In Prussia, where my sufferings might have made me supposed the
worst of traitors, is my innocence universally acknowledged; and
instead of contempt, there have I gained the love of the whole
nation, which is the best compensation for all the ills I have
suffered, and for having persevered in the virtuous principles
taught me in my youth, persecuted as I have been by envy and
malicious power. I have not time further to moralise; the numerous
incidents of my life would otherwise swell this volume to too great
an extent.

Thus in freedom at Braunau, on the Bohemian frontiers, I sent the
two horses, with the corporal's sword, back to General Fouquet, at
Glatz. The letter accompanying them was so pleasing to him that all
the sentinels before my prison door, as well as the guard under
arms, and all those we passed, were obliged to run the gauntlet,
although the very day before he had himself declared my escape was
now rendered impossible. He, however, was deceived; and thus do the
mean revenge themselves on the miserable, and the tyrant on the
innocent.

And now for the first time did I quit my country, and fly like
Joseph from the pit into which his false brethren had cast him; and
in this the present moment of joy for my escape, the loss even of
friends and country appeared to me the excess of good fortune.

The estates which had been purchased by the blood of my forefathers
were confiscated; and thus was a youth, of one of the noblest
families in the land, whose heart was all zeal for the service of
his King and country, and who was among those most capable to render
them service, banished by his unjust and misled King, and treated