THE LIFE OF BARON TRENCK.



CHAPTER I.

I was born at Konigsberg in Prussia, February 16, 1726, of one of
the most ancient families of the country. My father, who was lord
of Great Scharlach, Schakulack, and Meichen, and major-general of
cavalry, died in 1740, after receiving eighteen wounds in the
Prussian service. My mother was daughter of the president of the
high court at Konigsberg. After my father's death she married Count
Lostange, lieutenant-colonel in the Kiow regiment of cuirassiers,
with whom she went and resided at Breslau. I had two brothers and a
sister; my youngest brother was taken by my mother into Silesia; the
other was a cornet in this last-named regiment of Kiow; and my
sister was married to the only son of the aged General Valdow.

My ancestors are famous in the Chronicles of the North, among the
ancient Teutonic knights, who conquered Courland, Prussia, and
Livonia.

By temperament I was choleric, and addicted to pleasure and
dissipation; my tutors found this last defect most difficult to
overcome; happily, they were aided by a love of knowledge inherent
in me, an emulative spirit, and a thirst for fame, which disposition
it was my father's care to cherish. A too great consciousness of