I forgot to relate that the Archduchess, Maria Anna, desired me to translate a religious work, written in French by the Abbé Baudrand, into German. I replied I would obey Her Majesty’s commands. I began my work, took passages from Baudrand, but inserted more of my own. The first volume was finished in six weeks; the Empress thought it admirable. The second soon followed, and I presented this myself.
She asked me if it equalled the first; I answered, I hoped it would be found more excellent. “No,” said she; “I never in my life read a better book:” and added, “she wondered how I could write so well and so quickly.” I promised another volume within a month. Before the third was ready, Theresa died. She gave orders on her death-bed to have the writings of Baron Trenck read to her; and though her confessor well knew the injustice that had been done me, yet in her last moments he kept silence, though he had given me his sacred promise to speak in my behalf.
After her death the censor commanded that I should print what I have stated in the preface to that third volume, and this was my only satisfaction.
For one-and-thirty years had I been soliciting my rights, which I never could obtain, because the Empress was deceived by wicked men, and believed me a heretic. In the thirty-second, my wife had the good fortune to convince her this was false; she had determined to make me restitution; just at this moment she died.
The pension granted my wife by the Empress in consequence of my misfortunes and our numerous family, we only enjoyed nine months.
Of this she was deprived by the new monarch. He perhaps knew nothing of the affair, as I never solicited. Yet much has it grieved me. Perhaps I may find relief when the sighs wrung from me shall reach the heart of the father of his people in this my last writing. At present, nothing for me remains but to live unknown in Zwerbach.
The Emperor thought proper to collect the moneys bestowed on hospitals into one fund. The system was a wise one. My cousin Trenck had bequeathed thirty-six thousand florins to a hospital for the poor of Bavaria. This act he had no right to do, having deducted the sum from the family estate. I petitioned the Emperor that these thirty-six thousand florins might be restored to me and my children, who were the people whom Trenck had indeed made poor, nothing of the property of his acquiring having been left to pay this legacy, but, on the contrary, the money having been exacted from mine.
In a few days it was determined I should be answered in the same tone in which, for six-and-thirty years past, all my petitions had been answered:—
“The request of the petitioner cannot be granted.”
Fortune persecuted me in my retreat. Within six years two hailstorms swept away my crops; one year was a misgrowth; there were seven floods; a rot among my sheep: all possible calamities befell me and my manor.