The Life and Adventures of Baron Trenck-1 [24]
perceived the peasants coming in crowds from the village.
As kind fortune would have it, the people were all at church, it being a festival: the peasants Schell had sent were obliged to call aid out of church. It was but nine in the morning; and had the peasants been at home, we had been lost past redemption.
We were obliged to take the road to Wunshelburg, and pass through the town where Schell had been quartered a month before, and in which he was known by everybody. Our dress, without hats or saddles, sufficiently proclaimed we were deserters: our horses, however, continued to go tolerably well, and we had the good luck to get through the town, although there was a garrison of one hundred and eighty infantry, and twelve horse, purposely to arrest deserters. Schell knew the road to Brummem, where we arrived at eleven o'clock, after having met, as I before mentioned, Captain Zerbst.
He who has been in the same situation only can imagine, though he never can describe, all the joy we felt. An innocent man, languishing in a dungeon, who by his own endeavours, has broken his chains, and regained his liberty, in despite of all the arbitrary power of princes, who vainly would oppose him, conceives in moments like these such an abhorrence of despotism, that I could not well comprehend how I ever could resolve to live under governments where wealth, content, honour, liberty, and life all depend upon a master's will, and who, were his intentions the most pure, could not be able, singly, to do justice to a whole nation.
Never did I, during life, feel pleasure more exquisite than at this moment. My friend for me had risked a shameful death, and now, after having carried him at least twelve hours on my shoulders, I had saved both him and myself. We certainly should not have suffered any man to bring us, alive, back to Glatz. Yet this was but the first act of the tragedy of which I was doomed the hero, and the mournful incidents of which all arose out of, and depended on, each other.
CHAPTER VII.
Could I have read the book of fate, and have seen the forty years' fearful afflictions that were to follow, I certainly should not have rejoiced at this my escape from Glatz. One year's patience might have appeased the irritated monarch, and, taking a retrospect of all that has passed, I now find it would have been a fortunate circumstance, had the good and faithful Schell and I never met, since he also fell into a train of misfortunes, which I shall hereafter relate, and from which he could never extricate himself, but by death. The sufferings which I have since undergone will be read with astonishment.
It is my consolation that both the laws of honour and nature justify the action. I may serve as an example of the fortitude with which danger ought to be encountered, and show monarchs that in Germany, as well as in Rome, there are men who refuse to crouch beneath the yoke of despotism, and that philosophy and resolution are stronger than even those lords of slaves, with all their threats, whips, tortures, and instruments of death.
In Prussia, where my sufferings might have made me supposed the worst of traitors, is my innocence universally acknowledged; and instead of contempt, there have I gained the love of the whole nation, which is the best compensation for all the ills I have suffered, and for having persevered in the virtuous principles taught me in my youth, persecuted as I have been by envy and malicious power. I have not time further to moralise; the numerous incidents of my life would otherwise swell this volume to too great an extent.
Thus in freedom at Braunau, on the Bohemian frontiers, I sent the two horses, with the corporal's sword, back to General Fouquet, at Glatz. The letter accompanying them was so pleasing to him that all the sentinels before my prison door, as well as the guard under arms, and all those we passed, were obliged to run the gauntlet, although the very day before he had himself declared my escape was now rendered impossible. He, however, was deceived; and
As kind fortune would have it, the people were all at church, it being a festival: the peasants Schell had sent were obliged to call aid out of church. It was but nine in the morning; and had the peasants been at home, we had been lost past redemption.
We were obliged to take the road to Wunshelburg, and pass through the town where Schell had been quartered a month before, and in which he was known by everybody. Our dress, without hats or saddles, sufficiently proclaimed we were deserters: our horses, however, continued to go tolerably well, and we had the good luck to get through the town, although there was a garrison of one hundred and eighty infantry, and twelve horse, purposely to arrest deserters. Schell knew the road to Brummem, where we arrived at eleven o'clock, after having met, as I before mentioned, Captain Zerbst.
He who has been in the same situation only can imagine, though he never can describe, all the joy we felt. An innocent man, languishing in a dungeon, who by his own endeavours, has broken his chains, and regained his liberty, in despite of all the arbitrary power of princes, who vainly would oppose him, conceives in moments like these such an abhorrence of despotism, that I could not well comprehend how I ever could resolve to live under governments where wealth, content, honour, liberty, and life all depend upon a master's will, and who, were his intentions the most pure, could not be able, singly, to do justice to a whole nation.
Never did I, during life, feel pleasure more exquisite than at this moment. My friend for me had risked a shameful death, and now, after having carried him at least twelve hours on my shoulders, I had saved both him and myself. We certainly should not have suffered any man to bring us, alive, back to Glatz. Yet this was but the first act of the tragedy of which I was doomed the hero, and the mournful incidents of which all arose out of, and depended on, each other.
CHAPTER VII.
Could I have read the book of fate, and have seen the forty years' fearful afflictions that were to follow, I certainly should not have rejoiced at this my escape from Glatz. One year's patience might have appeased the irritated monarch, and, taking a retrospect of all that has passed, I now find it would have been a fortunate circumstance, had the good and faithful Schell and I never met, since he also fell into a train of misfortunes, which I shall hereafter relate, and from which he could never extricate himself, but by death. The sufferings which I have since undergone will be read with astonishment.
It is my consolation that both the laws of honour and nature justify the action. I may serve as an example of the fortitude with which danger ought to be encountered, and show monarchs that in Germany, as well as in Rome, there are men who refuse to crouch beneath the yoke of despotism, and that philosophy and resolution are stronger than even those lords of slaves, with all their threats, whips, tortures, and instruments of death.
In Prussia, where my sufferings might have made me supposed the worst of traitors, is my innocence universally acknowledged; and instead of contempt, there have I gained the love of the whole nation, which is the best compensation for all the ills I have suffered, and for having persevered in the virtuous principles taught me in my youth, persecuted as I have been by envy and malicious power. I have not time further to moralise; the numerous incidents of my life would otherwise swell this volume to too great an extent.
Thus in freedom at Braunau, on the Bohemian frontiers, I sent the two horses, with the corporal's sword, back to General Fouquet, at Glatz. The letter accompanying them was so pleasing to him that all the sentinels before my prison door, as well as the guard under arms, and all those we passed, were obliged to run the gauntlet, although the very day before he had himself declared my escape was now rendered impossible. He, however, was deceived; and