Page:Surprising adventures and sufferings of Frederick Baron Trenck.pdf/12

12 entirely abandoned. We lost six men, and my horse was wounded in the neck—It is certain that the King as well as the rest of us, would have been made prisoner, if my cousin could have continued the attack. But receiving a wound in the foot with a cannon ball, he was obliged to be carried off, and the Pandours retired. The day following Nassaw’s corps came to our assistance. We left Kolin, and while on the march the King said to me, ‘Your cousin might have played us an unlucky trick that night; but according to the report of the deserters, he was killed.'

About the middle of December we arrived at Berlin, where I was received with open arms. It was less prudent then in 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