Page:Life and surprising adventures of Frederick Baron Trenck.pdf/12

 was less prudent than in the former years, and perhaps more observed. A Lieutenant of the Foot-Guards jesting indecently on the secret of my amours, I drew upon him, and wounded him in the face. The Sunday after, I went to pay my court to the King; "Sir," said he, "the thunder roars: and if you do not take care, may fall upon your head."

Some time after, I came a few minutes too late to the parade; the King remarked it, and sent me under arrest to Potzdam, where I remained upwards of three weeks, owing to the artifices of Colonel Warteslaben.

I did not recover my liberty till three days before our departure for Silesia; towards which we marched only in May, to begin our second campaign. I will here relate an incident that happened to me this winter, which became the source of all my misfortunes.

Francis Baron Trenck, who commanded the Pandours in the service of Austria, having been dangerously wounded in Bavaria in the year 1743, wrote to my mother to tell her it was his intention to make me his heir. This letter to which I made no answer, was sent to me at Potzdam.

The 12th of February 1944, I was at Berlin, and went to pay a visit to Captain Iaschinzki, commandant of the Life Guards, in company with Lieutenant Studnitz, and Cornet Wagnitz, who lived with me in the same appartment. The conversation turned on the Austrian Trenck, and Iaschinzki asked me if I was related to him. I answered, Yes, and said that he had made me his heir. He asked me, what answer I had made. I told him, None. On this the whole company observed, that in such circumstances, I should be much in the wrong if I did not answer his letter. "Write