onstadt which he had bought of Trenck for two hundred ducats. His
confusion now was great, and Hyndford firmly insisted this plan should be
forthcoming, to vindicate the honour of Trenck, whom he held to be an
honest man. On this, Goltz answered, "I have received my king's commands
to prevent the preferment of Trenck in Russia, and I have only fulfilled
the duty of a minister."

Hyndford spat on the ground, and said more than I choose to repeat; after
which the four gentlemen returned to the chancellor, and I was again
called. Everybody complimented me, related to me what had passed, and
the chancellor promised I should be recompensed; strictly, however,
forbidding me to take any revenge on the Prussian ambassador, I having
sworn, in the first transports of anger, to punish him wherever I should
find him, even were it at the altar's foot.

The chancellor soothed me, kept me to dine with him, and endeavoured to
assuage my boiling passions. The countess affected indifference, and
asked me if suchlike actions characterised the Prussian nation. Funk and
Schwart were at table. All present congratulated me on my victory, but
none knew to whom I was indebted for my deliverance from the hasty and
unjust condemnation of the chancellor, although my protectress was one of
the company. I received a present of two thousand roubles the next day
from the chancellor, with orders to thank the Empress for this mark of
her bounty, and accept it as a sign of her special favour. I paid these
my thanks some days after. The money I disregarded, but the amiable
Empress, by her enchanting benevolence, made me forget the past. The
story became public, and Goltz appeared neither in public, nor at court.
The manner in which the countess personally reproached him, I shall out
of respect pass over. Bernes, the crafty Piedmontese, assured me of
revenge, without my troubling myself in the matter, and--what happened
after I know not; Goltz appeared but little in company, fell ill when I
had left Russia, and died soon after of a consumption.

This vile man was, no doubt, the cause of all the calamities which fell
upon me. I should have become one of the first men in Russia: the
misfortune that befel Bestuchef and his family some years afterward might
have been averted: I should never have returned to Vienna, a city so
fatal to the name of Trenck: by the mediation of the Russian Court, I
should have recovered my great Sclavonian estates; my