The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Life and Adventures of Baron Trenck, by
Baron Trenck, Edited by Henry Morley, Translated by Thomas Holcroft

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Title: The Life and Adventures of Baron Trenck
Vol. 1 (of 2)

Author: Baron Trenck

Editor: Henry Morley

Release Date: October 16, 2007 [eBook #2668]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)

***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF BARON
TRENCK***

Transcribed from the 1892 Cassell & Co. edition by David Price, email
ccx074@pglaf.org, proofed by Bridie, Rab Hughes and Roland Chapman.

THE
LIFE AND ADVENTURES
OF
BARON TRENCK

TRANSLATED BY
THOMAS HOLCROFT.

VOL. I.

CASSELL & COMPANY, LIMITED:
_LONDON_, _PARIS & MELBOURNE_.
1892.

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