"At noon, that day, Warkotsch had sat down to dinner, comfortably in his dressing-gown, nobody but the good Baroness there;when Rittmeister Rabenau suddenly descended on the Schloss and dining-room with dragoons: 'In arrest, Herr Baron; I am sorry you must go with me to Brieg!' Warkotsch, a strategic fellow, kept countenance to Wife and Rittmeister, in this sudden fall of the thunder-bolt: 'Yes, Herr Rittmeister; it is that mass of Corn I was to furnish [showing him an actual order of that kind], and I am behind my time with it! Nobody can help his luck. Take a bit of dinner with us, anyway!' Rittmeister refused; but the Baroness too pressed him; he at length sat down. Warkotsch went 'to dress;'
first of all, to give orders about his best horse; but was shocked to find that the dragoons were a hundred, and that every outgate was beset. Returning half-dressed, with an air of baffled hospitality: 'Herr Rittmeister, our Schloss must not be disgraced;here are your brave fellows waiting, and nothing of refreshment ready for them. I have given order at the Tavern in the Village;send them down; there they shall drink better luck to me, and have a bit of bread and cheese.' Stupid Rabenau again consents:--and in few minutes more, Warkotsch is in the Woods, galloping like Epsom, towards Wallis; and Rabenau can only arrest Madam (who knows nothing), and return in a baffled state.
"Schmidt too got away. The party sent after Schmidt found him in the little Town of Nimptsch, half-way home again from his Wallis errand; comfortably dining with some innocent hospitable people there. Schmidt could not conceal his confusion; but pleading piteously a necessity of nature, was with difficulty admitted to the--to the ABTRITT so called; and there, by some long pole or rake-handle, vanished wholly through a never-imagined aperture, and was no more heard of in the upper world. The Prussian soldiery does not seem expert in thief-taking.
"Warkotsch came back about midnight that same Tuesday, 500 Wallis Hussars escorting him; and took away his ready moneys, near 5,000pounds in gold, reports Frau Kappel, who witnessed the ghastly operation (Hussars in great terror, in haste, and unconscionably greedy as to sharing);--after which our next news of him, the last of any clear authenticity, is this Note to his poor Wife, which was read in the Law Procedures on him six months hence: 'My Child (MEINKIND),--The accursed thought I took up against my King has overwhelmed me in boundless misery. From the top of the highest hill I cannot see the limits of it. Farewell; I am in the farthest border of Turkey.--WARKOTSCH.'" [Kuster, <italic> Lebens-Rettungen, <end italic> p. 88: Kuster, pp. 65-188 (for the general Narrative);Tempelhof, v. 346, &c. &c.]
Schmidt and he, after patient trial, were both of them beheaded and quartered,--in pasteboard effigy,--in the Salt Ring (Great Square)of Breslau, May, 1762:--in pasteboard, Friedrich liked it better than the other way. "MEINETWEGEN," wrote he, sanctioning the execution, "For aught I care; the Portraits will likely be as worthless as the Originals." Rittmeister Rabenau had got off with a few days' arrest, and the remark, "ER IST EIN DUMMER TEUFEL (You are a stupid devil)!" Warkotsch's Estates, all and sundry, deducting the Baroness's jointure, which was punctually paid her, were confiscated to the King,--and by him were made over to the Schools of Breslau and Glogau, which, I doubt not, enjoy them to this day. Reverend Gerlach in Schonbrunn, Kappel and Kappel's Bursch, were all attended to, and properly rewarded, though there are rumors to the contrary. Hussar-Colonel Wallis got no public promotion, though it is not doubted the Head People had been well cognizant of his ingenious intentions. Official Vienna, like mankind in general, shuddered to own him; the great Counts Wallis at Vienna published in the Newspapers, "Our House has no connection with that gentleman;"--and, in fact, he was of Irish breed, it seems, the name of him WallISCH (or Walsh), if one cared.
Warkotsch died at Raab (THIS side the farthest corner of Turkey), in 1769: his poor Baroness had vanished from Silesia five years before, probably to join him. He had some pension or aliment from the Austrian Court; small or not so small is a disputed point.
And this is, more minutely than need have been, in authentic form only too diffuse, the once world-famous Warkotsch Tragedy or Wellnigh-Tragic Melodrama; which is still interesting and a matter of study, of pathos and minute controversy, to the patriot and antiquary in Prussian Countries, though here we might have been briefer about it. It would, indeed, have "finished the War at once;" and on terms delightful to Austria and its Generals near by.
But so would any unit of the million balls and bullets which have whistled round that same Royal Head, and have, every unit of them, missed like Warkotsch! Particular Heads, royal and other, meant for use in the scheme of things, are not to be hit on any terms till the use is had.
Friedrich settled in Breslau for the Winter, December 9th.
From Colberg bad news meet him in Breslau; bad and ever worse:
Colberg, not Warkotsch, is the interesting matter there, for a fortnight coming,--till Colberg end, it also irremediable.
