In this situation I wrote to the court to offer my thanks for the mercy shown me, and to obtain permission to proceed to my destination by land. In the meanwhile I remained at Munkholm, hoping to be less exposed there to the importunities of the general. The court of Copenhagen rejected my request, but allowed me to take ship for Holland.
Three vessels were preparing to sail for Amsterdam, one of which belonged to Trondhjem, and General von der Osten wished me to take passage in it; but I gave the preference to a Danish ship.
The general offered me the services of his valet, to prepare a gold-laced coat; but this offer did not tempt me. I set out with my bearskin pelisse, which composed my wardrobe. I also carried off my 800 crowns, without leaving one for the general.
The three vessels bound for Amsterdam set sail from Trondhjem on October 16; two perished: the one I was on board reached Christiansund, where we remained till February 16. After a stormy navigation, we reached Amsterdam on March 10.
On April 12, 1777, I arrived at Montpellier, where I fixed my domicile.
In 1780, Falckenskjold received permission to retire to the Pays de Vaud, where his friend Reverdil invited him, and he established his home at Lausanne. In 1787, the court of Petersburg proposed to him to re-enter its service; he was offered the post of chief of the staff in the army intended to act against the Turks. But, finding himself bound by the engagements he had made, he replied, that he could not accept the offer without the formal consent of the court of Copenhagen; and this court refused its assent, under the pretext that it needed his services. At the same time, it permitted Falckenskjold to return to Copenhagen, and seemed disposed to revoke his order of banishment.
In the spring of 1788 he went to Copenhagen, but his reception there was such that he longed to return to his retreat at Lausanne. He obtained permission to go back, and, having recovered a portion of his property, which the state had seized, he invested it in annuities in the French funds. In the same year, war having broken out between Denmark and Sweden, the Danish government recalled Falckenskjold, conferring on him the rank and pay of a major-general; but when he was going to set out he learned that peace was signed, and he was saved the journey.
His pay and savings enabled him to live comfortably, with such friends as Gibbon and Reverdil; and he kept his health till the last two years of his life, when he was attacked by a gouty rheumatism, the seeds of which he had contracted in his Munkholm prison. He died on September 30, 1820, at the age of eighty-two years and a few months.