year 1740, with the character of being one of the most hopeful youths of the university. My reception was most flattering; the justness of any replies to the questions he put, my height, figure, and confidence, pleased him, and I soon obtained permission to enter as a cadet in his guards, with promise of quick preferment.

The body guards formed at this time a model and school for the Prussian cavalry; it consisted of one single squadron of men selected from the whole army, whose uniform was the most splendid in all Europe. Two thousand rix dollars were necessary to equip an officer; the cuirass was wholly plated with silver; and the horse furniture and accoutrements alone cost four hundred rix dollars.

There are no solliers in the world who undergo so much as this body guard; for during the time I was in the service of Frederick, I often had not eight hours sleep in eight days. Exercise began at four in the morning, and experiments were made of all the alterations the king meant to introduce in his cavalry. Ditches of four, five, six feet, and still wider, were leaped till that some one broke his neck: hedges in like manner were freed, and the horses ran careers, meeting each other full in a kind of lists of more than half a league in length. We had often in these exercises several men and horses killed or wounded.

I cannot give a stronger picture of this service than by saying that the body guard lost more men and horses in one year's peace, than they did the following year in two battles.

I had scarcely been six weeks a cadet before the king took me aside one day after the parade, and having examined me near half an hour, on various

subjects, commanded me to come and speak with him on the morrow.

His intention was to find whether the accounts that had been given him of my memory had not been exaggerated; and that he might be convinced, he first gave me the names of fifty soldiers to learn by rote, which I did in five minutes. He next repeated the subject of two letters, which I immediately composed in French and Latin; the one I wrote, the other dictated. He next ordered me to trace, with promptitude, a landscape from nature, which I executed with equal success; and he then gave me a cornet's commission in his body guards.

Thus did I remain a cadet only six weeks, and few Prussians can vaunt, under the reign of Frede. rick, of equal good fortune.

The king not only presented me with a commission, but equipped me splendidly for the service. Thus did I suddenly find myself a courtier, and an officer in the finest, bravest, and best taught corps in Europe. My good fortune seemed unlimited, when in the month of August, 1743, the king selected me to go and instruct the Silesian cavalry in the new manevres, an honour never before granted to a youth of eighteen.

I have already said we were garrisoned at Berlic during winter, where the officers table was at court; and, as my reputation had preceded me, no person whatever could be better received there, or live more pleasantly.

I had hitherto remained ignorant of love; and had been terrified from illicit commerce, by beholding the dreadful objects at the hospital at Potzdam. During the winter of 1743, the nuptials of

his majesty's sister were held, who was married to the king of Sweden, where she is at present queen dowager, mother of the reigning Gustavus. 1, as an officer of my corps, had the honour to mount guard, and escort her as far as Stettin. Here did my heart feel a passion, of which, in the course of my history, I shall have frequent occasion to speak. The object of my love was one whom I can only remember at present with reverence; and, as I write not romance but facts, i shall here' briefly say, ours was mutually the first fruits of affection, and that to this hour I regret no misfortune, no misery, with which, from a stock so noble, my destiny was interwoven. Amid the tumult inseparable to occasions like these, on which it was my duty to maintain order, a thief had the address to steal my watch, and cut away a part of the gold fringe which hung from the waistcoat of my uniform, and escape unperceived. This accident brought on me the raillery of my comrades: and the lady alluded to thence, took occasion to console me, by saying, I should be no loser. Her words were accompanied by a look I could not misunderstand, and a few days afterward I thought myself the happiest of mortals. The name, however, of this high born lady is a secret, which must descend with me to the grave; and though my silence concerning this incident leaves a void in my life, and indeed throws obscurity over a part of it, which might else be clear, I would much rather incur this reproach, than become ungrateful toward my best friend and benefactress. To her conversation, to her prudence, to the power by which she rivited my affections wholly to herself, am I indebted for the improvement and polishing of my

bodily and mental qualities. She never despised. betrayed, or abandoned me even in the deepest of my distress; and my children alone, on my death bed, shall be taught the name of her to whom they owe my preservation, and consequently their own existence.

I lived at this time perfectly happy at Berlin, and highly esteemed. The king testified his approbation at every opportunity; my mistress supplied me with more money than I could expend; and I was the best equipped and made the greatest figure of any officer in the whole corps. The stile in which I lived was remarked, for 1 had only received from my father's heritage, the estate of great Sharlach, the rent of which was eight hundred dollars a year, which was far from sufficient to supply my then expenses. My amour, in the mean time, remained a secret from the best and most intimate friends.. Twice was my absence from Potzdam and Charlottenberg discovered, and I was put under arrest; but the king seemed satisfied with the excuses I made, under pretext of hasing been hunting, and smiled as he granted my pardon.

Never did the days of youth glide with more success and pleasure than during these my first years at Berlin. This good fortune was, alas! of short duration. Many are the incidents I might relate, but these I shall omit. My other adventures are numerous enough, without mingling such as may any way seem foreign to the subject. la this gloomy history of my life, I would paint myself to the world as I am, and by the recital of my sufferings, afford a memorable example, and interest the heart of sensibility. I would also shew

how my fatal destiny has deprived my children of an immense fortune; and though I want an hundred thousand men to enforce and ensure my rights, I will still shew my heirs they are incontestible.

In the beginning of September, 1744, war again broke out between the house of Austria and Prussia. We marched with all expedition toward Prague, traversing Saxony without opposition. I will not relate in this place what the great Frederick said to us with evident emotion, when surrounded with all his officers, on the morning of our departure from Potzdam.

Should any one be desirous of writing the lives of him and his opponent, Maria Theresa, without flattery and without fear, let him apply to me, and I will relate anecdotes most surprising on this subject, unknown to all but myself, and which never must appear under my own name.

Here I must recount an event that happened, which became the source of all my misfortunes. I must entreat my readers to pay the utmost attention to this, since this error, if innocence can be error, was the cause that the most faithful, and the best of subjects became bewildered in scenes of wretchedness, and was the victim of misery, from his nineteenth to the sixtieth year of his age. I dare presume this true narrative, supported by testimonies the most authentic, may fully vindicate my present honour, and future memory.

Francis Baron Trenck was the son of my father's brother, consequently my cousin german. ® I shall speak hereafter of the singular events of his life. Being a commander of pandours in the Austrian service, and grievously wounded in Bavaria, in the year 1743, he wrote to my mother, inform