Having made all arrangements with the general for the battle, he

withdrew into his tent overcome by grief, and seized with convulsions,

to which he was subject, and which worry brought on with redoubled

violence. He forbade any one to enter his tent during the night on

any pretext whatever, not wanting to receive remonstrances against

a desperate but necessary resolve, and much less that any should

witness the wretched state he was in. In the meantime they burned the

greater part of the baggage as he had ordered; all the army followed

this example with much regret, and some buried their most cherished

treasures. The generals had already given orders for the march, and

were trying to give the army the confidence which they did not feel

themselves; the men, exhausted by fatigue, and starving, marched

without spirit or hope. The women, of whom there were too many in the

army, uttered cries which further unnerved the men; every one expected

that death or slavery would be their portion next morning. This is no

exaggeration, it is the exact account of officers who served in the

army.

There was at that time in the Russian camp a woman as extraordinary as

the Czar himself. She was then known only by the name of Catherine.

Her mother was an unfortunate country woman called Erb-Magden, of the

village of Ringen in Estonia, a province held in villeinage, which was

at that time under the rule of Sweden. She had never known her father,

but was baptized by the name of Martha. The priest of the parish

brought her up out of pure charity till she was fourteen, then she went

into service at Mariemburg, in the house of a Lutheran minister whose

name was Gluk.

In 1702, at the age of eighteen, she married a Swedish dragoon. The

day after her marriage part of the Swedish troops were beaten by the

Russians, and the dragoon was in the action. But he never returned to

his wife, and she could never learn whether he had been taken prisoner,

nor later could she get any news of him.

Some days after she was taken prisoner herself, and was servant to

General Czeremetoff, who gave her to Menzikoff, a man who had known

fortune’s extremes, for he had become a general and a prince from

being a pastry-cook’s boy, and then was deprived of everything and

banished to Siberia, where he died in misery and despair. The Czar was

at supper with this prince when he first saw her and fell in love with

her. He married her secretly in 1707, not fascinated by womanly charms,

but because he found that she had the strength of mind to second his

designs, and even to continue them after him. He had long since put

away his first wife Ottokefa, daughter of a boyard, on a charge of

opposition to certain political reforms he had made.

This was the greatest of all crimes in the Czar’s eyes. He would have

none in his family who differed from him. In this foreign slave he

expected all the qualities of a sovereign, though she had none of the

virtues of womanhood. For her sake he scorned the petty prejudices

which would have hampered an ordinary man, and had her crowned

Empress. The same capacity which made her Peter’s wife gave her the

empire after her husband’s death. Europe was amazed to see a bold

woman, who could neither read nor write, supply her lack of education

and her weakness by spirit and courage, and fill the throne of a

legislator gloriously.

When she married the Czar she left the Lutheran faith for that of the

Russian Church; she was baptized again according to the Russian rite,

and instead of the name of Martha she took that of Catherine, by which

she has been known ever since. This woman was in the camp at Pruth, and

held a private council with the generals and the Vice-Chancellor while

the Czar was in his tent.

They agreed that it was necessary to sue for peace, and that the Czar

must be persuaded to this course. The Vice-Chancellor wrote a letter

to the Grand Vizir in his master’s name, which the Czarina, in spite

of the Emperor’s prohibition, carried into the tent to him, and after

many prayers, tears and argument, she prevailed on him to sign it; she

then took all her money, all her jewels and valuables, and what she

could borrow from the generals, and having collected by this means a

considerable present, she sent it with the Czar’s letter to Osman Aga,

lieutenant to the Grand Vizir.

Mahomet Baltagi answered proudly, with the air of a vizir and a

conqueror, “Let the Czar send me his first minister, and I will see

what can be done.” The Vice-Chancellor came at once, loaded with

presents, which he offered publicly to the Grand Vizir; they were large

enough to show they needed his help, but too small for a bribe. The

Vizir’s first condition was that the Czar, with all his army, should

surrender at discretion. The Vice-Chancellor answered that the Czar

was going to attack him in a quarter of an hour, and that the Russians

would perish to a man, rather than submit to such shameful conditions.

Osman seconded him by remonstrances.

Baltagi was no soldier. He knew that the janissaries had been repulsed

the day before, and was easily persuaded by Osman not to risk certain

advantages by the hazard of a battle. He therefore granted a suspension

of hostilities for six hours, during which the treaty could be arranged.

During the discussion an incident occurred, proving that the word of a

Turk is often more reliable than we think.

Two Italian noblemen, related to a M. Brillo, colonel of a regiment of

grenadiers in the service of the Czar, going to look for forage, were

taken by the Tartars, who carried them off to their camp, and offered

to sell them to an officer of the janissaries. The Turk, enraged at

such a breach of the truce, seized the Tartars and carried them before

the Grand Vizir, together with the two prisoners. The Vizir sent

them back at once to the Czar’s camp, and had the two Tartars who had

carried them off beheaded. In the meantime the Kan of Tartary opposed

the conclusion of a treaty which robbed him of all hopes of pillage.

Poniatowski seconded him with urgent and pressing reasons. But Osman

carried his point, notwithstanding the impatience of the Tartar and the

insinuations of Poniatowski.

The Vizir thought it enough for his master the Sultan to make an

advantageous peace; he insisted that the Russians should give up Asoph,

burn the galleys that lay in that port, and demolish the important

citadels on the Palus-Mæotis; that all the cannon and ammunition of

those forts should be handed over to the Sultan; that the Czar should

withdraw his troops from Poland; that he should not further disturb

the few Cossacks who were under Polish protection, nor those that were

subject to Turkey, and that for the future he should pay the Tartars a

subsidy of 40,000 sequins per annum--an irksome tribute which had been

imposed long before, but from which the Czar had delivered his country.

At last the treaty was going to be signed, without so much as a mention

of the King of Sweden; all that Poniatowski could obtain from the Vizir

was the insertion of an article by which the Russians should promise

not to hinder the return of Charles XII, and, strangely enough, that a

peace should be made between the King and the Czar if they wished it,

and could come to terms.

On these terms the Czar got liberty to retreat with his army, cannon,

artillery, colours and baggage. The Turks gave him provisions, and

there was plenty of everything in his camp within two hours of the

signing of the treaty, which was begun on the 21st July, 1711, and

signed on the 1st of August.

Just as the Czar, rescued from his dangerous position, was drawing off

with drums beating and colours flying, the King of Sweden, eager to

fight, and to see the enemy in his hands, came up; he had ridden post

haste about fifty leagues from Bender to Jazy, and alighting at Count

Poniatowski’s tent, the Count came up to him sadly and told him how he

had lost a chance which would perhaps never recur.

The King, beside himself with rage, went straight to the tent of the

Grand Vizir, and with flushed face reproached him for the treaty he had

just made.

“I have authority,” said the Grand Vizir, calmly, “to make peace and to

wage war.”

“But,” answered the King, “had you not the whole Russian army in your

power?”

“Our law,” said the Vizir solemnly, “commands us to grant peace to our

enemies when they implore our mercy.”

“Ah,” replied the King, in a rage, “does it order you to make a bad

treaty, when you can impose the terms you please? Was it not your duty

to take the Czar prisoner to Constantinople?”

The Turk, thus nonplussed, answered slyly, “And who would govern his

empire in his absence? It is not fitting that all kings should be away

from home.”

Charles replied with an indignant smile, and then threw himself down

on a cushion, and, looking at the Vizir with resentment mingled with

contempt, he stretched out his leg towards him, and, entangling his

spur with his robe, tore it; then jumped up, mounted, and rode to

Bender full of despair.

Poniatowski stayed some time longer with the Grand Vizir, to see if he

could prevail on him by gentler means to make some better terms with

the Czar, but it was prayer-time, and the Turk, without one word in

answer, went to wash and attend to his devotions.

BOOK VI

BOOK VI

Intrigues at the Porte--The Kan of Tartary and the Pasha of Bender try

to force Charles to depart--He defends himself with forty servants

against their whole army.

THE fortune of the King of Sweden, greatly changed as it was, now

failed him in the smallest details. On his return he found his little

camp at Bender, and his whole quarters, under water, flooded by the

waters of the Neister. He withdrew to a distance of some miles, near a

village called Varnitza; and, as if he had a secret suspicion of what

was going to happen to him, he had a large stone house built there,

capable, in an emergency, of sustaining some hours’ siege; he furnished

it magnificently, contrary to his usual custom, and in order to impress

the Turks. Besides this he built two more, one for his Chancery, and

the other for his favourite, Grothusen, whom he supported. While

the King was thus building at Bender, as if it was his intention to

stay always in Turkey, Baltagi, being more than ever fearful of his

intrigues and complaints at the Porte, had sent the resident consul of

the German Emperor to Vienna to gain for the King of Sweden a passage

through the hereditary dominions of the house of Austria. This envoy

returned in three weeks with a promise from the Imperial Regency that

they would give Charles all due honour, and conduct him safely to

Pomerania.

The application had been made to the Regency because Charles, the

successor of Joseph, who was then Emperor, was in Spain as a rival

with Philip V for the crown. While the German envoy was carrying

out his mission to Vienna, the Vizir sent three pashas to the King

of Sweden bidding him begone from Turkish territory. The King, who

knew their mission, sent them a message, that if they were venturing

on any dishonourable or disrespectful proposal to him he would have

them hanged forthwith. The pasha who delivered the message cloaked

the harshness of his message in the most respectful language. Charles

dismissed the audience without deigning a word of reply; but his

chancellor, who remained with the three pashas, signified in few words

his master’s refusal, which they had already concluded from his silence.

But the Grand Vizir was not discouraged. He ordered Ishmael Pasha,

the new serasquier of Bender, to threaten the King with the Sultan’s

displeasure if he did not haste to come to some conclusion. The

serasquier was of an agreeable and tactful disposition, and had

therefore gained Charles’s good-will and the friendship of the Swedes.

The King held a conference with him, and informed him that he would

only depart from Turkey when the Sultan granted him two things: the

punishment of his Vizir, and 100,000 men with which to return to

Poland. Baltagi was aware of the fact that Charles’s presence in Turkey

meant his ruin, so he placed guards on all the roads from Bender to

Constantinople, with orders to intercept the King’s letters; he also

cut off his “thaim,” the allowance that the Porte makes to exiled

princes in her dominions. The King of Sweden’s was immense, 500 crowns

a day in money, besides all that contributed to the maintenance of a

court in pomp and abundance. As soon as the King heard that the Vizir

had dared to cut off his allowance he turned to his steward, remarking,

“So far you have had only two tables, for to-morrow prepare four.”

Charles XII’s officers had never found any order of their master’s

impossible, but having neither money nor provision they were forced

to borrow at twenty, thirty, and forty per cent. of the officers’

servants and janissaries, who had grown rich by the King’s liberality.

M. Fabricius, ambassador from Holstein, Jeffreys, English minister,

their secretaries and their friends, gave what they had; the King,

with his usual pride, and without a thought for the morrow, lived on

these gifts, which would not have long sufficed. They had to go through

the Turkish guard, and send secretly to Constantinople to borrow from

European money-lenders. All refused to lend to a king who seemed to

be powerless to pay; but one English merchant, named Cook, at last

ventured to lend 40,000 crowns, taking the risk of losing them if the

King of Sweden was killed. They took the money to the King’s camp, just

as they were feeling actual want, and were beginning to despair of

supplies.

In the meantime M. Poniatowski wrote actually from the Grand Vizir’s

camp an account of the Pruth campaign, accusing the Vizir of cowardice

and treachery. An old janissary, enraged at the weakness of the Vizir,

and bribed by Poniatowski, undertook the delivery of the letter, and,

having got his discharge, presented it with his own hands to the

Sultan. Some days later Poniatowski set out from the camp and went to

the Ottoman Porte to form intrigues against the Grand Vizir as usual.

All seemed to favour the design. The Czar, now at liberty, was in no

hurry to carry out his promises; the keys of Azov did not come, and the

Grand Vizir, who was responsible for them, justly fearing his master’s

resentment, dare not appear in his presence.

The seraglio was then more full of intrigues and factions than ever.

These cabals, which exist at all courts, and which, in our case,

generally end in the removal of a minister from office, or at most by a

banishment, always meant more than one execution in Constantinople.

It ended in the execution of the former Vizir Chourlouli, and of

Osman, the lieutenant of Baltagi, who was the chief author of the Peace

of Pruth, and who since the peace had held a prominent office at the

Porte. Among the treasures of Osman they found the Czarina’s ring and

20,000 gold pieces, in Saxon, Polish and Russian coin; this was a proof

that it was money alone which had rescued the Czar from his perilous

position, and had ruined the chances of Charles XII. The Vizir,

Baltagi, was exiled to the isle of Lemnos, where he died three years

later. The Sultan did not confiscate his property either at his exile

or at his death; he was not rich, and his poverty protects his memory.

This Grand Vizir was succeeded by Joseph, whose fortune was as singular

as that of his predecessors. He was a Russian by birth, and had been

taken prisoner by the Turks at six years of age with his family, and

had been sold to a janissary. He was long a valet in the seraglio, then

became the second person in the empire where he had been a slave. But

he was only the shadow of a minister.

The young Ali-Coumourgi had placed him in the slippery post until he

could seize it himself, and Joseph, his creature, had nothing else

to do but affix the Imperial seals to the favourite’s desires. The

policy of the Ottoman Court seemed to be revolutionized from the very

beginning of this Vizir’s ministry. The Czar’s plenipotentiaries, who

lived at Constantinople both as ministers and hostages, were better

treated than ever; the Grand Vizir countersigned the Peace of Pruth

with them. But that which annoyed the King of Sweden more than all

else was the news that the secret alliance made at Constantinople with

the Czar was brought about by the mediation of the English and Dutch

ambassadors.

Since Charles’s retreat to Bender, Constantinople was occupying the

position that Rome had so often held, as the centre of the business of

Christendom. Count Desaleurs, the French ambassador at the Porte, was

supporting the interests of Charles and of Stanislas; the Emperor of

Germany’s minister was opposing them. The Swedish and Russian factions

were falling foul of each other, as those of France and Spain have long

done at the Court of Rome.

England and Holland posed as neutrals, but were not really such; the

new trade of Saint Petersburg attracted the attention of those two

trading powers.

The English and the Dutch are always on the side of the prince who

most favours their trade, and there was just then much to be gained

from the Czar, so that it is no wonder that the English and Dutch

ministers should work secretly in his interest at the Porte. One of

the conditions of this new alliance was that Charles should at once be

driven from the Turkish dominions.

Perhaps the Czar thought him less formidable at home than in Turkey,

where he was always on the spot ready to raise the Ottoman arms

against the Russian empire, or perhaps he hoped to seize him _en

route_. The King of Sweden continued his petitions to the Porte to

send him home through Poland with a large army. The Divan resolved to

send him back, but only with a guard of 7,000 or 8,000 men, not like a

King they wished to help, but as a guest they were anxious to be rid

of. With this object in view the Sultan Achmet wrote him the following

letter:

“Most powerful of the Princes that worship Jesus, redressor of wrongs

and injuries, and protector of justice in the ports and republics of

South and North, shining in Majesty, lover of Honour and Glory, and of

our sublime Porte, Charles, King of Sweden, whose enterprises may God

crown with success.

“As soon as the most illustrious Achmet, formerly Chiaoux-Pasha,

shall have the honour to present this letter to you, adorned with

our Imperial seal, be persuaded and convinced of the truth of our

intentions expressed therein, namely, that, although we had planned

to march again against the Czar, yet that Prince, to avoid our just

resentment at his delay in the execution of the treaty concluded on

the banks of the Pruth, and renewed again at our sublime Porte, having

surrendered to us the castle and city of Azov, and having endeavoured

by the mediation of the English and Dutch ambassadors, our ancient

allies, to form a lasting peace with us, we have granted his request,

and given up his plenipotentiaries, who remain with us as hostages,

our Imperial ratification, after having received his from their hands.

“We have given our inviolable and salutary orders to the right

honourable Delvet Gharai, Khan of Budziac, of Crimea, Nagai, and

Circassia, and to our wise counsellor and noble serasquier of Bender,

Ishmael (whom God preserve and increase in magnificence and wisdom),

for your return through Poland, according to your first plan which has

been again laid before us from you. You must, therefore, prepare to set

out next winter under the guidance of Providence and with an honourable

guard, that you may return to your own territories, taking care to pass

through Poland in a peaceable and friendly manner.

“You will be provided by my sublime Porte with all that is needed for

your journey, both money, men, horses and wagons. But above all else

we advise and exhort you to give the most express and detailed orders

to the Swedes and other soldiers in your retinue not to commit any act

of disorder, nor be guilty of any action which may either directly or

indirectly tend to the breach of this peace. By that means you will

preserve our good-will, of which we shall endeavour to give great and

frequent proofs as we shall find opportunity. The troops to attend you

shall receive orders to that effect, according to our Imperial will and

pleasure.

“Given at our sublime Porte of Constantinople on the 14th of the month

Rebyul Eureb, 1214. Which corresponds to the 19th April, 1712.”

This letter did not, however, entirely destroy the hopes of the

King of Sweden. He wrote to the Sultan that he was ready to go, and

would never forget the favour he had shown him; but he added that he

believed the Sultan was too just to send him away with nothing but a

flying camp through a country already overrun with the Czar’s troops.

Indeed, the Emperor of Russia, in spite of the fact that the first

article of the Treaty of Pruth obliged him to withdraw his forces

from Poland, had sent recruits thither, and it seemed strange that

the Sultan was ignorant of the fact. The bad policy and vanity of the

Porte in suffering the Christian princes to maintain their ambassadors

at Constantinople, and not keeping one single agent in any Christian

court, gives the former an opportunity of probing and sometimes of

directing the Sultan’s most secret resolutions, while the Divan is

always ignorant of the most public transactions of Christendom. The

Sultan, shut up in the seraglio among his women and his eunuchs, sees

only through the Grand Vizir’s eyes; the latter is as inaccessible as

his master, taken up with the intrigues of the seraglio, and without

any communication with the world outside. He is therefore generally

imposed on himself, or imposes on the Sultan, who deposes him or has

him strangled for his first mistake, in order to choose another as

ignorant or as treacherous as the former, who behaves in the same way

as his predecessors and falls as soon as they.

Such is, for the most part, the negligence and profound security of

this Court, that if the Christian princes leagued against the Porte

their fleets would be at the Dardanelles and their army at the gates

of Adrianople before the Turks could think of taking the defensive.

But the different interests which divide Christendom will protect that

people from a fate for which they at present seem ripe in their want of

policy and their ignorance in war and naval matters.

Achmet was so little acquainted with what was happening in Poland that

he sent an aga to see if the Czar’s forces were there or not. Two of

the King of Sweden’s secretaries, who understood Turkish, went with

him, to keep a check on him in the event of a false report. The aga saw

the forces with his own eyes and gave the Sultan a true account of the

matter. Achmet, in a rage, was going to strangle the Grand Vizir, but

the favourite, who protected him, and thought he might prove useful,

got him pardoned and kept him some time in the ministry.

The Russians were openly protected by the Vizir, and secretly by

Ali-Coumourgi, who had changed sides; but the Sultan was so angry,

the infraction of the Treaty was so palpable, and the janissaries, who

often make the ministers, favourites and Sultans themselves tremble,

clamoured so loudly for war that no one in the seraglio dare counsel

moderation.

The Sultan at once put the Russian ambassadors, who were already as

accustomed to go to prison as to a concert, in the seven towers. War

was declared again against the Czar, the horse-tails hoisted, and

orders issued to all the pashas to raise an army of 200,000 fighting

men. The Sultan left Constantinople for Adrianople in order to be

nearer the seat of war.

In the meantime a solemn embassy from Augustus and the republics of

Poland to the Sultan was on the road to Adrianople. At the head of

this embassy was the Prince of Massovia with a retinue of 300 persons.

They were all seized and imprisoned in the suburbs of the city. Never

was the Swedish party more hopeful than on this occasion; but these

great preparations came to nothing, and all their hopes were dashed.

If a minister of great wisdom and foresight, who was then living at

Constantinople, is to be credited, young Coumourgi had other plans in

his head than hazarding a war with the Czar to gain a desert. He wanted

to take Peloponnesus, now called Morea, from the Venetians, and to make

himself master of Hungary.

To carry out his great designs he wanted nothing but the office of

Grand Vizir, for which he was thought too young. With this in view

the friendship of the Czar was more important to him than his enmity.

It was neither to his interest nor to his inclination to keep the

King of Sweden any longer, much less to raise a Turkish army for

him. He not only advocated sending the Prince away, but declared

openly that henceforth no Christian minister ought to be tolerated at

Constantinople; that the ordinary ambassadors were only honourable

spies, who corrupted or betrayed the vizirs, and had too long

interfered in the affairs of the seraglio; that the Franks settled at

Pera, and in the commercial ports on the Levant, were merchants, who

needed no ambassador, but only a consul. The Grand Vizir, who owed both

his position and his life to the favourite, and who feared him besides,

complied with his plans the more readily that he had sold himself to

the Russians, and hoped to be avenged on the King of Sweden, who would

have ruined him.

The Mufti, Ali-Coumourgi’s creature, was also completely under his

thumb: he had given the vote for war against the Czar when the

favourite was on that side, but he declared it to be unjust as soon as

the youth had changed his mind. Thus the army was scarcely collected

before they began to listen to proposals for a reconciliation.

After several negotiations the vice-chancellor Shaffiroff and young

Czeremetoff, the Czar’s plenipotentiaries and hostages at the Porte,

promised that the troops should be withdrawn from Poland. The Grand

Vizir, who knew that the Czar would not carry out this treaty, decided

to sign it for all that; and the Sultan, content with the semblance

of laying down the law to the Russians, remained at Adrianople. Thus,

in less than six months, peace was made with the Czar, then war was

declared, then peace was renewed.

The main article of all the treaties was that the King of Sweden should

be forced to depart. The Sultan would not imperil his own honour and

that of the Porte to the extent of exposing the King to the risk of

being captured _en route_ by his enemies. It was stipulated that

he should be sent away, but on condition that the ambassadors of

Poland and Russia should be responsible for the safety of his person;

these ambassadors swore, in their masters’ names, that neither the

Czar nor Augustus should molest him on his journey. On the other hand,

Charles was not to endeavour to make any disturbance in Poland. The

Divan, having thus determined the fate of Charles, Ishmael, serasquier

of Bender, repaired to Varnitsa, where the King was encamped, and

acquainted him with the Porte’s resolve, explaining civilly enough that

there was no time for delay, but that he must go. Charles’s only answer

was that the Sultan had promised him an army and not a guard, and that

kings ought to keep their word.

In the meantime General Fleming, King Augustus’s minister and

favourite, maintained a private correspondence with the Kan of Tartary

and the serasquier of Bender. A German colonel, whose name was La Mare,

had made more than one journey from Bender to Dresden, and these were

an object of suspicion.

Just at this time the King of Sweden caused a courier sent from

Fleming to the Tartar prince to be seized on the Wallachian frontier.

The letters were brought to him and deciphered; there was obviously

a correspondence going on between the Tartars and Dresden, but the

references were so general and ambiguous that it was hard to say

whether King Augustus’s plan was to detach the Turks from the Swedish

alliance, or to persuade the Kan to hand over Charles to his Saxons as

he attended him on the road to Poland.

It is hard to imagine that so generous a prince as Augustus would,

for the sake of seizing the King of Sweden, risk the lives of his

ambassadors and 300 Poles, detained at Adrianople as hostages for

Charles’s safety.

On the other hand, Fleming was absolute, very shrewd, and quite

unscrupulous. The outrageous treatment of the Elector by King Charles

might be thought an excuse for any method of revenge, and if the Court

of Dresden could buy Charles of the Kan of Tartary they may have

thought that it would be no difficult matter to purchase the liberty

of the Polish hostages of the Ottoman Porte.

These reasons were argued between the King, Mullern, his private

chancellor, and his favourite Grothusen. They read the letters over and

over again, and, their wretched plight increasing their suspicions,

they resolved to believe the worst.

Some days later the King was confirmed in his suspicions by the sudden

departure of Count Sapieha, who had sought refuge with him, and now

left him suddenly to go to Poland and throw himself into the arms of

Augustus. On any other occasion he would have regarded Sapieha as a

malcontent, but in the critical state of affairs he felt certain that

he was a traitor; the repeated requests to him to begone made his

suspicions a certainty. His own positiveness, together with all these

probabilities, made him continue in the certainty that there had been a

plot to betray him and deliver him up to his enemies, although the plot

had never been proved.

He might be wrong in thinking King Augustus had made a bargain with the

Tartars for his person, but he was much more so in depending on the

Ottoman Porte. But in any case he resolved to gain time. He told the

Pasha of Bender that he could not go till he had the wherewithal to pay

his debts, for though his thaim had been regularly paid his liberality

had always forced him to borrow. The Pasha asked how much he needed.

The King answered at hazard 1,000 purses, that is, about 1,500,000

francs French money full weight. The Pasha wrote to his master about

it; the Sultan, instead of the 1,000 purses which he demanded, sent him

1,200 with the following letter to the Pasha--

“The object of this Imperial letter is to inform you that, upon your

representation and request, and that of the right noble Delvet Gherai

Kan to our sublime Porte, our Imperial munificence has granted the King

of Sweden 1,000 purses, which shall be sent to Bender in the custody

of the most illustrious Mahomet Pasha, to remain in your hands till

such time as the King of Sweden departs, whose steps may God direct,

and then to be given him with 200 purses more, as an overplus of our

Imperial liberality beyond what he desires. As to the route through

Poland, which he has decided on, you and the Kan, who are to accompany

him, must be careful to take such prudent and wise measures as shall

prevent, during the whole journey, the troops under your command and

those of the King of Sweden from any disorderly conduct or anything

which may be reckoned a breach of the peace between our sublime Porte

and the realm and republic of Poland, so that the King of Sweden may

travel as a friend under our protection.

“By so doing (and you are to desire it of him in set terms) he will

receive all the honour and respect due to his Majesty from the Poles,

as we have been assured by the ambassadors of King Augustus and the

republic, who have offered themselves and certain other of the Polish

nobility, if required, as hostages for his safe passage. At the time

which you and the right noble Delvet shall agree on for the march you

shall put yourselves at the head of your brave soldiers, among whom

shall be the Tartars, led by the Kan, and go with the King and his men.

“May it please the only God, the Almighty, to direct your steps and

theirs. The Pasha of Aulis shall continue at Bender, with a regiment of

spahis and another of janissaries, to defend it in your absence. Now,

by following our Imperial orders and wishes in all these points and

details, you will earn the continuance of our royal favour, as well as

the praise and rewards due to all such as observe them.

“Given at our Imperial residence of Constantinople, the 2nd day of the

month Cheval, 1124 of the Hegira.”

While they were waiting for the Sultan’s answer the King had written

to the Porte, to complain of the supposed treachery of the Kan. But

the passages were well guarded, and the ministry against him, so that

his letters never reached the Sultan. The Vizir would not allow M.

Desaleurs to go to Adrianople, where the Porte then was, lest he, as

the King of Sweden’s agent, tried to thwart their design of driving

him away. Charles, indignant at seeing himself hunted, as it were,

from the Sultan’s territory, resolved not to stir a step. He might

have asked to return through German territory, or to take ship at the

Black Sea, in order to reach Marseilles by the Mediterranean, but he

preferred to ask no favour and see what happened.

When the 1,200 purses arrived, his treasurer, Grothusen, who from long

residence in Turkey had learned to speak the language, went to the

Pasha without an interpreter, hoping to get the money from him, and

then to form some new intrigue at the Porte, on the false supposition

that the Swedish party would at last arm the Ottoman Empire against the

Czar.

Grothusen told the Pasha that the King’s equipage could not be prepared

without money. “But,” said the Pasha, “we are going to defray all

the expense of departure; your master will have no expenses while he

continues under the protection of mine.” Grothusen replied that the

difference between the Turkish equipages and those of the Franks was

so great that they must apply to the Swedish and Polish workmen at

Varnitsa.

He assured him that his master was ready to go and that this money

would facilitate and hasten his departure. The too credulous Pasha gave

him the 1,200 purses, and in a few days came and respectfully asked the

King to give orders for his departure.

He was most surprised when the King told him he was not ready to go and

that he wanted 1,000 purses more. The Pasha was overcome by this, and

remained speechless for some time; then he walked to a window, where

he was seen to shed some tears. Then, turning to the King, he said, “I

shall lose my head for having obliged your Majesty. I have given you

the 1,200 purses contrary to the express orders of my sovereign.” With

these words he took leave and was going away full of grief.

The King stopped him and told him he would excuse him to the Sultan.

“Ah!” replied the Turk, “my master can punish mistakes, but not excuse

them.”

Ishmael Pasha went to tell the news to the Kan of Tartary. The Kan,

having received the same order as the Pasha, not to let the 1,200

purses be delivered before the King’s departure, and having agreed to

their delivery, was as apprehensive of the Sultan’s resentment as the

Pasha himself. They both wrote to the Porte to clear themselves, and

explained that they had only parted with the 1,200 purses on a solemn

promise made by the King’s minister that they would go at once, and

they entreated his Highness not to attribute the King’s refusal to

their disobedience.

Charles, quite convinced that the Kan and the Pasha intended to hand

him over to his enemies, ordered M. Funk, his envoy at the Ottoman

Court, to lay his complaints against them before the Sultan and to

ask for 1,000 purses more. His great generosity, and his indifference

to money, hindered him from seeing the baseness of this proposal. He

only did it to get a refusal so that then he might have a fresh pretext

for failing to depart; but a man must be reduced to great straits when

he has recourse to such tricks. Savari, his interpreter, a crafty and

enterprising character, carried the letter to Adrianople in spite of

the Grand Vizir’s care to have the roads guarded. Funk was forced to

go and deliver this dangerous message, and all the answer he got was

imprisonment.

Thoroughly angry, the Sultan called an extraordinary Divan and made a

speech at it himself. His speech, according to the translation then

made of it, was as follows--

“I hardly knew the King of Sweden, but from his defeat at Pultawa and

the request he made to me to grant him sanctuary in my empire. I am

under no obligation to him, nor have I any reason either to love or

fear him; yet, thinking only of the hospitality of a Mussulman and my

own generosity, which sheds the dew of its favour on small and great

alike, I received and aided him, his ministers, officers and soldiers,

in every respect, and for three years and a half have continually

loaded him with presents.

“I have granted him a considerable guard to take him to his own

country. He has asked for 1,000 purses to defray expenses, though I am

paying them all, and instead of 1,000 I have granted him 1,200. After

getting these from the serasquier of Bender he wants 1,000 more, and

refuses to go under the pretext that the guard is too small, whereas it

is too large to pass through the country of a friend and ally. I ask

you, then, is it any breach of the laws of hospitality to send this

prince away, and whether foreign princes would have any ground for

accusing me of cruelty and injustice if I used force to make him go?”

All the Divan answered that the Sultan might lawfully do as he said.

The Mufti declared that Mussulmans are not bound to offer hospitality

to infidels, much less to the ungrateful, and he granted his festa, a

kind of mandate, which generally accompanies the Sultan’s important

orders. These festas are revered as oracles, though the persons who

issue them are as much the Sultan’s slaves as any others.

The order and the festa were taken to Bender by the Master of the Horse

and the first Usher. The Pasha of Bender received the order at the

Kan’s, whence he went at once to the Varnitsa to ask if the King would

go away in a friendly way, or would force him to carry out the Sultan’s

orders.

Charles XII, not being used to this threatening language, could not

command his temper. “Obey your master if you dare,” he said, “and

begone.” The Pasha in indignation set off at a gallop, an unusual thing

with a Turk. On the return journey he met M. Fabricius, and called out

to him without stopping, “The King won’t listen to reason; you’ll see

strange doings presently.” The same day he cut off the King’s supplies

and removed the guard of janissaries. He also sent to the Poles and

Cossacks to let them know that if they wanted to get any provisions

they must leave the King of Sweden’s camp and come and put themselves

under the protection of the Porte at Bender.

They all obeyed and left the King, with only the officers of his

household and 300 Swedes, to cope with 2,000 Tartars and 6,000 Turks.

There was now no more provision in the camp for man or beast. The King

at once gave orders that the twenty fine Arabian horses they had given

him should be shot, saying, “I will have neither their food nor their

horses.” This made a great feast for the Tartars, who, as every one

knows, think that horse-flesh is delicious. In the meantime the Turks

and Tartars invested the little camp on all sides.

The King, with no signs of panic, appointed his 300 Swedes to make

regular fortifications, and worked at them himself. His chancellor,

treasurer, secretaries, valets, and all his servants, lent a hand to

the work. Some barricaded the windows, others took the bars behind the

doors and placed them like buttresses.

When the house was well barricaded, and the King had reviewed his

pretences at fortifications, he began to play chess unconcernedly with

his favourite Grothusen, as if everything had been perfectly safe and

secure. It happened very luckily that Fabricius, the envoy of Holstein,

did not lodge at Varnitsa, but at a small village between Varnitsa and

Bender, where Mr. Jeffreys, the English envoy to the King of Sweden,

lived also. These two ministers, seeing that the storm was about to

break, undertook to mediate between the Turks and the King. The Kan,

and especially the Pasha of Bender, who had no intention of hurting

the monarch, were glad of the offers of their services. They had two

conferences together at Bender, at which the Usher of the seraglio,

and the Grand Master of the Horse, who had brought the order from the

Sultan, were present.

M. Fabricius owned to them that the Swedish King had good reason to

believe that they intended to give him up to his enemies in Poland.

The Kan, the Pasha, and the rest, swore on their heads, calling God to

witness, that they detested the thought of such a horrible piece of

treachery, and would shed the last drop of their blood rather than show

the least lack of respect to the King in Poland.

They added that they had the Russian and Polish ambassadors in their

power, and that their lives should answer for the least affront offered

to the King of Sweden. In a word, they complained bitterly of the

outrageous suspicions which the King was harbouring about people who

had received and treated him so well. And though oaths are often the

language of treachery, M. Fabricius allowed himself to be persuaded by

these barbarians. He thought he saw that air of truth in their protests

which falsehood imitates but lamely; he knew that there was a secret

correspondence between the Tartar Kan and Augustus, but he remained

convinced that the object of this negotiation was only to force Charles

to retire from the territories of the Sultan.

But whether Fabricius was mistaken or not he assured them that he would

represent to the King the unreasonableness of his jealousies. “But do

you intend to force him to go?” he added. “Yes,” answered the Pasha,

“such are our master’s orders.” Then he desired them to consider again

whether that order was to spill the blood of a crowned head. “Yes,”

answered the Kan with warmth, “if that head disobeys the Sultan in his

own dominions.”

In the meantime everything was ready for the assault, and Charles’s

death seemed inevitable; but as the Sultan’s command was not positively

to kill him in case of resistance, the Pasha prevailed on the Kan to

send a messenger that moment to Adrianople, to receive his Highness’s

final orders.

Mr. Jeffreys and M. Fabricius, having got this respite, hurried to

acquaint the King with it. They hastened like bearers of good news, and

were received very coldly; he called them forward, meddling mediators,

and still insisted that the Sultan’s order and the Mufti’s festa were

forged, because they had sent for fresh orders to the Porte. The

English minister withdrew, resolving to trouble himself no further with

the affairs of so obstinate a prince. M. Fabricius, a favourite of

the King, and more accustomed to his whims than the English minister,

stayed with him, to exhort him not to risk so valuable a life on so

futile an occasion.

The only reply the King made was to show him his fortifications and

to beg him to mediate so far as to obtain provisions for him. Leave

was easily obtained from the Turks to let provisions pass into the

King’s camp till the couriers should return from Adrianople. The Kan

himself had forbidden the Tartars to make any attempt on the Swedes

till a new order came; so that Charles went out of his camp sometimes

with forty horse, and rode through the midst of the Tartar troops, who

respectfully left him a free passage; he even marched right up to their

lines, and they did not resist, but opened to him.

At last the Sultan’s order arrived with command to put to the sword

all the Swedes who made the least resistance, and not to spare the

King’s life; the Pasha had the civility to show the order to M.

Fabricius, that he might make a last effort with Charles. Fabricius

went at once to tell him his bad news. “Have you seen the order you

refer to?” said the King. “I have,” replied Fabricius. “Tell them,”

said the King, “from me that this order is a second forgery of theirs,

and that I will not go.” Fabricius fell at his feet in a transport of

rage, and scolded him for his obstinacy. “Go back to your Turks,” said

the King, smiling at him; “if they attack me, I know how to defend

myself.”

The King’s chaplains also fell on their knees before him, beseeching

him not to expose the wretched remnant over from Pultawa, and above

all, his own sacred person, to death; adding, besides, that resistance

in this case was a most unwarrantable deed, and that it was a violation

of the laws of hospitality to resolve to stay against their will with

strangers who had so long and generously supported him. The King, who

had showed no resentment with Fabricius, became angry on this occasion,

and told his priests that he employed them to pray for him, and not to

give him advice.

General Hoord and General Dardoff, who had always been against

venturing a battle which in the result must prove fatal, showed the

King their breasts, covered with wounds received in his service, and

assured him that they were ready to die for him, and begged him that it

might be on a more worthy occasion.

“I know,” said the King, “by my wounds and yours that we have fought

valiantly together. You have hitherto done your duty; do it again now.”

The only thing remaining was to obey; they were all ashamed not to

seek death with their King. He prepared for the assault, secretly

gloating over the pleasure and honour of resisting with 300 Swedes the

efforts of a whole army. He gave every man his place; his chancellor,

Mullern, his secretary, Empreus, and the clerks were to defend the

Chancery house; Baron Fief, at the head of the officers of the kitchen,

was to defend another post; the grooms of the stables and the cooks

had another place to guard, for with him every man was a soldier. He

rode from his fortifications to his house, promising rewards to every

one, creating officers, and declaring that he would make his humblest

servant captain if he behaved with valour in the engagement.

It was not long before they saw the Turks and Tartars advancing to

attack the little fortress with ten cannon and two mortars. The

horse-tails waved in the air, the clarions brayed, and cries of “Alla,

Alla,” were heard on all sides. Baron Grothusen remarked that they were

not abusing the King as they shouted, but only calling him “demirbash,”

_i.e._ iron-head; so he resolved to go alone and unarmed out of

the fort. He advanced to the line of the janissaries, who had almost

all of them received money from him. “What, my friends,” he said in

their own language, “have you come to massacre 300 defenceless Swedes?

You brave janissaries, who have pardoned 100,000 Russians, when they

cried Amman (pardon) to you, have you forgotten the kindness you have

received at our hands? And would you assassinate the King of Sweden

whom you loved so much, and who has been so generous to you? My

friends, he asks only three days, and the Sultan’s orders are not so

strict as they would make you believe.”

These words had an effect which Grothusen himself had not expected; the

janissaries swore on their beards that they would not attack the King,

and would give him the three days that he demanded. In vain was the

signal given for assault. The janissaries, far from obeying, threatened

to turn their arms against their leaders if three days were not granted

to the King of Sweden. They came to the Pasha of Bender’s tent in a

band, crying that the Sultan’s orders were forged. To this sedition the

Pasha could oppose nothing but patience.

He pretended to be pleased with the generous resolve of the

janissaries, and ordered them to retreat to Bender. The Kan of Tartary,

who was a passionate man, would have made the assault at once with his

own troops; but the Pasha, who would not allow the Tartars alone to

have the honour of taking the King while he might perhaps be punished

for the disobedience of his janissaries, persuaded the Kan to wait till

next day.

The Pasha returning to Bender, assembled all the officers of the

janissaries, and the older soldiers; he read them and showed them the

positive command of the Sultan, and the mandate of the Mufti. Sixty

of the oldest of them, with venerable grey beards, who had received

innumerable presents from the King, proposed to go to him in person,

and entreat him to put himself into their hands, and permit them to

serve him as guards.

The Pasha consented; for there was no stone he would leave unturned

rather than be forced to kill the King. So these sixty old soldiers

went next morning to Varnitsa, having nothing in their hands but long

white staves, their only weapon when they intend not to fight; for the

Turks consider it a barbarous custom of the Christians to wear swords

in time of peace, and to go armed to the churches or the houses of

friends.

They addressed themselves to Baron Grothusen and Chancellor Mullern;

they told them that they had come with the intention of serving as

faithful guards to the King, and that if he pleased they would conduct

him to Adrianople, where he might speak to the Sultan in person. While

they were making the proposal the King read the letters that had come

from Constantinople and that Fabricius, who could not see him again,

had sent to him privately by a janissary. These letters were from Count

Poniatowski, who could neither serve him at Bender nor at Adrianople,

having been detained at Constantinople by the Czar’s order, from the

time of the imprudent demand of 1,000 purses. He told the King that

the Sultan’s order to seize his royal person was only too true, that

the Sultan was indeed imposed upon by his ministers; but that the more

he was imposed upon in the matter the more he would be obeyed, that he

must submit to the times and yield to necessity, and that he took the

liberty of advising him to attempt all that was possible in the way of

negotiation with the ministers, not to be inflexible in a case where

the gentlest methods would prevail, and to trust to time and diplomacy

the healing of an evil which rough handling would aggravate beyond the

hope of recovery.

But neither the proposal of the old janissaries nor Poniatowski’s

letters could in the least convince the King that it was possible for

him to give way without injuring his honour; he would rather die by the

hands of the Turks than be in any sense their prisoner. He dismissed

the janissaries without seeing them, sending them word that if they did

not hurry he would shave their beards for them, which in the East is

considered the most provoking affront that can be offered.

The old soldiers, in a rage, returned home, crying, “Down with this

iron-head. Since he is resolved to die, let him.” They gave the Pasha

an account of their mission, and told their comrades at Bender of the

strange reception they had met with. Then all swore to obey the orders

of the Pasha without delay, and they were now as eager for the assault

as they had been adverse to it the day before. The word was given at

once; they marched up to the entrenchments, the Tartars were already

waiting for them, and the ten cannon began to play. The janissaries

on one side and the Tartars on the other, forced this little camp in

an instant. Twenty Swedes had scarcely time to draw their swords, the

300 were surrounded and taken prisoners without resistance. The King

was then on horseback between his house and his camp, with Generals

Hoord, Dardoff and Sparre; seeing that all his soldiers had suffered

themselves to be taken before his eyes, he said with _sangfroid_

to those three officers, “Let us go and defend the house. We’ll fight,”

he added with a smile, “pro aris et focis.”

With them he immediately galloped up to the house, where he had placed

about forty servants as sentinels, and which they had fortified as best

they could.

These generals, though they were accustomed to the obstinate courage

of their master, could not but be surprised that in cold blood and

in jest he should propose that they should defend themselves against

ten cannon and a whole army; they followed him with twenty guards and

domestics.

But when they were at the door, they found it besieged by janissaries.

Besides, nearly 200 Turks and Tartars had already got in at a window,

and had seized all the rooms, except a great hall, whither the King’s

servants had withdrawn. Luckily this hall was near the door at which

the King intended entering with his twenty men. He threw himself from

his horse, pistol and sword in hand, and his followers did the same.

The janissaries fell on him from all sides, encouraged by the Pasha’s

promise of eight gold ducats to any who did but touch his coat, in case

they could not take him. He wounded and killed all that came near him.

A janissary, whom he had wounded, stuck his musket in the King’s face,

and if the arm of a Turk had not jostled him in the crowd the King

would have been killed. The ball grazed his nose, and took off a piece

of his ear, and then broke the arm of General Hoord, whose fate it was

always to be wounded at his master’s side.

The King stuck his sword into the janissary’s breast, and at the same

time his servants, who were shut up in the hall, opened the door to

him. He and his little troop slipped in as swiftly as an arrow; they

closed the door at once, and barricaded it with all they could find.

Behold Charles shut up in this hall with all his attendants, about

three-score men, officers, secretaries, valets, and servants of all

kinds!

The janissaries and the Tartars pillaged the rest of the house and

filled the rooms. “Come,” said the King, “let us go and drive out these

barbarians.” Then, putting himself at the head of his men, he, with his

own hands, opened the door of the hall, which opened into his bedroom,

went in and fired on his plunderers.

The Turks, laden with booty, terrified at the sudden appearance of the

King whom they had reverenced, threw down their arms and jumped out of

the window or fled to the cellars. The King, taking advantage of their

confusion, and his own men being animated with this piece of success,

pursued the Turks from room to room, killed or wounded those who had

not made their escape, and in a quarter of an hour cleared the house of

the enemy.

In the heat of the combat the King saw two janissaries who had hidden

themselves under his bed. He thrust one through, but the other asked

pardon, saying “Amman.” “I grant you your life,” said the King, “on

condition that you go and give the Pasha a faithful account of what you

have seen.” The Turk readily promised to do as he was told, and was

then allowed to leap out of the window like the others.

The Swedes were at last masters of the house again, and shut and

barricaded the windows. They did not lack arms, for a room on the

ground floor, full of muskets and powder, had escaped the tumultuous

search of the janissaries. This they turned to good account, firing

close on the Turks through the window, and killing 200 of them in less

than a quarter of an hour.

The cannon played against the house, but as the stones were very soft

they only made holes in the wall, but demolished nothing.

The Kan of Tartary and the Pasha, who wanted to take the King alive,

ashamed at losing time and men, and employing a whole army against

sixty persons, thought it expedient to fire the house in order to force

the King to surrender; they had arrows twisted with lighted matches

shot on to the roof and against the door and windows; by this means

the whole house was soon in flames; the roof, all in flames, was about

to fall on the Swedes. The King quietly gave orders for extinguishing

the fire, and finding a small barrel full of liquor he took hold of

it himself, and with the help of two Swedes, threw it on the place

where the fire was most violent. Then he found that it was full of

brandy. The fire burned more furiously than ever, the King’s room was

burned, and the great hall, where the Swedes were then, was filled

with terrible smoke mingled with tongues of flame, that came in through

the doors of the next rooms. Half the roof fell in, and the other had

fallen outside the house, cracking among the flames.

A guard called Walberg ventured, when things had got to this pass, to

say that they must surrender. “What a strange man this is,” said the

King, “to imagine that it is not more glorious to be burned than to

be taken prisoner.” Another guard, called Rosen, remarked that the

Chancery-house, which was only fifty paces away, had a stone roof, and

was fire-proof; that they might well sally out, gain that house, and

there stand on the defensive.

“A true Swede,” cried the King; then he embraced him and made him

a colonel on the spot. “Come on, my friends,” he said, “take all

the powder and ball you can carry, and let us gain Chancery, sword

in hand.” The Turks, who were all this while round the house, were

struck with fear and admiration at seeing that the Swedes were staying

inside in spite of the flames. But they were much more astonished when

they saw them open the doors, and the King and his men fall on them

desperately. Charles and his leading officer were armed with sword and

pistol. Every one fired two pistols at a time at the instant that the

door opened, and in a flash throwing away their pistols, and drawing

their swords, they drove back the Turks fifty paces; but the next

moment the little band was surrounded.

The King, booted according to custom, got his spurs entangled and fell.

At once one-and-twenty janissaries fell on him, disarmed him, and took

him away to the quarters of the Pasha, some holding his arms and others

his legs, as a sick man is carried for fear of incommoding him.

As soon as the King saw himself in their hands, the violence of his

rage and the fury which so long and desperate a fight had naturally

inspired, gave way to gentleness and calm; not one impatient

word escaped him, not one frown was to be seen. He smiled at the

janissaries, and they carried him, crying “Alla,” with mingled

indignation and respect. His officers were taken at the same time, and

stripped by the Turks and Tartars. This strange adventure happened on

the 12th of February, 1713. It had extraordinary consequences.

BOOK VII

BOOK VII

The Turks remove Charles to Demirtash--King Stanislas is seized at

the same time--Bold action of M. de Villelongue--Revolutions in

the seraglio--Battles in Pomerania--Altena is burnt by the

Swedes--Charles returns to his kingdom--His strange method of

travelling--His arrival at Stralsund--The state of Europe at that

time--The losses of King Charles--The successes of Peter the

Great--His triumphal entry into Petersburg.

THE Pasha of Bender waited in state in his tent, with a certain Marco

for interpreter, expecting the King. He received him with great

respect, and asked him to rest on a sofa; but the King disregarded his

civilities and continued standing.

“Blessed be the Almighty,” said the Pasha, “that your Majesty is

safe. I am grieved that you have forced me to execute the Sultan’s

orders.” The King, on the other hand, was only vexed that his 300

men had allowed themselves to be taken in their entrenchments, and

said, “Ah! if they had fought like men we should have held out these

ten days.” “Alas,” said the Pasha, “what a pity that so much courage

should be misapplied.” Then the King was taken on a fine horse with

magnificent trappings to Bender. All the Swedes were either killed or

taken prisoners. The King’s equipage, furniture and papers, and the

most needful of his clothes were pillaged or burned; on the roads

the Swedish officers, almost naked and chained in pairs, followed the

horses of the Tartars and janissaries. The Chancellor and the general

officers were in the same condition, becoming slaves to those of the

soldiers to whose share they fell.

The Pasha Ishmael, having brought the King to his seraglio at Bender,

gave him his own room, where he was served in state, but not without

a guard of janissaries at the room door. They prepared a bed for him,

but he threw himself down on a sofa in his boots, and fell fast asleep.

An officer in waiting near by put a cap on his head; the King threw it

off directly he awaked, and the Turk was amazed to see a king sleeping

on a sofa in his boots and bare-headed. In the morning Ishmael brought

Fabricius to the King, and when he saw his Prince’s clothes all rent,

his boots, his hands, and his whole person covered with blood and dust,

his eyebrows scorched, yet even in this state smiling, he threw himself

on his knees unable to speak; but, soon reassured by the natural and

gentle manner of the King, he resumed his ordinary familiarity, and

they began to make sport of the battle.

“They tell me,” said Fabricius, “that your Majesty killed no fewer than

twenty janissaries.” “No, no,” said the King, “you know a story always

grows in the telling.” In the midst of the conversation the Pasha

brought to the King his favourite Grothusen and Colonel Ribbins, whom

he had generously ransomed at his own expense. Fabricius undertook to

ransom all the other prisoners.

Jeffreys, the English ambassador, helped him with money, and La

Mottraye, the French noble who had come to Bender from curiosity to see

him, and who has written some account of these matters, gave all he

had. These strangers, assisted by the Czar’s advice and money, redeemed

all the officers and their clothes from the Tartars and Turks.

Next morning they took the King in a chariot decked with scarlet to

Adrianople, and his treasurer Grothusen was with him; the Chancellor

Mullern and some officers followed in another carriage. Many others

were on horseback, and could not restrain tears at the sight of the

King’s chariot. The Pasha commanded the escort. Fabricius remarked

that it was a shame that the King had no sword. “God forbid,” said the

Pasha; “he would soon be at our throats if he had a sword.” But some

hours after he had one given to him.

While they were carrying, disarmed and a captive, the King who had

shortly before dictated to so many countries, and been arbiter of

the North and the terror of all Europe, there occurred in the same

neighbourhood another instance of the frailty of human greatness. King

Stanislas, seized in the Turkish dominions, was being taken prisoner

to Bender at the same time as Charles was being taken to Adrianople.

Stanislas, without support from the hand that had made him king, having

no money, and so no friends in Poland, retired to Pomerania, and as he

was not able to keep his own kingdom had done his best to defend his

benefactor’s.

He even went to Sweden to hasten the recruits needed in Livonia and

Poland; he did all that could be expected of him as friend to the King

of Sweden. At this time the first King of Prussia, a very wise prince,

justly uneasy at the near neighbourhood of the Russians, planned to

league with Augustus and the Polish republic to dismiss the Russians to

their own country, and to get Charles himself to share in the project.

There would be three great results from such a course: the peace of the

North, the restoration of Charles to his estates, and a barrier erected

against the Russians, who were becoming formidable to Europe. The

preliminary of this treaty, on which the tranquillity of the republic

depended, was the abdication of Stanislas; Stanislas not only agreed,

but he undertook to carry through a peace which deprived him of the

throne: necessity, the public good, the glory of sacrifice, and the

interests of Charles, to whom he owed so much, decided him.

He wrote to Bender, explaining to the King the position of affairs, the

evils and their remedies. He besought him not to oppose an abdication

which was necessary under the circumstances, and which was to take

place from honourable motives; he begged him not to sacrifice the

interests of Sweden to those of an unhappy friend, who would rather

sacrifice himself for the public good.

Charles XII received the letters at Varnitsa, and said, in a rage, to

the courier, before many people, “Well, if he will not be a king I

shall find some one else.” Stanislas insisted on the sacrifice that

Charles refused to accept; he wished to go himself to persuade Charles,

and he risked more in the losing of a throne than he had done to gain

it. He stole away at nine one night from the Swedish army, which he

was commanding in Pomerania, and started with Baron Sparre, who was

afterwards the Swedish ambassador to England and France, and another

colonel. He took the name of a Frenchman called Haran, then major in

the King of Sweden’s army and since killed at Dantzig. He passed round

the whole of the hostile army, stopped several times, but released

under a passport in the name of Haran; at last he arrived after many

risks at the Turkish frontier.

When he reached Moldavia he sent Baron Sparre back to his army,

believing himself safe in a country where the King of Sweden had been

so honoured; he was far from suspecting what had happened since.

They inquired who he was, and he said a major in Charles’s service.

They stopped him at the bare mention of his name; he was brought

before the hospodar of Moldavia, who, already informed from the

newspapers that Stanislas had stolen away, had some inkling of the

truth. They had described the King’s appearance to him, and it was

very easy to recognize his pleasant face with its extraordinary look

of sweetness. The hospodar questioned him pointedly, and at last asked

what had been his work in the Swedish army. Stanislas and the hospodar

were speaking in Latin. “Major,” said Stanislas. “_Imo maximus

est_,” replied the Moldavian, and at once offering him an arm-chair

he treated him like a king, but like a captive king, and they kept a

strict watch outside the Greek convent where he was forced to stay till

they got the Sultan’s orders. The order came to take him to Bender,

whence they had just removed Charles.

The news was brought to the Pasha as he was travelling with the King of

Sweden, and he told Fabricius who, coming up in a chariot, told Charles

that he was not the only king prisoner in Turkey, and that Stanislas

was prisoner a few miles away. “Hasten to him, my dear Fabricius,” said

the King, “and tell him never to make peace with King Augustus, for we

shall certainly have a change of affairs soon.”

Fabricius had permission to go with the message attended by a

janissary. After some miles’ journey he met the body of soldiers who

were bringing Stanislas, and addressed one who rode in the midst, in a

Frankish dress and indifferently mounted. He asked him in German where

the King of Poland was. It proved to be Stanislas, whom he had not

recognized in that disguise. “What,” said the King, “have you forgotten

me?” Fabricius then told him of the King of Sweden’s sad condition, and

of his unshaken but unsuccessful resolution.

When Stanislas came to Bender, the Pasha, who was returning from

accompanying Charles, sent the King an Arabian horse with elegant

trappings. He was received in Bender with a volley of artillery,

and, except that he was a prisoner, had no cause to complain of his

treatment there. Charles was on the way to Adrianople and the town was

full of gossip about his battle. The Turks both admired him and thought

him blame-worthy; but the Divan was so exasperated that they threatened

to confine him in one of the islands of the Archipelago.

Stanislas, who did me the honour of informing me on most of these

details, assured me also that it was proposed in the Divan that he too

should be kept prisoner in one of the Greek islands, but some months

later the Sultan softened and let him go.

M. Desaleurs, who could have championed him and prevented this affront

to all Christian kings, was at Constantinople, as well as Poniatowski,

whose resourcefulness was always feared. Most of the Swedes were at

Adrianople in prison, and the Sultan’s throne seemed inaccessible to

any complaints from the King of Sweden.

The Marquis of Fierville, a private envoy to Charles at Bender, from

France, was then at Adrianople, and undertook a service to the Prince

at a time when he was either deserted or ill-used by all. He was

luckily helped in this design by a French noble of good family, a

certain Villelongue, a man of great courage and small fortune, who,

fascinated by reports of the King of Sweden, had come on purpose to

join his service.

With the help of this youth M. de Fierville wrote a memorial from the

King of Sweden, demanding justice of the Sultan for the wrong offered

in his person to all crowned heads, and against the treachery of the

Kan and the Pasha of Bender.

It accused the Vizir and other ministers of having been corrupted by

the Russians, of having deceived the Sultan, intercepted letters, and

of having employed trickery to get from the Sultan an order contrary to

the hospitality of the Mussulmans, in violation of the laws of nations,

and this in a manner so unworthy of a great Emperor, that a king who

had none but his retinue to defend him, and who had trusted the sacred

word of the Sultan, was attacked by 20,000 men.

When this memorial had been drawn up it had to be translated into

Turkish, and written upon the special paper used for the Sultan’s

petitions.

They tried to get it done by several interpreters, but the King’s

affairs were at such a pass, and the Vizir so openly his enemy, that

none of them at all would undertake it. At last they found a stranger

whose hand was not known, so for a considerable fee, and a promise of

profound secrecy, he translated the memorial and copied it on to the

right sort of paper. Baron Ardidson counterfeited the King’s hand and

Fierville sealed it with the arms of Sweden. Villelongue undertook to

deliver it to the Sultan as he went to the mosque. This had been done

before by people with grievances against the ministers, but that made

it now the more dangerous and difficult.

The Vizir was certain that the Swedes would seek justice from his

master, and knew from the fate of his predecessors what the probable

sequel was. So he forbade any one to approach the Sultan, and ordered

that any one seen in the neighbourhood of the Mosque with petitions

should be seized.

Villelongue knew the order, and that he was risking his life; but he

dressed as a Greek, and, hiding the letter in his breast, went early

to the place. He feigned madness, and danced into the midst of the two

lines of janissaries, where the Sultan was to pass, and now and then

dropped some money to amuse the guards.

When the Sultan was coming they wanted to push Villelongue aside; he

fell on his knees and struggled with the soldiers. At last his cap blew

off, and showed that he was a Frank, from his long hair: he received

several blows and was ill-used.

The Sultan heard the scuffle, and asked what was the matter;

Villelongue cried with all his might, “Amman, Amman” (mercy), and

pulled out the letter. The Sultan commanded that he should be brought

before him. Villelongue hastened forward, and embracing his stirrup

gave him the paper, saying, “Sued call dan” (the King of Sweden gives

it to thee). The Sultan put the letter in his breast, went on to the

mosque, and Villelongue was secured in one of the out-houses of the

seraglio.

The Sultan read the letter on his return from the mosque, and resolved

to examine the prisoner himself. He changed the Imperial coat and

turban, and, as he often does, took the disguise of an officer of

janissaries, and took an old Maltese with him as interpreter. Thanks

to his disguise Villelongue had a private talk of a quarter of an

hour with the Turkish Emperor, an honour that was never done to any

other Christian ambassador. He did not fail to detail all the King

of Sweden’s hardships, accusing the minister and demanding vengeance

with the greater freedom, because he was throughout the conversation

talking to the Sultan as to an equal. He had recognized the Sultan,

although the prison was very dark, and this made him the bolder in

his discourse. The seeming officer of the janissaries said to him,

“Christian, be assured that the Sultan my master has the soul of an

Emperor, and that if the King of Sweden is in the right he will do him

justice.” Villelongue was soon released, and some weeks after there

was a sudden change in the seraglio, which the Swedes attribute to

this conference. The mufti were deprived, the Kan of Tartary banished

to the Rhodes, and the serasquier Pasha of Bender to an island in the

Archipelago.

The Ottoman Porte is so subject to such storms that it is hard to say

whether this was an attempt to appease the King of Sweden or not; his

subsequent treatment by the Porte showed little anxiety to please him.

Ali-Coumourgi, the favourite, was suspected of having made all

these changes for some private ends of his own; the pretext for the

banishment of the Kan and the serasquier of Bender was that they had

given the King 1,200 purses against the express orders of the Sultan.

He put on the Tartar throne the son of the deposed Kan of Tartary,

a young man who cared little for his father and on whom Ali counted

for military help. Some weeks after this the Grand Vizir Joseph was

deposed, and the Pasha Soliman was declared Prime Vizir.

I must say that M. de Villelongue, and many Swedes, have assured me

that the letter he gave was the cause of these changes, but M. de

Fierville denies this, and I have in other cases met with contradictory

accounts. Now, an historian’s duty is to tell plain matter of fact,

without entering into motives, and he must relate just what he knows,

without guessing at what he does not know.

In the meantime, Charles was taken to a little castle called Demirtash,

near Adrianople. Crowds of Turks had collected there to see him alight.

He was carried on a sofa from his chariot to the castle; but to avoid

being seen by this mob he covered his face with a cushion.

It was several days before the Porte would consent to his residence at

Demotica, a little town six leagues from Adrianople, near the river

Hebrus, now called Marizza. Coumourgi said to the Grand Vizir, “Go and

tell the King of Sweden he can stay at Demotica all his life. I warrant

he will ask to move of his own accord before the year is over, and be

sure you do not let him have a penny of money.”

So the King was moved to the little town of Demotica, where the Porte

allowed him sufficient supplies for himself and his retinue.

They allowed him twenty-five crowns a day to buy pork and wine, a sort

of provisions that the Turks do not supply, but as to the allowance of

five hundred crowns a day, which he had had at Bender, it was quite

withdrawn. Scarcely had he arrived at Demotica with his small court

than the Grand Vizir Soliman was deposed; his place was given to

Ibrahim Molla, a haughty, bold and rough man.

He had been a common sailor till the accession of Achmet III. This

Emperor often disguised himself as a private citizen, a priest, or a

dervish; he would then slip in the evening into the cafés and other

public places of Constantinople to listen to what was said of him, and

to hear the people’s opinions with his own ears. One day he heard this

Molla finding fault with the Turkish ships because they never brought

home any prizes, and swore that were he a captain he would never return

home without some infidel ship. The next morning the Sultan gave him a

ship and sent him out on a cruise. A few days later the Captain brought

back a Maltese boat and a Genoese galley, and in another two years he

was Admiral, and then Grand Vizir. He was no sooner appointed than he

began to think that he could dispense with the favourite, and to make

himself indispensable he planned to make war on the Russians; in order

to do so he set up a tent near the castle where the King of Sweden was

living.

He invited the King to meet him there with the new Kan of Tartary

and the French ambassador. The King’s misfortunes made him feel the

indignity of being sent for by a subject the more; he ordered the

Chancellor Mollern to go in his place, and because he feared that the

Turks might be disrespectful, and force him to compromise his dignity,

he resolved to stay in bed during his stay at Demotica. This he did

for ten months, just as if he had been ill. The Chancellor, Grothusen,

and Colonel Dubens were his only table-companions. They had none of the

conveniences of the Franks, all had been carried off at Bender, so that

their meals lacked pomp and elegance. They waited on themselves, and

Chancellor Mullern did all the cooking during that time.

While Charles was thus staying in bed, he heard news of the wreck of

all his foreign dominions.

General Steinbock, famous for having driven the Danes out of

Scandinavia, and for having defeated their picked troops with a band

of peasants, was still maintaining the credit of the Swedish arms. He

defended Pomerania, Bremen, and the King’s possessions in Germany as

long as he could, but could not prevent the Saxons and Danes united

from passing the Elbe and besieging Stade, a strong town near that

river, and in the Duchy of Bremen. It was bombarded and burnt to

ashes, and the garrison was obliged to surrender at discretion, before

Steinbock could come to their assistance.

He had about 10,000 men, and half of them were cavalry, with which he

pursued the enemy, though they were twice his number, and forced them

to recross the Elbe. He caught them at a place called Gadebesck, on a

small river of the same name, on the 20th December, 1712. The Saxons

and Danes were posted with a marsh in front and a wood in the rear;

they had all the advantage both in number and position, for there was

no getting at them but across the marsh, through the fire of their

artillery.

Steinbock led on his men, and, advancing in battle order, began one of

the most bloody engagements that had ever taken place between those

rival nations. After a sharp fight of three hours’ duration, the Danes

and the Saxons were forced back and had to leave the field.

After this victory Steinbock could not but remember how the Danes had

reduced Stade to ashes, and resolved to avenge himself on Altena, a

town belonging to the King of Denmark. Altena is above Hamburg, on the

river Elbe, which brings up large vessels thither. The King of Denmark

had granted it great privileges, in the hope of making it a place of

considerable trade. Hamburg therefore got jealous, and wished nothing

but their destruction. When Steinbock came within sight of the place,

he sent a herald to bid them begone at once with their possessions, for

he intended to destroy their town immediately.

The magistrates came and threw themselves at his feet and offered him

a ransom of 100,000 crowns. Steinbock said he must have 200,000. They

begged for time to send to their correspondent at Hamburg, and promised

that he should have it by the next day. The General told them that if

they did not pay at once he would burn their town about their ears.

His soldiers were in the suburbs ready with their torches in their

hands. The town had no defence but a poor wooden gate and a dry ditch;

so that the poor wretches were forced to flee at midnight. It was on

the 9th of January, 1713; the weather was severely cold, and a great

north wind helped to spread the flames, and to increase the sufferings

of the people exposed in the open fields.

Men and women, loaded with their property, went weeping and lamenting

towards the neighbouring ice-clad hills. Paralytic old folk were

carried by the young on their shoulders, women just delivered were

carrying their children, and died of cold on the hillside, in sight

of their burning homes. The people had not all left the town when the

Swedes fired it. It burned from midnight to about ten the next morning;

the houses, being mostly of wood, were easily burnt, so that by morning

there was scarcely any trace of a town left. The aged, the sick, and

the women of delicate health, who had refuged on the frozen ground

while their houses were burning, dragged themselves to the gates of

Hamburg, and begged that they would let them in and save their lives,

but they were refused on the ground that there had been infectious

disease among them. So that most of these poor wretches died under the

walls, calling Heaven to witness the cruelty of the Swedes, and of the

still more inhuman Hamburgers.

All Germany was scandalized by this violence. The ministers and

generals of Poland and Denmark wrote to Steinbock, complaining of his

cruelty, which was inexcusable because it was uncalled for, and must

set God and man against him.

He replied that he never would have gone to these extremities were it

not to show his master’s enemies how war ought to be made--not like

barbarians, but in consideration of the laws of nations; that they

had committed atrocities in Pomerania to ruin that beautiful country,

and sell 100,000 people to the Turks; that his torches at Altena were

only a fitting return for the red-hot bullets they had used at Stade;

that it was with such violence that the Swedes and their enemies made

war on each other. If Charles could have appeared then in Poland, he

might possibly have retrieved his former fortune. His armies, though

they needed his presence among them, were yet actuated by his spirit;

but when the master is away success is seldom turned to good account.

Steinbock gradually lost all that he had gained in those great actions,

which might have been decisive at a more fortunate time.

With all his success it was not in his power to prevent the Russians,

the Saxons, and the Danes from uniting. They seized his quarters, and

he lost several of his men in little skirmishes; 2,000 of them were

drowned in the Oder as they were going to their winter quarters in

Holstein; these were losses which could not be repaired in a country

where the enemy was strong in all directions. He intended to defend

the country of Holstein against Denmark, but in spite of his ruses and

efforts the country was lost, the whole army destroyed, and Steinbock

taken prisoner. To complete the misfortunes of the Swedes, the King

persisted in his resolve of staying at Demotica, and fed his mind with

vain expectations of help from Turkey.

The Vizir, Ibrahim Molla, who had been so bent on war with the Russians

in opposition to the favourite, was pressed to death between two doors.

The post of Vizir was now so dangerous that none dare take the office;

but after it had been vacant for about six months, the favourite

Ali-Coumourgi took it. Then the King of Sweden abandoned all hope. He

really knew Coumourgi, because he had been of service to him when the

favourite’s interest had corresponded with his own.

He had spent eleven months buried in idleness and oblivion at Demotica;

this extreme idleness, following the most violent exercise, made

the illness which he had before assumed a fact. All Europe believed

he was dead, and the Regency which he had settled when he left

Stockholm, getting no word from him, the Senate went to the Princess

Ulrica Eleanora to ask her to take the Regency during the absence

of her brother. She accepted it; but when she found that the Senate

were trying to force her to peace with the King of Denmark, who was

attacking Sweden from all sides, and with the Czar, she resigned the

Regency in the certainty that her brother would never ratify the peace,

and sent a long account of the affair to him in Turkey.

The King received the dispatches at Demotica, and the despotic theories

which he had inherited made him forget that Sweden had once been free,

and that the Senate had formerly governed the kingdom together with the

Kings. He looked on them as servants, who were usurping the government

in the absence of their master; he wrote to them that if they wanted to

govern he would send them one of his boots, to whom they might apply

for orders. Then, to prevent any attempt to overthrow his authority

in Sweden, and to defend his country, hoping for nothing further from

the Ottomans, he depended on himself, and told the Grand Vizir that he

would go through Germany.

Desaleurs, the French ambassador who transacted all the affairs of

Sweden, made the proposal to the Vizir. “Well,” said the Vizir, “didn’t

I say that the year would not pass without the King’s asking to go?

Tell him that he is free to go or stay, but that he must fix his day,

that we may not have a repetition of the trouble we had with him at

Bender.”

Count Desaleurs softened the form of this message to the King. The

day was fixed, but Charles wished, in spite of his wretched position,

to show the pomp of a grand king before leaving. He made Grothusen

his ambassador extraordinary, and sent him to make a formal leave at

Constantinople, with a suite of fourscore persons in rich attire.

But the splendour of the Embassy was not so great as the mean shifts

to which he descended to provide it were disgraceful. M. Desaleurs

lent the King 40,000 crowns, Grothusen borrowed, through his agents

at Constantinople, 1,000 from a Jew, at the rate of fifty per cent.,

besides 200 pistoles of an English merchant, and 1,000 of a Turk.

They amassed this money solely to act before the Divan the comedy of a

Swedish embassy. At the Porte, Grothusen received all the honour paid

to ambassadors extraordinary on their day of audience. The object of

the whole thing was to get money from the Vizir, but the scheme failed.

Grothusen proposed that the Porte should lend him a million. But the

Vizir answered that his master could be generous when he wished, but

that lending was beneath his dignity; that the King should have all

necessary for his journey, and in a degree becoming to the giver; and

that possibly the Porte might send him a present of uncoined gold, but

that he was not to count on that.

The King began his journey on the 1st of October, 1714. A capigi-pasha,

with six chiaoux, went to accompany him from Demirtash, whither he

had removed a few days before. The presents they brought him from

the Sultan were a large scarlet tent embroidered with gold, a sabre

set with jewels, eight beautiful Arab horses, with fine saddles and

stirrups set with massive silver. It is not beneath the dignity of

history to tell that the Arabian groom, who had charge of the horses,

gave the King an account of their genealogy; it is the custom there

to think more of the family of a horse than of a man; which is not

unreasonable, for if we are careful of the breed these animals never

degenerate.

The convoy consisted of sixty chariots, laden with all sorts of

provisions, and three hundred horses. The Pasha, knowing that many

Turks had advanced money to the King’s suite at high rate of interest,

told him that, as usury was forbidden by the law of Mahomet, he desired

his Majesty to settle the debts, so that his resident at Constantinople

should only pay the principal. “No,” said the King, “if my servants

have given bills for a hundred crowns it shall be paid, even if they

have only received ten for it.” He proposed to the creditors to go

with him, and promised payment of all their debts; and many did go to

Sweden, and Grothusen was responsible for seeing that they were paid.

The Turks, to show more respect for their guest, made very short stages

in the journey; this respectful delay bored the King; he got up as

usual about three in the morning; as soon as he was dressed he himself

called the capigi and the chiaoux, and ordered them to march in the

midst of pitch darkness. The Turkish solemnity was not pleased by this

novel way of travelling, and the King was glad to find it was so, and

said that he would avenge Bender a little.

When he arrived at the Turkish frontier, Stanislas was leaving it by

another road, intending to withdraw into Germany to the Duchy of Deux

Ponts, a country bordering on the Rhine Palatinate and Alsace, which

had belonged to the King of Sweden ever since it had been united to the

crown by Christina, successor to Charles XI.

Charles assigned the revenue of this Duchy to Stanislas; it was then

reckoned at about 70,000 crowns. And this was the end of so many

wars and so many hopes. Stanislas both would and could have made an

advantageous treaty with Augustus, if Charles had not been so obstinate

as to make him lose his actual estates in Poland only that he might

keep the title King.

The Prince stayed at Deux Ponts, till Charles’s death, then this Duchy

falling to the Palatine family, he retired to Weissemburg in French

Alsace. When M. Sum, King Augustus’ ambassador, complained to the Duke

of Orleans, Regent of France, he received this strange answer: “Sir,

tell the King, your master, that France has ever been a refuge for

kings in misfortune.”

The King of Sweden, having arrived on the German frontier, found that

the Emperor had given orders for his reception with proper state

throughout his dominions. The towns and villages where harbingers had

fixed his route were making great preparations to entertain him; and

every one was looking forward to see the passing of this extraordinary

man, whose conquests and misfortunes, whose least actions and whose

very times of rest had made so much talk in Europe. But Charles

disliked so much pomp, nor did he, as the prisoner of Bender, care to

go on show; he had even resolved to never re-enter Stockholm till he

had repaired his misfortunes.

So dismissing his Turkish attendants at Tergowitz, on the border

of Transylvania, he called his people together in a yard, and bade

them not to be anxious about him, but make the best of their way to

Stralsund, in Pomerania, about 300 leagues from that spot, on the

Baltic. He took no one with him, but a certain During, and parted

cheerfully with all his officers, leaving them in astonishment, fear

and grief. As a disguise he wore a black wig, a gold-laced hat, and a

blue cloak, passing for a German officer. Then he rode post-haste with

his travelling companion.

On the road he kept clear of places belonging to his real or secret

enemies, and so, through Hungary, Moravia, Austria, Bavaria,

Wirtemburg, the Palatinate, Westphalia and Mecklenburg, he made the

tour of Germany, and doubled his route. At the end of the first day,

During, who was not used to such fatigues, fainted when he alighted.

The King would not wait a moment, but asked him how much money he had.

He said about a thousand crowns. “Give me half,” said the King; “I see

you can go no further; I will go without you.” During begged him to

rest for at least three hours, assuring him that then he would be able

to go on, and desired him to consider the risk of travelling alone. The

King would not be persuaded, but made him hand over the five hundred

crowns, and called for horses. During, fearing the consequences,

bethought himself of a plan.

He drew the post-master to one side, and, pointing to the King,

“Friend,” he said, “this is my cousin; we are travelling on the same

business, and you see he won’t wait three hours for me; pray give him

the worst horse you have, and procure me a chaise or coach.” He put a

couple of ducats in the man’s hand, and was obeyed punctually; so that

the King had a horse which was both lame and restive. He started at

about ten at night, through wind, snow, and rain. His fellow-traveller,

after a few hours’ rest, set out again in a chaise with very good

horses. At about daybreak he overtook the King, with his horse in a

state of exhaustion, and walking to the next stage. Then he was obliged

to get in with During, and slept on the straw; then they continued

their journey, on horseback during the day and sleeping in the coach at

night. They did not make any halts, and so, after sixteen days’ riding,

and often at the risk of being taken, they arrived at last at the gates

of the town of Stralsund, at one o’clock in the morning. The King

shouted to the sentinel that he was a messenger from the King of Sweden

in Turkey, that he must speak that very moment to General Ducker, the

governor of the place; the sentinel answered that it was late, that the

governor was in bed, and that they must wait till daybreak. The King

answered that he was on important business, and declared that if they

did not wake the governor without delay he would have them all hanged.

The next morning a sergeant went and called the governor; Ducker

imagined that he was perhaps one of the King of Sweden’s generals; the

gates were opened, and the courier was brought into the room. Ducker,

half asleep, asked the news. The King seized him by the arm. “What,”

he said, “my most faithful subjects have forgotten me!” The General

recognized the King; he could hardly believe his eyes. He threw himself

from his bed, and embraced his master’s feet, shedding tears of joy.

The news was all over the town in a minute; every one got up, the

soldiers collected round the governor’s house; the streets were full of

people asking if the news were true; the windows were illuminated, the

conduits ran with wine, and the artillery fired a volley.

In the meantime they put the King to bed, as he had not rested for

sixteen days. They had to cut his boots from his legs, so much were

they swollen from excessive fatigue. He had neither linen nor clothes.

They hastily manufactured a wardrobe from whatever would fit him best

that was in the town. When he had had some hours’ sleep, he got up

to go and review his troops, and visit the fortifications. That very

day he sent his orders to all parts for renewing the war against his

enemies with more vigour than ever.

Europe was now in a very different condition from that she had been in

when Charles went away in 1709. The war in the South, between England,

Holland, France, Spain, Portugal and Italy, was over; this general

peace was due to some private quarrels in the English Court. The Earl

of Oxford, a clever minister, and Lord Bolingbroke, one of the greatest

geniuses and most eloquent men of his century, were in the ascendant

against the famous Duke of Marlborough, and persuaded Queen Anne to

make peace with Louis XIV. France having made peace with England, soon

forced the other Powers to terms. Philip IV, grandson of Louis XIV,

was beginning a peaceful rule over the ruins of the Spanish monarchy.

The Emperor, master of Naples and Flanders, was firmly settled in

his vast dominions. The only thing that Louis asked was to finish

his long career in peace. Queen Anne of England died in August 1714,

hated by half the nation for having given peace to so many States. Her

brother James Stewart, an unfortunate prince excluded from the throne

almost from his birth, failing to appear in England to try to recover

a succession which new laws would have settled on him, had his party

prevailed, George I, Elector of Hanover, was unanimously chosen King of

Great Britain. The throne came to him not by right of descent, but by

Act of Parliament.

Called at an advanced age to rule a people whose language he did

not understand, and where everything was strange, George considered

himself rather Elector of Hanover than King of England; his whole

ambition was for the improvement of his German States; nearly every

year he crossed the seas to visit the subjects who adored him. In other

ways he preferred a private to public life; the pomp of majesty was

burdensome to him, and what he liked was a familiar talk with a few

old courtiers. He was not the most dazzling king of Europe, but he was

one of the wisest of the kings, and perhaps the only one who could,

as king, taste the pleasures of friendship and a private life. These

were the chief princes, and this was the position of affairs in South

Europe. The changes that had occurred in the North were of another

kind: the kings there were at war, but all united against the King of

Sweden.

Augustus had been long restored to the crown of Poland, by the help

of the Czar, and with the consent of the Emperor, Queen Anne, and the

States-General, who, though guarantors of the Peace of Altranstadt, in

Charles’s better days, forgot their obligations when they found there

was no longer anything to fear from him. But Augustus was not at peace

in his kingdom. His people’s fears of arbitrary power returned with the

return of their King; they had taken up arms to make him submit to the

Pacta Conventa, a solemn compact they had with their King.

They seemed to have summoned him home only to make war on him. At the

beginning of these troubles not a word was said of Stanislas, his

party seemed to have disappeared, and the King of Sweden was no more

remembered than as a kind of torrent, which had for a time borne down

all before it.

Pultawa and Charles’s absence, which caused the fall of Stanislas, was

also the cause of the fall of the Duke of Holstein, Charles’s nephew,

who was dispossessed of his dominions by the King of Denmark. The

King of Sweden had a great regard for the father, and was moved and

humiliated by the son’s losses. Besides, as he only acted for the sake

of glory, the fall of princes which he had himself set up was as vexing

to him as his own losses. His enemies vied with each other in profiting

by his ruin. Frederic William, the new King of Prussia, who seemed as

anxious for war as his father had been for peace, took Stetin and a

part of Pomerania for four hundred thousand crowns, which he advanced

to the King of Denmark and the Czar. George, Elector of Hanover, now

King of England, had the Duchy of Bremen and Verden for three-score

thousand pistoles which he had lent to the King of Denmark. Thus was

Charles spoiled, and those who had gained these territories as pledges

were from their interests as much opposed to him as those who had

taken them from him. The Czar was indeed most of all to be feared. His

former losses, his victories, and his very mistakes, combined with his

diligence to learn, and care to teach his subjects in their turn, and

his hard work, made him a remarkable man.

Riga, Livonia, Ingria, Carelia, part of Finland, and all the countries

that had been won by Charles’s ancestors, were now subject to Russia.

Peter, who had only twenty years before not so much as one ship on

the Baltic, had gained control of those seas with a fleet of no fewer

than thirty ships of the line. He built one of these ships with his

own hands; he was the best carpenter, admiral and pilot in the North.

From the Gulf of Bothnia to the ocean he had sounded every league of

the way. He had united the labour of a common sailor to the experiments

of a theorist, and having become admiral gradually, and by dint of

victories, as he had before when he aimed at land command. While Prince

Gallitsin, a general made by him, and the best at seconding his plans,

was completing the conquest of Poland, by taking Vasa and beating the

Swedes, this Emperor put to sea to make a descent on Alan, on the

Baltic, about twelve leagues from Stockholm.

He went on the expedition in the beginning of July 1714, while his

rival Charles was in bed at Demotica.

He embarked at Cronslot, a harbour he had built four miles from St.

Petersburg. The harbour, the fleet, the officers and sailors were all

the work of his own hands, and he could see nothing that he had not

made himself.

The Russian fleet found itself off Aland on the 15th of July; it

consisted of thirty ships of the line, fourscore galleys, and a hundred

half-galleys; it carried twenty thousand men, and was commanded by

Admiral Apraxin, the Russian Emperor being Rear-Admiral.

The Swedish fleet came up on the 16th, under the command of

Vice-Admiral Erinschild, and was weaker by two-thirds; yet they fought

for three hours, the Czar himself attacking the flag-ship, and taking

it after an obstinate fight.

The day of the victory he landed 16,000 men at Aland, and took many of

the Swedish soldiers who could not board their own fleet prisoners.

Then he returned to his port of Cronslot, with the flag-ship and three

smaller ones, a frigate, and six galleys, which he had taken.

From Cronslot he went to St. Petersburg, followed by his victorious

fleet and the ships he had taken. He was greeted by a salute of 150

guns. Then he made his triumphal entry, which gave him more pleasure

than that at Moscow, as it was in his favourite town, where ten years

before there was not so much as a shed, and which now possessed 34,000

fine houses. Then, too, he was at the head of a victorious army, and

of the first Russian fleet ever seen in the Baltic; and among a people

who, before his time, had never known what a fleet was.

At Petersburg the ceremonies were much the same as at Moscow. The

Swedish Vice-Admiral was the _pièce de résistance_. Peter appeared

as Rear-Admiral, and a Russian, who represented the Czar on these

occasions, was set upon a throne surrounded by twelve senators. The

Rear-Admiral presented him with an account of his victories, and was

then made Vice-Admiral in consideration of his services. It was an

odd ceremony, but suited to a country where the Czar had introduced

military distinctions as a novelty.