After being exposed there as the long-sought poacher of the prince's game estate, he was expelled from school, but before he was handed over to the court, he managed to escape from Herborn.
But when he did, he quickly fell in with a band of marauding robbers; he subsequently formed his own gang of poachers and made himself its leader.
At times, Balzar fought with his Freischärlers on the side of the Imperials (Kaiserliche), as the Austrian troops were called, but he often carried out his own ventures with his men.
In summer 1797, however, he was betrayed into the hands of a French search party, who brought him to Westerburg, where he was sentenced to death by shooting at a court martial.
Although he was a poacher in the eyes of the French, the fact that he was not, like robber leader Schinderhannes, led to the scaffold or hanged may have had something to do with his Russian officer rank.