Page:Life and surprising adventures of Frederick Baron Trenck.pdf/19

 a comedy. However, it was remarked his face grew pale on the left side. He then himself beside a table, leaned his head upon  hand, and, after saving a prayer, continued motionless, with his eyes shut.

My cousin was acquainted with the secret poison Acqua tossana: he made his Confessor the  of all his affairs, and employed him to deliver several jewels, and bills of exchange, of which he wished to make presents; among others,  know, that at that time, he sent back to a great Prince, a bill of exchange for two hundred thousand florins, due to him from the Prince; not a  of which I ever recovered, although I was Trenck's only heir. However, as it was necessary put it out of the Confessor's power to betray, he gave him a dose of poison sufficient to dispatch him, in some refreshments that he made him partake of, before his departure; and the Priest actually died in a very little time after his return. Trenck took the like sort of poison himself, and therefore knew the exact hour of his death. As he could no longer procure respect while living, he was resolved to be honoured, and if possible, after his decease.

The superstition of the populace was a sufficient to him, that he should obtain credit for the performance of miracles. That he might excit it more powerfully, he ordered a small chapel to be erected to his memory, and endowed it with six thousand florins. Thus died in his thirty-fourth year, this extraordinary man, to whom Nature had been prodigal of her gifts, and who had been long a terror to the enemies of the state under which he served. He lived like a tyrant, and an enemy his fellow-creatures, and died with a reputation of holiness, that he certainly little deserved.