in the flames; women and children who endeavoured
to fly, were obliged to pass over a bridge, where they were first
stripped, and afterwards thrown into the water. This action was one of
the accusations brought against Trenck when he was prosecuted, but he
alleged his justification.

The banks of the Iser to this day reverberate groans for the barbarities
of Trenck. Deckendorf and Filtzhofen felt all his fury. In the first of
these towns 600 French prisoners capitulated, although his forces were
four miles distant; but he formed a kind of straw men, on which he put
pandour caps and cloaks, and set them up as sentinels; and the garrison,
deceived by this stratagem, signed the capitulation. The services he
rendered the army during the Bavarian war are well known in the history
of Maria Theresa. The good he has done has been passed over in silence,
because he died under misfortunes, and did not leave his historian a
legacy. He was informed that either at Deckendorf or Filtzhofen there
was a barrel containing 20,000 florins, concealed at the house of an
apothecary. Impelled by the desire of booty, Trenck hastened to the
place, with a candle in his hand, searching everywhere, and, in his
hurry, dropped a spark into a quantity of gunpowder, by the explosion of
which he was dreadfully scorched. They carried him off, but the scars
and the gunpowder with which his skin was blackened rendered his
countenance terrific.

The present Field-marshal Laudohn was at that time a lieutenant in his
regiment, and happened to be at the door when his colonel was burnt.
Scarcely was Trenck cured before his spies informed him that Laudohn had
plenty of money. Immediately he suspected that Laudohn had found the
barrel of florins, and from that moment he persecuted him by all
imaginable arts. Wherever there was danger he sent him, at the head of
30 men, against 300, hoping to have him cut off, and to make himself his
heir. This was so often repeated that Laudohn returned to Vienna, where,
joining the crowd of the enemies of Trenck, he became instrumental in his
destruction. Yet it is certain that, in the beginning, Trenck had shown
a friendship for Laudohn, had given him a commission, and that this great
man learned, under the command of Trenck, his military principles.
General Tillier was likewise formed in this nursery of soldiers, where
officers were taught activity, stratagem, and enterprise. And who are
more capable of commandi