“A Transylvanian nobleman,” was the description Peltier had given when writing about this new collaborator.[37] The epithet, although most attractive--suggestive as it was of that land of great forests all wildness and mystery--was not perfectly exact. The family of Auerweck, though perhaps of Hungarian origin, had established itself at Vienna, where the father of our Baron died as a captain in the Austrian service. His wife--whose maiden-name had been Scheltheim--had borne him four children, two boys and two girls. The two latter were married and settled in Austria. The elder son, who was born at Vienna about 1766, was named Louis (Aloys) Gonzago; he added to his family name that of an estate, Steilenfels, and the title of Baron--so that the whole thing, when given out with the proper magniloquence, was quite effective. “By the particular favour of Marie-Thérèse,” Louis d’Auerweck entered very young the Military Academy of Neustadt, near Vienna. On leaving it, he spent four years in a Hungarian regiment, the “Renfosary;” but garrison-life bored him, and, independent and ambitious, he longed to shake off the yoke of militarism which hampered him in his schemes. Unfortunately, we have only his own record of his younger days,[38] and it is matter for regret that no more trustworthy information is to be had. For very curious and interesting is the life of this adventurer, who was undeniably intelligent and clever, but who was also an intriguer and a braggart; who knew French well, and therefore posed as a finished diplomatist, with pretentions to philosophy and literature; who, in a word, was filled with a sense of his own importance, and fatally addicted to “playing to the gallery.” Some quotations from his writings will give a better idea of him than any description. Hardly has he left Austria--his reason for doing so we shall learn from himself--than he sets off on a sort of educational tour, beginning at Constantinople and going on to the Mediterranean. He visits, one after the other, Greece, Malta, Sicily, Spain, the South of France; he even goes so far as Chambéry and Lyons. An opportunity turns up, and off he sets for Paris.