第51章 CHAPTER XIV.(1)

And herewith ended my pleadings and my hopes. I had sacrificed my property, laboured through sixty-three inferior suits, and lost this great cause without a trial. I could have remained satisfied with the loss of the personal property: the booty of a soldier, like the wealth amassed by a minister, appears to me little better than a public robbery; but the acquirements of my ancestors, my birth-right by descent, of these I could not be deprived without excessive cruelty. Oh patience! patience!--Yet shall my children never become the footmen, nor grooms, of those who have robbed them of their inheritance; and to them I bequeathed my rights in all their power: nor shall any man prevent my crying aloud, so long as justice shall not be done.

The president, it is true, did not immediately possess himself of the estates, but he took good care his friends should have them at such rates that the sale of them did not bring the fiscal treasury 150,000 florins, while I, in real and personal property, lost a million and a half; nay, probably a sum equal to this in personal property alone.

The summa inscriptitia et emptitia for all these great estates only amounted to 149,000 florins, and this was to be paid by the chamber, but the president thought proper to deduct 10,000 on pretence the cattle had been driven off the estate of Pakratz; and, further, 36,000 more, under the shameful pretence that Trenck, to recruit his pandours, had drained the estates of 3,600 vassals, who had never returned; the estates, therefore, must make them good at the rate of thirty florins per head, which would have amounted to 108,000florins; but, with much difficulty, this sum was reduced, as above stated, to 36,000 florins, each vassal reckoned at ten florins per head. Thus was I obliged, from the property of my family, to pay for 3,600 men who had gloriously died in war, in defence of the contested rights of the great Maria Theresa; who had raised so many millions of contributions for her in the countries of her enemies;who, sword in hand, had stormed and taken so many towns, and dispersed, or taken prisoners, so many thousands of her foes. Would this be believed by listening nations?

All deductions made for legacies, fees, and formalities, there remained to me 63,000 florins, with which I purchased the lordship of Zwerbach, and I was obliged to pay 6,000 florins for my naturalisation. Thus, when the sums are enumerated which I expended on the suits of Trenck, received from my friends at Berlin and Petersburg, it will be found that I cannot, at least, have been a gainer by having been made the universal heir of the immensely rich Trenck. With regret I write these truths in support of my children's claims, that they may not, in my grave, reproach me for having neglected the duty of a father.

I will mere add a few particulars which may afford the reader matter for meditation, cause him to commiserate my fate, and give a picture of the manner in which the prosecution was carried on against Trenck.

One Schygrai, a silly kind of beggarly baron, who was treated as a buffoon, was invited in the year 1743 to dine with Baron Pejaczewitz, when Trenck happened to be present. The conversation happened to turn on a kind of brandy made in this country, and Trenck jocularly said he annually distilled this sort of brandy from cow-dung to the value of thirty thousand florins. Schygrai supposed him serious, and wished to learn the art, which Trenck promised to teach him Pejaczewitz told him he could give him thirty thousand load of dung.

"But where shall I get the wood?" said Schygrai. "I will give you thirty thousand klafters," answered Trenck. The credulous baron, thinking himself very fortunate, desired written promises, which they gave him; and that of Trenck ran thus: "I hereby permit and empower Baron Schygrai to sell gratis, in the forest of Tscherra Horra, thirty thousand klafters of wood.

"Witness my hand, "TRENCK."

Trenck was no sooner dead than the Baron brought his note, and made application to the court. His attorney was the noted Bussy, and the court decreed the estates of Trenck should pay at the rate of one form thirty kreutzers per klafter, or forty-five thousand florins, with all costs, and an order was given to the administrators to pay the money.

Just at this time I arrived at Vienna, from Petersburg. Doctor Berger, the advocate of Trenck, told me the affair would admit of no delay. I hastened to the Empress, and obtained an order to delay payment. An inquiry was instituted, and this forest of Tscherra Horra was found to be situated in Turkey. The absurdity and injustice were flagrant, and it was revoked. I cannot say how much of these forty-five thousand florins the Baron had promised to the noble judge and the attorney. I only know that neither of them was punished. Had not some holidays luckily intervened, or had the attorney expected my arrival, the money would have been paid, and an ineffectual attempt to obtain retribution would have been the consequence, as happened in many similar instances.