retches, 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.

CHAPTER IV.

A few days after the battle of Sorau, the usual camp postman brought me a
letter from my cousin Trenck, the colonel of pandours, antedated at Effek
four months, of which the following is a copy:--

"Your letter, of the 12th of February, from Berlin, informs me you desire
to have some Hungarian horses. On these you would come and attac