVENTURE OF BARON TRENCK - VOLUME 1

TRANSLATED BY THOMAS HOLCROFT

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