第11章 CHAPTER III.(4)

As suddenly were we in battle array; for in less than ten minutes we ourselves began the attack, notwithstanding the smallness of our number, the whole army only containing five regiments of cavalry.

We fell with such fury upon the enemy (who at this time were wholly employed in forming their men at the mouth of the defile, and that slowly, little expecting so sudden and violent a charge), that we drove them back into the defile, where they pressed upon each other in crowds; the King himself stood ready to unmask his eight field-pieces, and a dreadful and bloody slaughter ensued in this narrow place; from which the enemy had not the power to retreat. This single incident gained the battle, and deceived all time hopes of Prince Charles.

Nadasti, Trenck, and the light troops, sent to attack our rear, were employed in pillaging the camp. The ferocious Croats met no opposition, while this their error made our victory more secure. It deserves to be noticed that, when advice was brought to the King that the enemy had fallen upon and were plundering the camp, his answer was, "So much the better; they have found themselves employment, and will be no impediment to our main design."Our victory was complete, but all our baggage was lost; the headquarters, utterly undefended, were totally stripped; and Trenck had, for his part of the booty, the King's tent and his service of plate.

I have mentioned this circumstance here, because that, in the year 1740, my cousin Trenck, having fallen into the power of his enemies, who had instituted a legal, process against him, was accused, by some villanous wretches, of having surprised the King in bed at the battle of Sorau, and of having afterwards released him for a bribe.

What was still worse, they hired a common woman, a native of Brunn, who pretended she was the daughter of Marshal Schwerin, to give in evidence that she herself was with the King when Trenck entered his tent, whom he immediately made prisoner, and as immediately released.

To this part of the prosecution I myself, an eye-witness, can answer: the thing was false and impossible. He was informed of the intended attack. I accompanied the watchful King from midnight till four in the morning, which time he employed in riding through the camp, and making the necessary preparations to receive the enemy;and the action began at five. Trenck could not take the King in bed, for the battle was almost gained when he and his pandours entered the camp and plundered the head-quarters.

As for the tale of Miss Schwerin, it is only fit to be told by schoolboys, or examined by the Inquisition, and was very unworthy of making part of a legal prosecution against an innocent man at Vienna.

This incident, however, is so remarkable that I shall give in this work a farther account of my kinsman, and what was called his criminal process, at reading which the world will be astonished. My own history is so connected with his that this is necessary, and the more so because there are many ignorant or wicked people at Vienna, who believe, or affirm, Trenck had actually taken the King of Prussia prisoner.

Never yet was there a traitor of the name of Trenck; and I hope to prove, in the clearest manner, the Austrian Trenck as faithfully served the Empress-Queen as the Prussian Trenck did Frederic, his King. Maria Theresa, speaking to me of him some time after his death, and the snares that had been laid for him, said, "Your kinsman has made a better end than will be the fate of his accusers and judges."Of this more hereafter: I approach that epoch when my misfortunes began, and when the sufferings of martyrdom attended me from youth onward till my hairs grew grey.