第34章 CHAPTER IX.(3)

Lieutenant K-n was the first with whom I fought, and who received satisfaction by a deep wound in the right arm. Hereupon I desired the spectators to prevent farther mischief; for my own part I had nothing more to demand. Lieutenant F-g next entered the lists, with threats, which were soon quieted by a lunge in the belly. Hereupon Lieutenant M-f, second to the first wounded man, told me very angrily--"Had I been your man, you would have found a very different reception." My old Spaniard of eighty proudly and immediately advanced, with his long whiskers and tottering frame, and cried--"Hold! Trenck has proved himself a brave fellow, and if any man thinks proper to assault him further, he must first take a breathing with me." Everybody laughed at this bravado from a man who scarcely could stand or hold a sword. I replied--"Friend, I am safe, unhurt, and want not aid; should I be disabled, you then, if you think proper, may take my place; but, as long as I can hold a sword, Ishall take pleasure in satisfying all these gentlemen one after another." I would have rested myself a moment, but the haughty M-f, enraged at the defeat of his friend, would not give me time, but furiously attacked me, and, having been wounded twice, once in the hand and again in the groin, he wanted to close and sink me to the grave with himself, but I disarmed and threw him.

None of the others had any desire to renew the contest. My three enemies were sent bleeding to town; and, as M-f appeared to be mortally wounded, and the Jesuits and Capuchins of Vienna refused me an asylum, I fled to the convent of Keltenberg.

I wrote from the convent to Colonel Baron Lopresti, who came to me.

I told him all that had passed, and by his good offices had liberty, in a week, to appear once more at Vienna.

The blood of Lieutenant F-g was in a corrupt state, and his wound, though not in itself dangerous, made his life doubtful. He sent to entreat I would visit him, and, when I went, having first requested I would pardon him, gave me to understand I ought to beware of my cousin. I afterwards learned the traitorous Trenck had promised Lieutenant F-g a company and a thousand ducats if he would find means to quarrel with me and rid the world of me. He was deeply in debt, and sought the assistance of Lieutenant K-n; and had not the papers luckily preserved me, I had undoubtedly been despatched by his first lunge. To clear themselves of the infamy of such an act, these two worthy gentlemen had pretended I had assaulted them in the streets.

I could no more resolve to see my ungrateful and dangerous kinsman, who wished to have me murdered because I knew all his secrets, and thought he should be able to gain his cause without obligation to me or my assistance. Notwithstanding all his great qualities, his marked characteristic certainly was that of sacrificing everything to his private views, and especially to his covetousness, which was so great that, even at his time of life, though his fortune amounted to a million and a half, he did not spend per day more than thirty kreutzers.

No sooner was it known that I had forsaken Trenck than General Count Lowenwalde, his most ardent enemy, and president of the first council of war, by which he had been condemned, desired to speak to me, promised every sort of good fortune and protection, if I would discover what means had secretly been employed in the revision of the process; and went so far as to offer me four thousand florins if I would aid the prosecution against my cousin. Here I learned the influence of villains in power, and the injustice of judges at Vienna. The proposal I rejected with disdain, and rather determined to seek my fortune in the East Indies than continue in a country where, under the best of Queens, the most loyal of subjects, and first of soldiers, might be rendered miserable by interested, angry, and corrupt courtiers. Certain it is, as I now can prove, though the bitterest of my enemies, and whose conduct towards me merited my whole resentment, he was the best soldier in the Austrian army, had been liberal of his blood and fortune in the Imperial service, and would still so have continued had not his wealth, and his contempt for Weber and Lowenwalde put him in the power of those wretches who were the avowed enemies of courage and patriotism, and who only could maintain their authority, and sate their thirst of gain, by the base and wicked arts of courts. Had my cousin shared the plunder of the war among these men, he had not fallen the martyr of their intrigues, and died in the Spielberg. His accusers were, generally, unprincipled men of ruined fortunes, and so insufficient were their accusations that a useful member of society ought not, for any or all of them, to have suffered an hour's imprisonment.

Being fully informed, both of all the circumstances of the prosecution and the inmost secrets of his heart, justice requires Ishould thus publicly declare this truth and vindicate his memory.

While living he was my bitterest enemy, and even though dead, was the cause of all my future sufferings; therefore the account I shall give of him will certainly be the less liable to suspicion, where Ishall show that he, as well as myself, deserved better of Austria.

I was resolved forever to forsake Vienna. The friends of Trenck all became distrustful of him because of his ingratitude to me. Prince Charles still endeavoured to persuade me to a reconciliation, and gave me a letter of recommendation to General Brown, who then commanded the Imperial army in Italy. But more anxious of going to India, I left Vienna in August, 1748, desirous of owing no obligation to that city or its inhabitants, and went for Holland.