History of Charles XII, King of Sweden · Voltaire
YOUNG Stanislas Leczinski was therefore deputed by the Assembly at Warsaw to give the King of Sweden an account of several differences that had arisen among them since Jacques had been carried off. Stanislas’ personal appearance was pleasing, full of courage and sweetness, with that frank open air which is the greatest of outward advantages, and a better seconder of a man’s words than eloquence itself. Charles was impressed by his discreet allusions to King Augustus, the Assembly, the Cardinal and the different interests which rent Poland. King Stanislas did the writer the honour of relating his conversation with the King, which took place in Latin. “How can we hold an election if the two Princes and Constantine are absent?” he inquired. “How can you get the State out of the difficulty without an election?” answered the King.
This conversation was the only intrigue which placed Stanislas on his throne. Charles prolonged the conversation purposely, that he might the better sound the young deputy’s genius. After the conference he said aloud that he had never met a man so fit to reconcile all parties. He immediately made inquiries about the character of Leczinski, and found that he was brave and inured to fatigue, that he always slept on a kind of straw mattress, and that he required no personal service from his attendants; that he was more temperate than is usual in that climate, economical, adored by his servants, and perhaps the only popular prince in Poland, at a time when all ties were broken but those of interest and faction. This character, which corresponded in many respects with his own, made him make up his mind finally. He remarked aloud after the meeting, “There is a man who will always be my friend,” and people knew that that meant, “There is a man who shall be king.”
When the Primate of Poland heard that the King had nominated the Palatine Leczinski, he hastened to Charles to try to make him change his mind, for he wished to put the crown on the head of a certain Lubomirski. “But what objection have you to Stanislas?” asked the conqueror. “Sire,” said the Primate, “he is too young.” “He is much about my own age,” answered the King dryly, turning his back on the Prelate. Then he sent Count Horn to Warsaw at once to notify the Assembly that they must elect a king in three days, and that they must choose Stanislas Leczinski. Count Horn arrived on the 7th July, and fixed the election for the 12th, just as if he were arranging the decampment of a battalion. The Cardinal-Primate, disappointed of the fruit of so many intrigues, returned to the Assembly, where he left no stone unturned to ruin the election in which he had had no share; but the King of Sweden arrived incognito at Warsaw, so that he had to be silent. All that the Primate could do was to absent himself from the election: he took up the position of a neutral, being unable to oppose the conqueror and unwilling to assist him.
On Saturday, 12th July, the day appointed for the election, the Assembly met at Colo, at about three in the afternoon. They met there by arrangement, and the Bishop of Posnania presided instead of the Cardinal. Count Horn and two other officers were present at the ceremony, as ambassadors extraordinary from Charles to the Republic. The session lasted till nine in the evening, and the Bishop brought it to an end by declaring in the name of the Diet that Stanislas was elected King of Poland. They all threw their caps into the air, and the acclamations stifled the cries of the opposers.
It was no use for the Cardinal and his party to stay away from the elections; they were all obliged the next day to come and pay homage to the new King, who received them as if he were quite satisfied with their conduct; their greatest mortification was that they had to attend him to the King of Sweden’s quarters. His Majesty gave all honours to the King he had just made, and, to add weight to his new dignity, assigned money and troops for his use.
Charles XII left Warsaw at once to proceed to the completion of the conquest of Poland. He had ordered his army to meet before Leopold, the capital of the great Palatinate of Russia, a place important in itself, but still more so for the riches it held. It was thought that by means of the fortifications, which King Augustus had made there, it would hold out fifteen days. The conqueror invested it on the 5th, and took it the following day by assault. All who resisted were put to the sword. The victors, who were now masters of the town, did not disperse for pillage, in spite of the reports concerning treasure in Leopold: they ranged themselves in battle array in the great square. The King then proclaimed, by sounding a trumpet, that all who had anything belonging to King Augustus or his adherents should bring them themselves before sunset on pain of death. The arrangements were so well made that few dare disobey him, and they brought him 400 chests, filled with gold and silver coin, plate and other things of value.
The beginning of Stanislas’ reign was contemporaneous with a very different event. Some business for which he must be present had forced him to remain in Warsaw: he had with him his mother, his wife and two daughters; the Cardinal, the Bishop of Posnania and some prominent Poles made up his new court. His guards were 6,000 Poles of the royal army, who had lately entered his service, but whose fidelity had not yet been tried. General Horn, governor of the town, had only about 1,500 Swedes with him. They were at Warsaw in peace, and Stanislas was reckoning on starting in a few days for the conquest of Leopold, when suddenly they heard that an immense army was approaching the town. It was King Augustus, who was making a fresh effort; by one of the finest marches ever made he was coming up with 20,000 men to fall on Warsaw, after having eluded the King of Sweden; his purpose was to kidnap his rival.
Warsaw was not fortified, and the Polish troops who were defending it were not reliable. There were those in the town from whom Augustus got information, and if Stanislas delayed he would be ruined. He sent his family to Posnania, under the guard of Polish troops upon which he could absolutely rely. It was in this disorder that he feared he had lost his second daughter, aged one; she was lost by a nurse, and they discovered her in a manger, in a neighbouring village, where she had been left. That is the story that I have often heard him tell. It was this child who, after many vicissitudes, became Queen of France. Several gentlemen took different roads. The new King went to join Charles XII, learning early to suffer disgrace, and forced to leave his capital six weeks after he had been made King.
Augustus entered the capital as a victorious and enraged sovereign. The inhabitants, already fleeced by the King of Sweden, were more heavily taxed still by Augustus. The Cardinal’s palace and all the houses of the confederate lords were given over to plunder. The most extraordinary thing about this transient revolution was that the Papal Legate, who had come with King Augustus, demanded in the name of his master that the Bishop of Posnania should be handed over to him as responsible to the Court of Rome for having abetted a Prince who had been put on the throne by the arms of a Lutheran.
The Court of Rome, which had always endeavoured to increase its temporal power by means of the spiritual, had long established a kind of jurisdiction in Poland, with the Papal Legate at the head of it. These ministers never missed a chance of extending their power, which was revered by the majority, but always resisted by those of greater discernment. They had claimed the right of judging all ecclesiastical cases, and had, especially during periods of disturbance, usurped many other privileges which they maintained until about 1728, when they were deprived of them: for such abuses are seldom reformed till they have become intolerable.
King Augustus, very glad to be able to punish the Bishop with decency, and at the same time to do something acceptable to the Roman Court, though he would have opposed it on any other occasion, delivered up the Polish Prelate into the hands of the Legate. The Bishop, having seen his palace plundered, was taken by the soldiers into Saxony, where he died.
Count Horn endured the continual fire of the enemy in the castle where he was enclosed for some time, but at last the place could hold out no longer, and he sounded a parley and gave himself up with his 15,000 Swedes. This was the first advantage which King Augustus gained in the torrent of his misfortune against the victorious Swedes.
Charles, accompanied by King Stanislas, went to meet his enemy at the head of the best part of his troops. The Saxon army fled before him; the towns for thirty miles round sent him their keys, and every day brought word of some advantage gained. Success became too familiar to Charles: he said it was hunting rather than fighting, and complained of never having to contest a victory.
For some time Augustus entrusted the command of his army to Count Schullemburg, a very able general: he certainly needed all his experience at the head of a discouraged army. He seemed more anxious to safeguard his master’s troops than to conquer: he made war by means of stratagem, while the two kings acted with vigour. He stole marches on them, seized advantageous posts, and sacrificed some of his cavalry to give time to his foot to withdraw in safety. He saved his troops by splendid retreats before an enemy with whom one could only gain this sort of glory.
Scarcely had he arrived in the Palatinate of Posnania than he heard that the two Kings, whom he had believed to be fifty leagues off, had covered the fifty leagues in nine days. He had not more than 8,000 foot and 1,000 horse; he had to hold his own against a superior force, the King of Sweden’s reputation and the fear which so many defeats had naturally inspired in the Saxons. He was always of opinion, in spite of the German generals, that the foot might hold their own against the horse in an open field, even without the benefit of chevaux de frise: and he ventured to try the experiment on that day against a victorious horse commanded by the two Kings and the most experienced of the Swedish generals. He took up such an advantageous position that he could not be surrounded; his first line knelt on the ground, and were armed with pikes and muskets; the soldiers were in close formation, and presented to the enemy’s horse a kind of rampart bristling with pikes and muskets; the second line bending a little over the shoulders of the first, shot over their heads, and the third, standing upright, fired simultaneously from behind the other two. The Swedes fell upon the Saxons with their usual impetuosity, but they awaited them without flinching. By this means the Swedes advanced in disorder, and the Saxons warded off the attack by keeping their ranks.
Schullemburg drew up his men in an oblong battalion, and, though wounded in five places, he retired in good order at midnight to the little town of Gurau, three leagues from the battle-field. He had scarcely time to breathe here before the two Kings appeared close behind him.
Beyond Gurau, towards the river Oder, lay a thick wood through which the Saxon general led his exhausted troops; the Swedes, without being nonplussed, pursued him through the thickets of the woods, finding their way without difficulty through places scarcely passable by foot-passengers. Yet the Saxons had not crossed the wood more than five hours before the Swedish cavalry appeared.
On the other side of the wood runs the river Parts, at the foot of a village named Rutsen. Schullemburg had sent forward in haste to get the boats ready, and had got his troops across the river: they were already lessened by half. Charles arrived just as Schullemburg had reached the other side; never had a conqueror pursued his enemy so rapidly.
The reputation of Schullemburg depended on his escaping from the King of Sweden, while the King thought his glory concerned in taking him and the rest of his army. He lost no time in making his cavalry swim the river. Thus the Saxons found themselves enclosed between the river Parts and the great river Oder, which rises in Silesia, and is very deep and rapid at this spot.
The ruin of Schullemburg seemed inevitable: but after having lost few soldiers he crossed the Oder during the night. Thus he saved his army, and Charles could not help saying, “To-day Schullemburg has conquered us.”
It was this same Schullemburg who was afterwards general of the Venetians, and he in whose honour the Republic erected a statue in Corfu, because he defended this rampart of Italy against the Turks. None but republics confer such honours; kings do not give rewards.
But what thus brought glory to Schullemburg was of little use to King Augustus. He once more abandoned Poland to his enemies, withdrew into Saxony and hastily prepared the fortifications of Dresden, for he already feared, not without reason, the loss of the capital of his hereditary dominions.
Charles XII found Poland submissive; his generals, following his example, had engaged in Courland with several small bodies of Russians, who, since the great battle of Narva, had only shown themselves in small companies, and who in this part only made war like the Tartar vagabonds, who plunder and flee and reappear only to flee again. Wherever the Swedes were they thought they were certain to win, though they numbered only twenty against a hundred.
Under these fortunate circumstances Stanislas prepared for his coronation; fortune, which had had him elected king at Warsaw and then had driven him thence, recalled him thither to the acclamation of a crowd of nobles which the fortune of war attached to him; a Diet was convoked there; all other obstacles were removed, only the Court of Rome was disposed to thwart it.
It was naturally expected that this Court would declare in favour of King Augustus, who from a Protestant had become a Catholic to gain the crown in opposition to Stanislas, who was placed upon the throne by the great enemy of the Catholic faith. The then Pope, Clement XI, sent dispatches to all the prelates of Poland, and especially to the Cardinal-Primate, threatening them with excommunication if they presumed to assist at the consecration of Stanislas or take part in any plot against King Augustus.
If these dispatches were delivered to the bishops who were at Warsaw, it was to be feared that, while some would obey them through weakness, the majority would seize the opportunity to become more exacting in proportion as they were necessary. All possible precautions were therefore taken to prevent the letters of the Pope from being received at Warsaw. A Franciscan got possession of them secretly, undertaking to deliver them into the bishops’ own hands: he first gave one to the suffragan of Chelm. This prelate, who was a great partisan of King Stanislas, gave it to his Majesty unopened. The King sent for the monk, and asked how he dare take charge of such a document. The Franciscan answered that he did it by order of his general. Stanislas told him to in future take his orders from his King rather than from his Superior, and banished him immediately from the town.
The same day a placard was published by the King of Sweden, by which all ecclesiastics, secular and regular, were forbidden to take part in politics under the severest penalties.
For greater security he had guards posted at the doors of all the prelates’ houses, and forbad the entry of any stranger into the town. He exercised these small severities so that Stanislas should not fall out with the clergy on his accession; he said that he refreshed himself from the fatigue of campaigns by checking the intrigues of the Roman Curia, and that he must fight it on paper, just as he attacked other sovereigns with actual weapons.
The Cardinal was asked by Charles and Stanislas to perform the ceremony of coronation. But it did not seem to him seemly that he should quit Dantzig to consecrate a king who had been elected against his wish; but, as it was always his policy to act a part in all that he did, he wanted to get a legitimate excuse for his refusal: he therefore caused the Pope’s dispatch to be fixed, in the night, to the gate of his own house. The magistrate of Dantzig in great indignation had search made for the culprits, which were not found; the Primate feigned irritation and was really very pleased: he had an excuse for not consecrating the new King, and at the same time remained on good terms with Charles, Augustus, Stanislas and the Pope.
He died a few days after, leaving his country in turmoil. The only result of all his intrigues was that he had offended simultaneously three Kings, Charles, Augustus, Stanislas, the Polish State and the Pope, who had commanded him to come to Rome to account for his conduct. But, as even politicians sometimes experience remorse in their last moments, he wrote to King Augustus on his death-bed asking his pardon.
The coronation was solemnized quietly and magnificently in Warsaw in spite of the Polish custom of crowning kings in Cracow. Stanislas Leczinski and his wife Charlotte were consecrated King and Queen of Poland at the hands of the Archbishop of Leopold assisted by several other bishops. The only reward Charles reaped from his conquest was to be present at the ceremony incognito.
While he was thus providing Poland with a king, and the King of Denmark dare not harrass him, while the King of Prussia was courting his friendship and Augustus was withdrawing to his hereditary dominions, the Czar became daily more formidable. His assistance of Augustus in Poland had been feeble, but he had made powerful diversions in Ingria.
As for him, he not only began to be a great soldier himself, but also to teach his soldiers the art of war: discipline was established among his forces; he had good engineers, experienced artillery and many good officers; he had also learned the great art of supporting his armies. Some of his generals had learned both to fight well and, if necessary, to abstain from fighting; more than all, he had built up a fleet capable of making head against the Swedes in the Baltic.
Confident in all these advantages, due both to his genius and to the absence of the King of Sweden, he took Narva by assault after a regular siege and a blockade by land and sea. When the soldiers had taken the town they plundered it, and gave themselves to horrible barbarities: the Czar hastened from one place to another to stop the disorder and massacre. He rescued by force from the hands of the soldiers women whose throats they were going to cut after having outraged them; he was obliged to kill with his own hands some Russians who would not listen to his commands. In the town hall at Narva they still show the table where he laid his sword, as he said to the citizens who flocked after him, “This sword is not wet with the blood of the citizens I have slain, but with that of the Russians whom I have killed to save your lives.”
Had the Czar always shown such humanity he would have been the greatest of heroes. His ambition went beyond the destruction of towns. In the midst of his new conquests he was laying the foundations of a city not far from Narva. This was the city of Petersburg, which was henceforth his seat and the centre of his trade. It is between Finland and Ingria, in a marshy island, around which the Neva flows in several branches before it falls into the Gulf of Finland. He himself made the plan of the town, of the fortress, the port, the quays, which adorn it, and the fortifications defending its entry. This desert, uncultivated island, which is nothing but a mud heap during the short summer of that climate, and a pool of ice in winter, unapproachable by land except across wild forests and deep morasses, and till then the habitation of bears and wolves, was, in 1703, filled with more than 300,000 men whom the Czar had called together from the farthest limits of his dominions. The peasants of the kingdom of Astrakan and those who live on the frontiers of China were transported to Petersburg. Before he could lay the foundations of a town he was obliged to pierce forests, make roads, drain marshes and raise banks. Nature was subjugated in every direction. But the Czar was bent on peopling a country which did not seem meant for man’s habitation; he was not to be diverted from his resolve either by the floods, which ruined his works, or by the barrenness of the soil, or by the ignorance of the workmen, or by the mortality which swept away 200,000 men at the very beginning. The town was founded in spite of the obstacles which existed in nature herself, in the genius of the people, and an unfortunate war. Already in 1705 Petersburg was a considerable town, and its port was full of vessels. The Emperor attracted strangers in large numbers by the rewards which he gave them, giving some lands, others houses, and encouraging all the arts which might civilize life in that cruel climate. Above all, he made it inaccessible to the enemy. The Swedish generals, who frequently beat his troops in every other district, were not able to do the least harm to this increasing colony. It was at peace in the midst of the war which surrounded it.
The Czar, by thus creating new dominions for himself, still held out a helping hand to King Augustus, who was losing his. He persuaded him by the instrumentality of General Patkul, who had lately joined the Russian side, and was then the Czar’s ambassador in Saxony, to come to Grodno to confer with him once more on the unhappy state of affairs.
King Augustus came thither with some troops, attended by General Schullemburg, whose passage across the Oder had got him a reputation in the north, and in whom he placed his great hope. The Czar arrived followed by 100,000 men. The two monarchs formed new plans of war. As King Augustus was dethroned he was no longer afraid of exasperating the Poles by delivering their country to the Russian troops. It was decided that the Czar’s army should be divided into several bodies to oppose every action of the King of Sweden. During this interview King Augustus instituted the order of the White Eagle, a feeble resource to bring over to his side certain Polish lords who wanted real advantages rather than an empty honour, which becomes ridiculous when derived from a prince who is king only in name. The conference of the two Kings ended in a strange manner. The Czar departed suddenly, leaving his troops to his ally, in order to extinguish a rebellion with which he was threatened in Astrakan. He had scarcely started when King Augustus ordered the arrest of Patkul at Dresden.
All Europe was amazed that, in opposition to the law of nations, and apparently to his own interest, he should venture to imprison the ambassador of the only prince who afforded him protection. The secret history of the affair was this: Patkul, proscribed in Sweden for having maintained the privileges of his country, Livonia, had become general to Augustus: but his high spirit not according with the proud disposition of General Fleming, the King’s favourite, and more imperious than himself, he had passed into the Czar’s service, and was then his general and ambassador to Augustus. He was a man of great discernment, and had found out that the proposal of Fleming and the Chancellor of Saxony was to offer Charles peace on his own terms. He at once formed a plan to prevent this and to bring about some arrangement between the Czar and Sweden. The Chancellor got wind of his project, and obtained leave to seize him. King Augustus told the Czar that Patkul was a wretch and would betray them both. His only fault was that he served his master too well: but an ill-timed piece of service is often punished as a treason.
In the meantime, the 100,000 Russians, on one side, divided into several small bodies, burnt and ravaged the estates of Stanislas’ adherents: while Schullemburg, on the other, was advancing with fresh troops. But the fortune of the Swedes dispersed these two armies in less than two months. Charles XII and Stanislas attacked the separate corps of the Russians one after another, but so swiftly that one Russian general was beaten before he had heard of the defeat of his colleague. No obstacle could check the conqueror’s advance. If he found a river in the way he and his Swedes swam across it.
One party of the Swedes took the baggage of Augustus in which were 400,000 crowns of silver coin; Stanislas seized 800,000 ducats belonging to Prince Menzikoff, the Russian general, Charles, leading his cavalry, would often march thirty leagues in twenty-four hours, every soldier leading another mount to use when his own should be spent. The Russians, panic-stricken and reduced to a small band, fled in confusion beyond the Borysthenes.
While Charles was thus driving the Russians into the heart of Lithuania, Schullemburg at last repassed the Oder and came at the head of 20,000 men to offer battle to the great Marshal Renschild, who was considered Charles’s best general, and was called the Parmenio of the North. These two famous generals, who seemed to share the fate of their respective masters, met near Punits, at a place called Frauenstadt, a territory which had already proved fatal to the troops of Augustus. Renschild had only thirteen battalions and twenty-two squadrons, which made a total of about 10,000 men, and Schullemburg had twice that number.
It must be remembered, too, that he had in his army between 6,000 and 7,000 Russians, who had been under discipline a long time, and were as reliable as veterans. This battle of Fraustadt was fought on 12th February, 1706: but the same General Schullemburg, who with 4,000 men had to a certain extent harassed the King of Sweden, was completely defeated by General Renschild. The battle did not last a quarter of an hour, in a moment the Saxons wavered, and the Russians threw down their arms on the first appearance of the Swedes. The panic was so sudden and the confusion so great that the conquerors found on the field 7,000 muskets ready loaded, which they had thrown away without firing. There never was a rout more sudden, more complete or more disgraceful: and yet all the Saxon and Swedish officers acknowledged that no general had ever arranged his men better; it was that day that they realized how little human foresight can pre-arrange events.
Among the prisoners there was a whole regiment of French. These poor wretches had been taken by the Saxon troops in 1704 at the famous battle of Hochstet, which was so fatal to the greatness of Louis XIV. They had since enlisted under King Augustus, who had formed them into a regiment of dragoons, and put them under the command of a Frenchman called Joyeuse. The colonel was killed at the first and only charge of the Swedes, and the whole regiment became prisoners of war. From that day these Frenchmen petitioned to be taken into the service of the King of Sweden; they were received into that service by a singular fate, which preserved them for a further change of their conqueror to their master.
As to the Russians they begged for their life on their knees, but they were inhumanly massacred in cold blood, six hours after the battle, to punish them for the outrages of the compatriots, and to get rid of prisoners which the conquerors did not know what to do with.
Augustus was now absolutely without resources. He had nothing left but Cracow, where he was shut up with two regiments of Russians, two of Saxons and some troops of the regal army, by whom he was afraid of being handed over to the conqueror; but his misfortune was at its height when he heard that Charles had at last entered Saxony, on the 1st September, 1706.
He had crossed Silesia without deigning to even warn the Court of Vienna. Germany was in consternation: the Diet of Ratisbon, which represents the Empire, and the resolutions of which are often as ineffectual as they are solemn, declared the King of Sweden an enemy to the Empire if he crossed the Oder with his army; this very resolution was a further inducement to him to march into Germany.
Upon his approach the villages were deserted and the inhabitants fled in all directions. Charles acted as he had at Copenhagen: he had proclamations made everywhere that he only wanted to procure peace, and that all those who returned to their houses and paid the contributions that he would demand should be treated as his own subjects, while the rest should be pursued with no quarter. This declaration from a prince who had never been known to break his word brought back in large numbers all those of the inhabitants who had been dispersed by fear. He encamped at Altranstadt, near the plains of Lutzen, the field of battle famous for the victory and death of Gustavus Adolphus. He went to see the place where this great man fell, and when he reached the spot he said, “I have endeavoured to live like him; perhaps God may one day grant me a death as glorious.”
From this camp he commanded the estates of Saxony to meet, and to send him without delay the register of Finance of the Electorate. As soon as he had them in his power, and had information of exactly what Saxony could supply, he levied a tax on it of 625,000 rixdollars a month.
Besides this contribution the Saxons were obliged to supply every Swedish soldier with two pounds of meat, two pounds of bread, two pots of beer and fourpence a day, together with forage for his horse. When the contributions had been thus fixed the King arranged a new method of protecting the Saxons from the insults of his soldiers. He ordered that in all the towns where his soldiers were quartered every housekeeper with whom the soldiers were lodged should give certificates of their behaviour each month, without which the soldier could not draw his pay; further, inspectors went round once a fortnight to inquire if the Swedes had done any damage, and housekeepers were carefully indemnified and culprits punished.
The severe discipline under which Charles’s troops lived is well known; they did not pillage towns taken by assault without permission; they pillaged in an orderly way, and desisted at the first signal. The Swedes boast to this day of the discipline they kept in Saxony: yet the Saxons complain that the most terrible outrages were committed among them. These contradictory statements would be irreconcilable if we did not remember that men look at the same thing from different points of view.
It would have been very strange had not the conquerors sometimes abused their privileges, and had not the conquered regarded the smallest damage as the most terrible injury. One day as the King was riding near Leipzig a Saxon peasant threw himself at his feet to ask justice against a grenadier, who had just gone off with what he had intended for his family dinner. The King had the soldier called. “Is it true,” he asked sternly, “that you have robbed this man?” “Sire,” answered the soldier, “I have not done him so much harm as your Majesty has done his master, for you have stolen a kingdom from him, while I have only taken a turkey from this rustic.” The King gave the peasant ten ducats, and pardoned the soldier for the boldness of the repartee, but he added, “Remember, friend, that I have taken a kingdom from King Augustus, but I have taken nothing for myself.”
The great Leipzig fair was held as usual, tradesmen attended it in perfect security; not one Swedish soldier was to be seen in the fair; it might have been said that the only object of the Swedish army in Saxony was to keep the peace: the King ruled throughout the Electorate with as absolute a power and as deep a tranquillity as in Stockholm.
King Augustus, a wanderer in Poland, and deprived both of his kingdom and his electorate, at last wrote a letter with his own hand to Charles XII to ask for a peace.
He commissioned Baron Imhof, accompanied by M. Finsten of the Privy Council, secretly to deliver this letter; he gave them full powers and carte blanche, directing them to try to obtain for him reasonable and Christian conditions. He was obliged to conceal his overtures for peace and to refrain from having recourse to the mediation of any prince, for being then in Poland, at the mercy of the Russians, he had reason to fear that the dangerous ally whom he had abandoned would take vengeance on him for his submission to the conqueror. His two plenipotentiaries came by night to Charles’s camp and had a private audience. The King read the letter, and said, “Gentlemen, you shall have your answer in a moment.” Then he went into his office and wrote as follows--
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End of part 7 of 13
Continue readingBook III (Part 2): Stanislas Leczinski chosen King of Poland; Death of the Cardinal-Primate; Great retreat of General Schullemburg; Exploits of the Czar; Foundation of Petersburg; Charles’s entry into Saxony; The peace of Altranstadt; Augustus abdicates in favour of Stanislas; General Patkul, the Czar’s plenipotentiary, is broken on the wheel, and quartered; Charles receives the ambassadors of foreign princes in Saxony; He also goes to Dresden to see Augustus before his departure
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