CHAPTER III

Karl, having given a new King to Poland, and satisfied his somber pride by being an “incognito” spectator of the election of the man whose elevation he owed entirely to Sweden, marched on Lemberg, the capital of Galicia, and took this town by assault, enriching his army with the treasures of Augustus that were stored here, and that the inhabitants surrendered to troops that neither burnt nor pillaged; he had hardly established his garrison in the conquered town when he was joined by Stanislaus Leczinski, cast from his throne after a reign of six weeks, and forced to fly for his life before the Elector of Saxony, who had appeared before Varsovia with a new army of 20,000 men, and had triumphantly entered the capital, scattering the Polish guard of Stanislaus and the Swedish garrison under Count Horn. His reverse was received with calm by the King of Sweden; it did not touch him personally, as he had not been present at the disaster, and he was not displeased at the opportunity to twice give the throne of Poland to the man whom he called friend.

“Let Augustus amuse himself,” he told Stanislaus. “How long do you think he will hold Varsovia when I am before the gates?”

The words, spoken quietly and in no spirit of boasting, proved to be the truth.

Karl, with Stanislaus riding at his side, marched back on the capital, and the army of Augustus, consisting of lukewarm Poles, raw Saxon recruits, and vagabond Muscovites, melted before the approach of the terrible captain.

Count Schulenbourg, in command of the Elector’s army, did all that could be done with such an army, and by a series of masterly marches, fell back into Posnania where Karl overtook him near Runitz, and in a sharp action forced him to retreat, without, however, throwing him into disorder.

With the small remnant of his army he managed to escape, passing the Oder in the night, showing a generalship so superb as to force a compliment from the victor.

“We are the vanquished,” said Karl. “M. de Schulenbourg has out-generaled us.”

He could afford to be generous, for Augustus had once more fled into Saxony, and was engaged in fortifying Dresden, a task that showed his fear of his enemy.

Stanislaus was crowned with splendid ceremonies in Varsovia by the Archbishop of Lemberg, the Cardinal Primate dying that very day after having refused to perform the ceremony on the grounds of displeasing the Pope who had threatened to excommunicate all those who elevated a Protestant King in place of a Catholic.

There was now only one person who dare even threaten Sweden, and that was the Czar. The bands of wandering Cossacks that he had sent to help Augustus had been easily subdued by the Swedish generals, and campaign after campaign opened and closed without his taking any part in the war beyond this feeble aid to Augustus.

But he was building St. Petersburg and creating an army and a navy, and when Augustus was forced to abandon Poland, Patkul, the envoy of the Czar in Dresden, was entrusted to persuade the Elector to meet Peter at Grodno, and once more contrive plans against the might of Sweden.

Peter appeared at Grodno with 70,000 trained troops, engineers, artillery, horse, and foot.

Augustus had nothing but a few Saxons under General Schulenbourg, and some bitterness mingled with his marvel at the change in their respective circumstances since last they had met at Birsen.

“Karl will not find it so easy to dethrone you as it was to dethrone me,” he remarked to Peter.

“No,” said the Czar.

He was called from the conference to put down a revolt in Astrakan, but his generals proceeded to put into practise the plans agreed upon by the two kings.

Schulenbourg advanced on Poland, and the Russian army, divided in small groups, marched into the Baltic Provinces.

There Karl met and defeated them, one after the other; he captured the baggage of Augustus with great store of gold and silver, and a large quantity of specie belonging to Prince Mentchikoff.

In two months the Russians were entirely defeated, and Schulenbourg again obliged to retreat; Karl drove the Muscovites before him to the frontiers of Russia, and Rehnsköld utterly defeated Schulenbourg at the battle of Fraustadt.

Karl then turned and marched on Saxony, passing through Silesia, without heeding the consternation of Germany and the protests of the Diet of Ratisbon.

Saxony was at his feet in a few weeks, and from the camp of Altranstadt he dictated his peace terms, forcing the Saxons to provide food and lodging and pay for his soldiers, but most strictly preventing these from the least insult, outrage, or disorder.

He passed his word to permit no excesses of any kind if the inhabitants submitted to his orders, and as his honor was well known to be unblemished a certain tranquillity took possession of the conquered country, which waited, with more resignation than despair, the terms of the invincible Swede.

Augustus, a fugitive in Poland, sent a certain Baron D’Imhof and M. Pfingsten to the camp at Altranstadt to demand terms of peace.

These two envoys arrived at night, but were immediately admitted to the presence of the King.

Each, despite the desperate importance of their mission, felt all emotion absorbed in a curiosity as to this man who had in a few years laid North Europe under his feet, and behaved in a manner so extraordinary for a conqueror.

Karl, who had no personal attendant, valet, or servant, rose from the rough camp bed where he took his few hours’ repose, and came at once to meet the envoys of Augustus.

If he felt any satisfaction in this moment, when the man who had so carelessly and contemptuously affronted him was reduced to send to sue for mercy, it was not betrayed in his passive countenance.

He might indeed be used to triumphs; few men of his years had ever had a career of such uninterrupted success, and perhaps he was already indifferent to the haughty position of conqueror or at least too well used to it; he stood a moment holding up a little lamp and looking at the two Saxon gentlemen who stood, still in their traveling cloaks, bare-headed before him.

For the first second they did not know who stood before them; they were used to the magnificence and display of Augustus that he maintained even in his downfall, and Karl in his plain coat and short hair looked like an infantryman.

“The King,” said Count Piper, with a curious pride in the man whom he disliked.

Karl cut short their rather confused compliments.

“You are from the Elector of Saxony?” he demanded sternly, and set the lantern on the table.

Baron D’Imhof was the spokesman.

“Yes, sire,” he said.

“And what does the Elector want?” asked Karl.

The Saxon was a little taken aback; he had not been prepared to meet the King with so little ceremony, to converse with him with this dry abruptness.

With a bow he handed Karl the letter of Augustus, in which that monarch entreated for peace on any terms.

Karl glanced at the seal.

“Why this secrecy, gentlemen?” he asked, with his sudden, unpleasant smile.

The two plenipotentiaries were silent; they found themselves in that position in which it is difficult to do anything with dignity or even with grace.

“The Czar of Russia knows nothing of these negotiations?” demanded Karl.

“Sire,” said Baron D’Imhof, “my master wished this to be between himself and you.”

“He is ready then to abandon his ally who is not yet prepared to submit?” asked the King, his face, still as smooth as a mask of stone, unmarked by care or emotion, and radiant with the look of perfect health turned full towards the two Germans, and his strange eyes, chill and blue as his Northern seas, swept them with a glance of cold contempt. Again the Germans were silent.

“The Czar does not know of this letter?” demanded Karl.

“No, sire.”

“If he had known it would never have been sent, I think,” said Karl. “Your master did well to keep this matter secret, seeing he is at the mercy of the Muscovites.”

“Sire, my master’s actions are dictated by necessity,” replied Baron D’Imhof. “He trusts a conqueror whom the world knows clement.”

“Clement,” returned the King. “I make no claim to be clement, sir. I am just.”

His glance flickered over both of them, then to the letter in his hand.

“You have shown some courage in undertaking so unpleasant a task,” he remarked.

“I was entrusted by King Augustus,” replied the Baron, “to obtain from your Majesty a peace on as Christian and reasonable terms as your magnanimity would be pleased to grant.”

“Why does your master,” asked Karl, “think I should be so merciful?”

The Saxon disliked this last word, but had to take it; he flushed slightly and bit his lip; this youthful conqueror was proving more difficult to deal with even than he had imagined. M. Pfingsten took the word.

“King Augustus----” he began.

“Call him the Elector,” said Karl. “It is the safer title--we give him that out of courtesy since Saxony is as lost to him as Poland.”

The envoy bowed, swallowed his humiliation, and began again.

“My master trusted something in the blood that unites him to your Majesty.”

“Did he remember that we are cousins when he allied himself with Russia to seize my provinces?” demanded Karl.

With that, he turned his shoulders towards the two plenipotentiaries, and broke the seal of the unfortunate Elector’s letter.

Count Piper eyed him as he read.

Half-leaning against the table with the lamp-light full over his figure, the young King, with his perfect physique, air of strength and hardihood, his noble face and soldier’s bearing, made a picture grateful to the eye.

“Generous and merciful!” thought the minister. “They think him that because he punishes a soldier who steals a chicken, and gives away a crown he might have worn--but we shall see if he knows even the meaning of generosity and mercy.”

Karl finished the letter, put it in his pocket, and glanced over his shoulder at the two waiting Saxons.

“Gentlemen,” he said, “you shall have your answer immediately.”

He took up the lamp and went into a little cabinet that opened off the chamber, closing the door behind him.

The Saxons could not but stare at seeing the simplicity of the man who had conquered Northern Europe.

The plain room without hangings or carpet, the entire lack of servants or guard, the King’s own appearance and the way in which he waited on himself, caused them astonishment, and would, under other circumstances, have roused their contempt and disgust.

Count Piper noted their expressions and the glance they exchanged.

“Ah, gentlemen,” he said, “you do not know with whom you have to deal!”

“In what way, sir?” asked Baron D’Imhof, who felt more at ease in the presence of the minister than in that of the King.

“Your errand is desperate,” replied the Count, with some feeling for fellow diplomats in a hopeless position, “and the success of it, gentlemen, does not depend on any arts of your own.”

“No,” said M. Pfingsten, “but entirely on the disposition of the King of Sweden.”

“Exactly,” said Count Piper. “Your only hope is that you may excite compassion in the heart of a man who has never known a gentle emotion, and turn from his course the most obstinate creature who ever breathed.”

He smiled cynically, and made a movement with his hands as if he cast away the responsibility of his master’s actions.

“You give us good hopes,” said Baron D’Imhof, with some bitterness.

Count Piper did not directly reply to this.

“Gentlemen,” he said, “I will give you this advice--whatever the King says accept it; take up your hats and begone with what good grace you can, for he will never alter his mind.”

As he spoke Karl entered from the cabinet, carrying a paper on which the close writing still gleamed with the wet ink.

He gave this to Count Piper and bade him read it to the Saxons.

“I will give your master peace on these terms,” he said, “and you must not hope that I shall alter any of them.”

The minister bent nearer the two tall candles on the table that gave the sole light in the rooms and read, in an even official voice, the terms of the conqueror.

The King had written his fiat with his own hand without troubling to call his secretary, and the calligraphy was quick and flowing as that of one whose thoughts move faster than his pen; as Piper knew Karl was only now putting on paper the terms that he had in his mind from the first to impose on Augustus.

The conditions were four in number.

“_Firstly._--The Elector must renounce forever the throne of Poland, recognize Stanislaus Leczinski as King, and, even in the event of this prince’s death, make no attempt to regain the throne.

“_Secondly._--He must renounce all the alliances he has made against Sweden--particularly those with Muscovy.

“_Thirdly._--The Princes Sobieski and other prisoners of war are to be sent with honor to my Camp.

“_Fourthly._--He is not to seek to punish any one of his following who have joined me, and he is to deliver to me all these deserters whom he has with him, and especially John Patkul.”

As Count Piper finished the two Saxons cried out in startled tones against the hardness of these terms.

Karl smiled.

“Did you expect,” he asked dryly, “other terms? Think, gentlemen, what Augustus would have exacted had he been at the gates of Stockholm as I am at those of Dresden.”

“Sire,” returned M. D’Imhof, in great agitation, “my master is honorable and merciful--he would never have propounded such a condition as that last.”

“You question these terms?” demanded the terrible young conqueror, with a cold and disdainful look.

“I say, sire,” replied the Saxon firmly, “that my master can never in honor surrender General Patkul.”

The sound of the name seemed to anger Karl; his blue eyes darkened and flashed.

“I do not argue,” he said. “These are my terms.”

“But General Patkul,” urged M. Pfingsten anxiously, “is an envoy of the Czar, and as such sacred----”

“Since when,” interrupted Karl, with a biting contempt, “has the Muscovite claimed the privileges of civilized rulers? Patkul is my subject, a deserter and a traitor.”

“The conditions are very bitter,” said Baron D’Imhof. “Let your Majesty reflect if they are such as a Christian Prince can accept.”

“Well,” replied Karl, with his cold air of stubborn hardihood, “no doubt I can find another Elector for Saxony as I found another King for Poland.”

“We may, sire, discuss these terms with Count Piper?” asked M. Pfingsten, clutching at straws.

“As much as you wish,” said Karl, with a stern smile. “Count Piper knows my mind and if I am likely to change it.”

“I have already warned these gentlemen,” remarked the minister.

Karl now turned and with a rude coldness was leaving the chamber.

Count Piper gave the piece of paper that had so tremendous a meaning to the confused and humiliated deputies of Augustus.

M. Pfingsten took courage to speak.

“Our master can never surrender the crown of Poland or General Patkul.”

Karl paused on the threshold of the inner room.

“Why was John Patkul arrested in Dresden the other day, as soon as his protector, the Muscovite, had left for Astrakan?”

“It was of some mistake, sire----”

“Ah,” interrupted Karl, with an ugly laugh, “it was no mistake. Your master saw that he had the Livonian in his house before he asked for peace--and why? Because he knew that I should ask for Patkul and that he would surrender.”

With these words, spoken with a cold indifferency more than any passionate tone of insult, Karl, disdaining to hold further argument with the envoys of his fallen enemy or to take any ceremonious leave of them, bowed briefly to the Saxons and left the chamber.

Baron D’Imhof could hardly contain himself.

“So this is greatness!” he exclaimed ironically. He put up the paper in his bosom. “We will wait on you to-morrow, Count, though I doubt if it will be of any use.”

“You have heard my master’s will,” replied Count Piper, “and he never changes his resolutions.”

In the small, bare inner chamber the man, who had upset kingdoms and altered the face of North Europe for no other reason than pride and the desire for military glory, laid himself again on his straw mattress and hard pillow.

Augustus was conquered as effectually as had been Frederic; it had taken longer, years instead of weeks, but it had been done.

And Patkul, the arch conspirator, would finally be punished.

There remained only Peter....

Karl turned on his rude pillow and fell asleep, dreaming of the downfall of the Czar, his last and greatest enemy.