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in those matters so distasteful to his own spirit, now entirely absorbed in
war.
“You think to get me back to Stockholm, Count?” he asked.
Count Piper smiled in his turn; he knew too well the iron obstinacy with
which he had to deal to attempt to persuade Karl to any design.
“Sire,” he counter-questioned, “on whom now do you intend to make
war?”
Karl lifted his cold blue eyes.
“There is always the Czar.”
“But he has withdrawn himself, sire. I believe he cares no more about
the war, despite the appeals of the Elector. He is absorbed in building his
new city.”
“I will topple over the foundations of his city,” replied the stern young
King. “Piper, have you ever known me alter my mind? I told you some
while since that I had a mind to dethrone the Czar.”
“The occupation of your Majesty’s life is to be war?”
“What other occupation is there for a gentleman?” asked Karl.
Count Piper did not attempt to argue with him nor to express any opinion
on this speech; Karl’s career had been so startlingly and dazzlingly
successful that it seemed useless to warn him or advise him; the cautious
and prudent minister did not even venture now to point out the immense
difficulties of an invasion of Russia, and the almost superhuman task it
would be to subdue such a country and dethrone such a man as Peter.
Karl could point to achievements so splendid that it seemed an
impertinence to hint at possible disaster, or to urge caution on one whose
exploits had been heroic to the point of miracles.
“At least, sire, accept some of the fruits of your victories.”
“You mean the crown of Poland?” said Karl thoughtfully.
He rose and went to the door of the tent, and stood looking out into the
encampment that was fresh with spring breezes.
The minister gazed at him with the questioning curiosity and amazement
that this young man had never failed to rouse in his heart.
Karl was now twenty-two years of age; a temperate, active, and simple
life had developed his already splendid constitution into perfect hardihood;
physically he was like the ancient Vikings whose exploits formed the
subject of the sole literature he cared to read; tall, in fine proportion, with
powerful shoulders and slender hips, and with the easy carriage of the
soldier and the horseman, a creature of bone and muscle, nerve and sinew
perfectly attuned.
His face had slightly changed, broadened and grown harder in the lines,
but the expression was the same, the full lips, the curved nostrils, the blank
eyes showed the same unmoved courage, the same indifference to things
about him that had once made Count Piper liken him to a god—or an
animal.
He still wore a dark blue uniform of the plainest cut, a black satin cravat,
and was without peruke or lace or ribbons or jewels; never in the slightest
particular had he deviated from the austere conduct he had vowed to follow;
his living was of the simplest, his couch a straw pallet or his own cloak; his
food such as that eaten by the meanest foot soldier; since he left Stockholm
he had never tasted wine nor spoken to a woman beyond the few words he
had been forced to exchange with Aurora von Königsmarck. He passed his
life in the camp, his companions were all soldiers, and little seemed to
interest him beyond the things of war; the affairs of Sweden he left entirely
in the hands of the regency; he cared nothing for the news from his capital,
and never corresponded with his sole surviving relations, the Queen
Dowager and his sisters.
Count Piper could not love him; perhaps because he had schooled
himself to be above human weakness, no one loved him; certainly he never
asked for anyone’s affections and disclosed to no one his thoughts; his
immense pride seemed to be satisfied by the fear he inspired even in his
friends and respect accorded him even by his enemies.
“The crown of Poland, sire,” said the minister, who could not resist
looking upon the present situation from a statesman’s point of view. “Your
Majesty is aware how easily you might obtain this for yourself?”
“Yes,” replied Karl dryly.
“It is what policy indicates.”
“I never loved your policy, Count,” said the King.
“Yet it is not to be disdained, even by a conqueror.”
Karl gave his short, ugly laugh.
 “I think I can dispense with it. As for this crown, I think it pleases me
more to give it away than to wear it.”
Piper had been expecting this; yet he resolved to endeavor to turn Karl’s
fantastic pride in another direction, and inspire him with the desire for a
glory more useful to Sweden and mankind.
“Your Majesty might be truly the liberator of this distracted country and
unite all factions in concord under your protection; the Romist faith whose
arrogant clergy have enslaved these people might in this manner receive a
shrewd blow, and your Majesty appear as defender of the Evangelical
faith.”
Karl did not reply to this proposition with that rude coldness with which
he generally received suggestions not entirely in accordance with his own
preconceived plans.
The truth was that the prospect held out by Count Piper tempted him.
The great Gustavus had established the Lutheran faith in Sweden and
had banished forever from the North the corruption, the tyranny, and the
superstition of the Roman priests; to do the same in a country as large and
as important as Poland would be a feat that recommended itself to the
ambition of Karl.
To take Poland not only from Augustus, but from the Pope, would have
been a triumph such as he would have keenly enjoyed, for, while religion
had had little influence on his life, he accorded his hereditary faith full
respect and always enforced the observances of Lutheranism in his camp.
Count Piper watched him in silence, seeing that he was at least
pondering the idea.
“Where will your Majesty find a King for Poland?” urged the minister.
“Not even your entreaties will prevail upon Alexander Sobieski to accept
the crown while his elder brothers are prisoners—and where is there any
other pretender worthy of notice?”
Karl knew that he spoke the truth; with the romantic chivalry
characteristic of the Polish nation, the youngest Sobieski had refused to
accept the crown that the fortune of war prevented the eldest from enjoying,
and there was, indeed, no one else especially indicated.
But to take this throne for himself was not sufficiently glorious for Karl;
he wished to do the unusual, the extraordinary, to make the world stare—
not by what he accepted, but by what he refused.
Even the design of appearing as champion of the reformed faith lost its
attraction for him, because a great prince lately dead had made his chief
fame in this part; Karl did not wish to follow in the footsteps of anyone.
“No,” he said sternly, suddenly letting the tent flap fall and turning to
look at his minister. “I have more pleasure in giving away crowns than in
taking them.”
“You would, sire, sacrifice your interest——”
Karl interrupted.
“My interest!” he repeated as if offended, then with his ugly smile: “You
should have been minister to some Italian prince, Piper, you are so fond of
intrigues.”
The Count bit his lip and was silent; he would have liked to have
mentioned Sweden and her interests, but knew the cold repulse he would
meet with.
The King crossed to his camp table and turned over some papers the
secretary had left for his inspection, but with an absent look and a careless
hand.
Count Piper was about to take his leave when his soldier servant ushered
in the young Palatine of Posnania and Alexander Sobieski.
This latter had waited on Karl to urge him to revenge the capture of his
two brothers by Augustus; it entirely suited both the temper and the policy
of the King of Sweden to promise him satisfaction, but he was not now so
cordial towards the young prince whose obstinate refusal to accept his
father’s crown had rivaled and perhaps shadowed the generosity and
strangeness of his own action.
But he greeted the two young Poles pleasantly, and offered each in turn
the strong white hand from which he had drawn the long buffle glove worn
with rein and sword pommel.
They were both brilliantly dressed, charming and graceful in manner and
looks.
Karl’s eyes, blue and cold as frozen water, cast a strange glance on the
elegant figure of Stanislaus Leczinski.
“Count,” he said, “here is the future King of Poland.”
 The minister was startled into an imprudence; staring at the amazed face
of the young noble, he cried impetuously:
“The Palatine is too young, sire!”
“He is older than I am,” said Karl dryly.

CHAPTER III

K ARL, 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.

CHAPTER IV

W HEN M. Pfingsten returned to Poland with the articles of peace that

no amount of interviews with Count Piper had served to alter, he
found his master once again in Varsovia, in the midst of “Te Deums”
and bell-ringings for the first victory over the Swedes that had been attained
during the course of this long war.
The envoy from Saxony, almost confounded by this change of fortune,
learned that the Muscovites under Prince Mentchikoff had defeated the
Swedes under General Mardenfeldt who found himself in the Palatinate of
Posnania with 10,000 men against the combined Saxon and Russian forces
amounting to nearly 40,000.
 But what surprised M. Pfingsten was the fact that the Elector had been in
this battle and had irritated Karl in this manner at the very moment when he
was imploring that monarch’s mercy.
He hastened through the ruined capital now being pillaged by the
Muscovites to the ancient palace where Augustus was again in residence.
The Elector immediately gave him audience; it was early in the morning
and he sat over a fire, for the autumn air was keen, and was drinking coffee
dashed with cognac, out of a pale porcelain cup.
Some attempt at refinement and splendor still surrounded the man who
had been one of the most brilliant princes in Europe; he was wrapped in a
blue and gold brocade dressing-gown, wore a French peruke, diamonds in
his lace cravat, and long ruffles of Mechlin at his wrists.
Elegant and beautiful articles were scattered about the room, and a
cardinal of violet silk and a pair of heelless white silk slippers bespoke the
presence of a woman.
But the fair face of the Elector was haggard and pale; he looked at M.
Pfingsten with eyes full of a cruel distress.
“Sire,” this gentleman hastened to say, “I rejoice to find you in
circumstances which can enable you to deal on terms of equality with the
King of Sweden.”
“Do not mock me, Pfingsten,” replied the Elector, in a tone of agitation.
“You find me in the most miserable position, and whatever the terms you
have brought back I must sign them.”
“Nay, God forbid!” exclaimed the envoy.
Augustus set down his coffee cup with a shaking hand.
“Are they then so hard?”
“Sire, they are impossible.”
Augustus gave a miserable smile.
“You do not understand my position,” he said bitterly. “This victory is
futile and barren and will only further serve to inflame the Swede.”
“Then, why did not your Majesty wait my return before giving battle?”
The Elector replied with the useless impatience of a weak nature.
“It was the cursed Muscovite! What was I to do? Mentchikoff would
give battle, no excuse would put him off. I knew that it would mean a defeat
for Sweden, they were so outnumbered. I had only a handful of Saxons, and
had those savages guessed that I was in treaty with the Swede they had
murdered me—cursed be the day when I was allied with such dangerous
rascals!”
M. Pfingsten could say nothing; he saw that this new victory had indeed
put his master in a delicate and difficult position; he was forced either to
affront his dangerous allies in whose power he was or to offend the
conqueror on whose mercy he had thrown himself; his was the common
fate of the weak, who, lacking all qualities of resolution and daring, find
that concession and subterfuge lead them into a position where no way is
open to them with both safety and honor.
“I sent privately to General Mardenfeldt,” continued the Elector, pouring
out another cup of the strong coffee, “warned him of his danger and my
secret negotiation, and advised him to retire—but the hard-headed fool took
it for a trap and would fight.”
“At least the victory was complete?”
“Yes. I was surprised myself. The Muscovites can fight as well as
marauder, it seems. Mentchikoff is sending the Czar a bombastic account of
it, but it is all futile,” he added peevishly.
M. Pfingsten, a man of more nerve than his master, did not entirely agree
with this dispirited view.
He thought that at least Augustus could now refuse the shameful terms
imposed by Karl XII.
Taking the letter from his breast-pocket he put it among the delicate
coffee service on the tulip-wood table by the Elector’s elbow.
Augustus picked it up with nervous fingers, glanced at it, and fetched a
groan, a look of real anguish distorting his handsome face.
Each of the four conditions were bitterly hard, the last struck at his honor
as a gentleman; Patkul had been in his service, had trusted and did trust
him, and was, moreover, sacred as the envoy of the Czar.
Augustus had shrunk from abandoning his ally; he felt it would be
impossible to betray him by delivering to his enemy a man who was general
and ambassador of Russia.
He put the letter down and sat staring into the fire.
 “There was no possibility of moving the King?” he asked, in a broken
voice.
“Not the faintest; he prides himself on his obstinacy and sternness. I
think he is quite implacable,” replied M. Pfingsten, with dreary memories
of the hardness of the young captain.
“Then there is nothing for me to do but accept these terms,” said
Augustus.
This complete and instantaneous submission startled M. Pfingsten; he
had not believed that Augustus would have been so subdued by his miseries
and disasters as to have no spirit left with which to meet this extremity.
“There is one thing your Majesty can do—you can advance into Saxony
with these Muscovite troops and attack the King of Sweden.”
Augustus gave the speaker a wild look.
“Take advantage, sire,” urged M. Pfingsten, “of this moment of good
fortune.”
Augustus hesitated; the terms offered by Karl were so hateful that he was
glad to catch at anything that seemed to promise relief from the necessity of
accepting them.
At the same time his reverses had been so continuous and terrible, he
had gradually lost everything and exhausted every resource, he was so
convinced of the invincible genius of Karl, so worn out in this long combat
with one in every respect his superior, that his spirit, by no means firm or
martial, though he was, in his way, brave and ambitious, was completely
broken, and his terrified imagination saw no escape from his present
difficulties save by throwing himself utterly on the mercy of the man in
whose hands his fate lay.
“If I could see Karl face to face,” he began in a distracted tone, “I could
surely induce him to soften these terms.”
“Let your Majesty put that out of your head,” replied M. Pfingsten
firmly. “The King of Sweden is as hard as one of his northern rocks—his
plainness and his show of courtesy to the vanquished but mask a spirit
without sentiment, a heart without feeling. Count Piper told me that his
preference for Stanislaus Leczinski is but based on his temperate life—he
has given that man a throne merely because he is his own body servant and
sleeps on a straw mattress! He admires nothing but Spartan virtues and
respects nothing but military glory.”
“Well, then,” cried Augustus, a prey to the most bitter distress and
agitation, “there is nothing for me to do but to sign this cursed paper!”
“Your Majesty might strike another blow.”
“You do not understand my position—the Muscovites have defeated
Mardenfeldt, they cannot defeat Karl—and if they discover that I am in
negotiation with him, they will abandon, if not murder me. You do not
know, Pfingsten, the ferocity of this Mentchikoff or his devotion to his
master. As for my resources,” he added, with a sigh as of one who had too
well calculated, often enough, his hopes and fears, “you know what they
amount to—Saxony is barren both of men and money—Poland lost.”
“Some help might be hoped for from the Empire, sire.”
“Not while Austria wars with France.”
“And surely, sire, the Electorate is not yet exhausted,” protested
Pfingsten.
“Ravaged by the Muscovites, occupied by the Swedes, what can be
hoped for from my wretched country?” exclaimed Augustus bitterly; he
rose, and thinking of the only friend and confidante he now possessed, he
went to an inner door concealed under a hanging of stamped and gilt leather
and called a woman’s name.
Aurora von Königsmarck immediately entered the apartment.
She had remained faithful to this King who was without a throne, men,
money, or friends, perhaps out of compassion, perhaps because she had no
choice of a more glorious destiny; certainly she had accompanied him in all
his flights and battles and distresses as closely as had Katherina the Czar,
though with a colder sympathy and a more disdainful endurance of evil
fortune. She was the only person besides the two envoys who knew of the
embassy to Karl; she had sent even her women away, and was alone in the
apartment of the King.
“Well?” she demanded dryly, seeing by the Elector’s face that it was
further ill news.
Her bold glance flickered to M. Pfingsten.
“You have come on a disagreeable errand, sir,” she remarked, “but these
are disagreeable times.”
 She came, with her quick, graceful walk, to the fireplace, and stood
before the flames looking at the downcast faces of the two men.
Since she had, in the height of her pride, lowered herself before Karl
XII, she had lost something of her beauty and all of her magnificence.
Like everything belonging to Augustus, she was tarnished by continual
ill-fortune; nor did she care for the neatness and order possible even in
poverty; she would be either splendid or careless, and disdained those shifts
that labor to cover deficiency with artifice.
She who had blazed in Dresden as the most gorgeous lady of the court,
now showed in a negligent undress of soiled sprigged silk over a petticoat
of yellow taffetas, with her rich hair fastened in a loose knot without either
art or neatness; her beauty was not of that radiant youthfulness that can
overcome these disadvantages, and she looked as damaged in her fortunes,
as eclipsed in her charms, as was proper to the favorite of a fallen prince.
In silence Augustus handed her the letter from Karl.
He had a great faith in her intelligence, and even now cherished a hope
that her wit would point out some way of escape from his dilemma that had
not occurred to either Pfingsten or himself.
Aurora read the letter and her nostrils dilated.
Not Augustus himself knew a bitterer humiliation than she experienced
as she read the conqueror’s terms.
She hated Karl with all the hatred of which her passionate nature was
capable.
As he had so easily resisted her fascinations, so rudely refused her
advances, so completely scorned her, she did not regard him as a man, but
as some soulless creature, a werlion or wertiger sent on earth to plague
mankind.
She fumbled at her laces with a quivering hand and darted a keen glance
at the gloomy countenance of the Elector.
“Are you going to take these terms?” she demanded impetuously.
“Do you see anything else for me to do?” asked the disheartened Prince.
“Nothing a man like you could do,” she replied sharply.
“Madame,” said M. Pfingsten, “there is the Muscovite army.”
 “But where is the man to lead it?” asked Aurora, with a cruel glance at
Augustus.
M. Pfingsten was encouraged by her presence, which breathed energy
and vitality.
“Let your Majesty,” he urged, “tear up that paper—put yourself at the
head of the army now in Varsovia and march on Saxony—there is nothing
more to lose and everything to be gained.”
“Sir,” said the Countess bitterly, “you discuss expedients only possible
with another prince—and with another prince we should not have been
brought to this pass.”
Augustus flushed but could find no answer in his own defense.
“What is it that you propose to do?” she added sharply.
“To sign that paper and go to Saxony to entreat Sweden to soften these
terms,” replied the unfortunate Elector; he was indeed so absorbed in the
contemplation of his own misery as to hardly wince under Aurora’s scorn.
She tapped her foot in an angry silence; she saw this was the fatal way of
weakness, which would have neither the dignity of defiance nor the
advantage of concession, since she knew well enough that Karl would be
merely irritated by any attempt to dispute his terms.
But she also knew the man with whom she had to deal, and that it was
hopeless to expect even the semblance of heroism from a Prince like
Augustus, overwhelmed by six years of a disastrous war that had stripped
him of everything, even faith in himself.
“Well, you must sign,” she said.
There was a little silence, then the Countess added in a hard tone:
“Mdle. D’Einsiedel came here last night—hurrying from Dresden to beg
for General Patkul’s release.”
“My God!” broke from Augustus, as he realized the baseness of the
action he contemplated.
“And she has been to Prince Mentchikoff, who is going to ask for the
Livonian’s release in the name of the Czar.”
Augustus stood in a wretched silence.
“I never understood why Patkul was arrested,” continued Aurora, in a
curious tone.
 An uneasy flush stained the Elector’s distressed face; he did not look up.
“Was it because you foresaw this emergency?” added the Countess.
M. Pfingsten was startled to hear her express the same question as had
Karl.
He knew that General Patkul had been arrested, on some flimsy pretext
of having exceeded his duties, immediately after the Czar’s departure for
Astrakan, and that he had been kept in easy and honorable captivity at
Sonnenstein, but not even when Karl had flung his sneer had he thought for
a moment that there was any connection between the arrest of the Livonian
and the position of Augustus before the conqueror.
Now, as he heard the sharp words of the Countess and looked at the
stricken figure of Augustus, it occurred to him as at least strange that the
very man, on the surrender of whom depended the peace, should be so
completely in the Elector’s power—so that no warnings by his friends, no
protection from the Czar, his master, could save him from being delivered
to Sweden.
“If you had not had Patkul at Sonnenstein,” said Aurora, “you could not
have surrendered him to Karl, and there would have been no pacifying this
victor. You are fortunate.”
Goaded, Augustus turned on her with a flash of impotent anger.
“You talk so much of General Patkul, Madame—you do not seem to
attach any importance to the fact that I shall have to surrender Poland!”
It was M. Pfingsten who replied—with great earnestness.
“Sire, your Majesty, by the fortunes of war, may easily regain the crown
of Poland, but you can never regain what you lose if you surrender General
Patkul.”
“You are a poor diplomat,” returned the Elector angrily. “Are there not
ways of saving General Patkul? I can appeal to the King of Sweden
personally.”
His hedging weakness angered Aurora; it was true that she had suggested
the surrender of Patkul and even broached the subject to Karl, but that had
been while there had been something to gain by concession; now that her
side was thoroughly beaten her blood was up, and, if she had been
Augustus, she would have cast Sweden’s terms in his face. Also she was
naturally generous, and once she realized what the delivery of Patkul to
Karl meant she could not put her hand to it; she saw that Augustus would
yield, had always meant to yield, and she despised him for it, as women will
despise men for weaknesses and meannesses of which they are capable
themselves.
“Very well,” she said, “sign those terms.”
She came quickly up to him, putting her lovely hand on his brocaded
sleeve.
“Patkul must escape,” she added, gazing into the trembling face of
Augustus. “Send an order to the Governor of Sonnenstein to let him,
secretly, go at once.”
Augustus was relieved by this suggestion that seemed to suit both his
convenience and his honor, yet he hesitated; to do this would be to play a
trick on the man on whose mercy his very existence would depend; if Karl,
who would be already sufficiently irritated by the victory of Kalisz, knew of
this fresh attempt to fool him, he would undoubtedly refuse any possible
concession in the harshness of his demands.
But Aurora had pushed pen and paper under the reluctant hand of
Augustus.
“He trusted you,” she said, “and to give him to Karl is to give him to a
cruel death.”
“Sweden might be merciful,” muttered Augustus.
Aurora ignored this feeble futility and resorted to another argument,
more powerful to influence the distracted Elector than the last.
“Sire, Prince Mentchikoff will demand Patkul, Mdle. D’Einsiedel will
rouse Russia—better, at least, compromise.”
Augustus seized the pen and hastily wrote an order for the secret and
immediate release of Patkul; Aurora von Königsmarck took it from him and
left the room.
Everything was lost, but the brilliant and wayward woman did not think
of that; she went to her bed-chamber, threw on a mantle, and hastened to a
little closet in her suite of apartments, now all dismantled and in confusion.
A pale girl stood with locked hands at the window, staring out at the chill
September morning.
The Countess thrust into her hands the order for General Patkul’s
release.
 “That goes to-day, dear, by our fleetest courier.” In the evening Augustus
signed the terms dictated by Karl XII.

BOOK VI

THE BETRAYAL
“Il y a un vulgaire parmi les princes, comme parmi les autres hommes.”—Voltaire.

CHAPTER I

P RINCE MENTCHIKOFF returned at once to Russia to put before the

Czar the new turn of events in Poland.
Peter was still at Marli, superintending the building of his new capital
which was rising out of the filled dykes and drained marshes of the desolate
flats of the banks of the Neva.
Mentchikoff was almost beside himself with fury at the news he brought,
but his rage was as nothing beside that of the Emperor.
Peter glared at his friend with a wrath he could hardly sustain; but
contrary to his use, he made a terrible effort to control himself that he might
hear the tale to the full.
He had been, at first, vexed at seeing Mentchikoff, thinking that he
should not have left the newly regained Varsovia, but now he admitted that
the Prince had done right to bring news so tremendous himself.
He sat on a gilt leather arm-chair, in the little front room of his cottage,
dressed in a rough green frieze riding suit, his boots muddy and a riding
switch in his hand; he had just returned from a visit of inspection of St.
Petersburg, where streets, shops, palaces, and churches were already
covering the outlines of the city.
Mentchikoff stood before him in the rich costume of a Russian general,
European in cut, but Eastern in color and embroidery, a diamond in his
sword hilt, a star on his breast, lace at his throat and wrists.
His long brown and lean face, with the sharp bright black eyes and thick
lips, was pale with the intense passion of a fierce and uncivilized nature.
“This is what he did, Peter Alexievitch! I put him back in Varsovia; he
did not want to give battle at Kalisz—one knows why now! And one
morning he was gone—gone! With his woman and his valets—gone! To
Altranstadt—to the camp of the Swede!”
“You were properly fooled,” muttered the Czar, in a stifling voice.
Mentchikoff made not the least attempt to deny this.
“There was one Pfingsten, one of his Germans, whom he sent to Karl—
and who brought his terms writ on a bit of paper, and he, this cursed
Augustus, signed and fled, to put himself at Karl’s mercy.”
The Emperor’s eyes showed red, a faint dew besprinkled his forehead,
he bent his whip across his knee till it cracked, then flung it away and
buried his face in his hands, running his fingers into his dusky curls.
“Mdle. D’Einsiedel came to me, the very day before—for months she
had been trying to find me—to tell me about Patkul. The whole thing was
kept secret, but it seems that he was arrested when you were called to
Astrakan. Of course Augustus knew the Swede would ask for him.”
“My ambassador—my general!” groaned Peter.
“When the Elector fled, this lady went back to vantage of his hurried
departure to order at once the release of Patkul, but there was much delay,
he having been moved from Sonnenstein to Königstein; the messenger
reached the governor of this place in time—the Countess von Königsmarck
was very active in this intrigue—but he tried to get Patkul to pay ransom,
knowing of his wealth, and while this argument was in progress the
Swedish officers arrived, and Patkul is now in Altranstadt, fastened in a
cellar with a great iron chain round his waist.”
Peter raised his face which was quite distorted, the eyes infected with
blood, the lips livid.
“May the Devil overtake Augustus and torture him in Hell forever!” he
stammered. “May he be steeped to the lips in sorrow and bitterness, the
vile, false coward.”
He ceased with a sob of sheer fury; he had always despised Augustus,
but never believed him capable of this; disloyalty and cowardice were the
two unforgiveable crimes in the eyes of the Muscovite; his primitive nature
did not recognize the usual excuses offered by diplomacy for the actions
forced by necessity on states and princes; nothing could palliate the
Elector’s conduct in his eyes; he considered that he had been treated with
black treachery and base ingratitude, and that Augustus had behaved with
the utmost villainy. He certainly was incapable of such conduct himself; he
would have died cheerfully sooner than submit to an enemy, and though he
might punish even his own family with savage cruelty if he suspected them
of treachery, he would never have deserted a friend or have betrayed an ally.
Through all the Elector’s misfortunes Peter had been staunch to him,
and, to the best of his ability, held out a helping hand; and when he
remembered that last Conference at Grodno, the amiable flattery of the
Saxon, the mutual promises, the sworn treaties, the vows of friendship and
mutual help against the Swede, and thought how the Elector had taken
advantage of his hurried departure to order at once the arrest of the man
who was a valuable asset in dealing with the enemy, he was shaken by an
excess of fury.
“Danilovitch!” he cried, “I shall never forgive you that you did not
discover this traitor and bring him in chains to me!”
“I shall never forgive myself, Peter Alexievitch,” replied the Prince
simply. “But who would have thought of such vileness? He has that smooth
Western way of lies and smiles.”
“The woman Königsmarck is in this.”
“I do not think so. I know that she did her best to save Patkul; she has
more courage than he, and I think, more honor. She is a friend, too, of Mdle.
D’Einsiedel—that child will die of this, Peter Alexievitch.”
“What will they do with Patkul?” asked Peter fiercely.
“He is to be tried by a council of war. Karl treats him as a rebellious
subject. He will suffer a cruel death.”
In Karl’s place Peter would have behaved with the same severity; he had
never shown mercy to those whom he judged rebels, and therefore he did
not feel the fury of hate towards Karl that he felt towards Augustus, but he
was conscious of a certain wonder that this young king whom he had
regarded with secret admiration as being much greater than himself, could
indulge in the same bloodthirsty vengeances.
“Is this Sweden’s famous clemency?” he asked bitterly. “Is he then so
magnificent?”
He was silent, communing with his own soul; he thought he would have
been more chivalrous than Karl, and not taken advantage of the weakness of
Augustus to demand the surrender of a man in the employ of another
monarch.
From that moment the cold knightly figure of the Scandinavian, vested
with all the virtues to which he himself might never hope to aspire, was
smirched in the eyes of Peter.
“The Muscovite prisoners were slain after Fraustadt—by whose orders?”
he said. “And now this. This man is no better than I,” he added, with a
strange simplicity, “and I shall defeat him.”
Then his thoughts turned to Augustus, and he flashed from brooding into
wrath.
“How was the Elector received at Altranstadt?” he demanded.
“The Swede met him privately, they say, and treated him with a cold
civility. Their talk was of trifles, mainly of the boots Karl wore, which he
had never been without, he said, for ten years, save to sleep, and then
Stanislaus Leczinski came, and Augustus had to salute him as King of
Poland.”
“Is it possible there lives a prince so spiritless!” exclaimed Peter.
“He must have suffered,” said Mentchikoff with satisfaction. “After
Kalisz Sweden’s terms became harder. Augustus had to send the archives
and State jewels to Stanislaus, cause his name as King of Poland to be
effaced from all documents and monuments, and write a letter of
congratulation to Stanislaus.”
“And that is the mercy he obtained by throwing himself on the
compassion of Karl!” cried the Russian, “and I was allied with such a
prince! What does he mean to do now?”
“Karl is supposed to retire from Saxony and leave him in peace,” said
Mentchikoff dryly. “As for the Palatine of Posnania, he has a poor gift in
the throne of Poland—the factious nobles, such as the Sapieha, have laid
waste what the Swedes and your Muscovites have spared. The country is a
smoking ruin.”
“And that is what the King of Sweden has achieved by his conquest,”
said Peter grimly. “Why does he so favor Stanislaus Leczinski?”
“No one knows—perhaps because he knows how to flatter him.”
Peter gave his favorite an ugly look.
 “Do you think that is the sole reason for the friendship of kings?” he
demanded.
Mentchikoff saw his danger and fell on one knee, kissing passionately
his master’s rough hand; he knew that there is nothing an absolute prince
dislikes more than the insinuation that he is ruled through his vanity and
adroitly influenced by flattery, even though he is seldom led by any other
means or persuasion.
Peter was mollified by this act of homage.
“If you flattered me, Danilovitch, I should love you no longer,” he said.
“If I had been a flatterer,” replied Mentchikoff, “I should not have
brought you this ill news, Peter Alexievitch.”
The Czar rose, raising his favorite also to his feet. He did not feel any ill-
will towards the Prince for his failure to detect the secret negotiations of the
Elector; all the force of his ardent soul was absorbed in fury against his
faithless ally.
“Patkul must be saved,” he said. “Am I to submit to this treatment? I will
appeal to England, to Holland, to the Empire!”
Mentchikoff did not voice his thoughts, which were that the name of
Karl now sounded so terribly in Europe that it was doubtful if any nation
would dare to interfere with him, besides the fact that the countries
mentioned by Peter were engaged in a costly war with France.
He frowned at the floor and was silent; he could see no way by which
Peter could come by satisfaction and vengeance save through his own
genius and might.
“Patkul shall not die,” said Peter. “Karl would not dare.”
“There are the Swedish prisoners who might be executed in reprisal,”
remarked Mentchikoff.
This suggestion suited Peter’s breed and training, and, perhaps, his
disposition, but that prudence and foresight that distinguished him from his
predecessors caused him to reject a proposal that was useless and
dangerous.
“There are more Muscovites in Sweden than Swedes in Muscovy,” he
said grimly. “I will take another vengeance. I will march on Poland.”
He paused and tore at his neckcloth as if to loosen it and give himself air.
 “Of all those who joined against Karl, there is only Russia left,” he
added, with a terrible look. “But Russia will defeat him—listen,
Danilovitch, I will not stop until I have crushed him, beaten him, reduced
him, as he has crushed, beaten, and reduced Augustus! And if he slays
Patkul——”
He paused and added in a low voice: “I loved Patkul.”
He took a turn about the room in a great and increasing agitation.
“Seven years have I fought him—with no weapons but those that I could
forge myself well; he had everything to his hand, and he conquered. But I
am ready now. Are not things different, Danilovitch? I have built a city and
a fort, a navy; I have trained an army—can I not defeat Karl of Sweden?”
“I never doubted,” replied Mentchikoff, a look of fiery enthusiasm in his
little dark eyes, “that your Majesty would bring down this insolent
braggart.”
“To break him, Danilovitch!” cried the Czar. “To smash his invincible
armies, to send his veterans flying before me, to make him fly—to drive
him to ruin, to exile, to make the glory of his victories disappear like smoke
before the sun! That would be an achievement, Danilovitch!”
He paused, exhausted by his own passion, and caught hold of the back of
the chair in which he had been sitting.
“I did not enter into this war for lust of conquest,” he said, as if
justifying himself, yet with an almost wistful dignity. “Not for hate, as
Denmark did—not for folly, as Saxony did. I wanted my Baltic ports—the
trade, the commerce, the prosperity. No one understands that.”
“These things must be fought for, Peter Alexievitch,” replied
Mentchikoff.
“To that end have I built a navy and trained an army,” said Peter sternly.
“I perceive that I shall get nothing of what I want as long as Karl of Sweden
is master of the North.”
He sat down again with something of a groan; rage at the defection of
Augustus so consumed him that he could hardly command his thoughts.
“Sweden does not know,” remarked Mentchikoff, “what he has roused in
Russia. He thinks the Muscovites may be scattered by the whip and are not
worthy of powder and shot—he insults Augustus with impunity because he
does not think that we are to be feared.”
 Peter turned his inflamed eyes towards the dark, pearl-crowned ikon that
hung above the stove.
“God, help me to do this one thing,” he muttered. “To smite Sweden.”
His face assumed an expression of dark and lowering anger.
“If Patkul is slain,” he added. “Now would Sweden dare?”
Then, with a sudden and entirely unconscious pathos, “Europe will not
listen to me—I am only the Czar of Muscovy. They do not take me as a
power to be reckoned with, Danilovitch.”
“They do not know you, Peter Alexievitch,” replied Mentchikoff.
Peter pursued his own train of thought.
“He breaks all international law—if Patkul had been the envoy of any
other country but Russia the world would have cried out against this
treatment.”
Despite his passionate nature and his autocratic position he saw
shrewdly enough just how Europe held him.
“I will make my protest, but who will take any notice of it?” he
continued.
“Peter Alexievitch, you must make your own protest,” said Mentchikoff,
in an energetic tone. “Cannot you defeat Sweden?” added this fiery
Russian.
“It has been done,” responded the Czar, with a sudden smile. “You beat
them at Kalisz!”
He spoke warmly and without a trace of envy of his subject’s success in
a war where he had every time failed himself, thereby, had he known it,
showing himself greater than Karl, who had not been able to restrain his
jealousy on hearing of Mardenfeldt’s victory at Fraustadt.
With equal generosity and selflessness Mentchikoff replied:
“I was in a little way the forerunner of you, Peter Alexievitch—when
you strike, Sweden will quiver to the shock!”
The Emperor fixed on him soft and lustrous eyes, tired and earnest.
“I must call a council,” he said, “but I know what to do—I will descend
on Poland with my new army. Karl is likely to remain at Altranstadt?”
“There is no talk of his leaving. The English are sending an envoy to him
—at least a rumor says so.”
 “They are afraid he will fall on the Empire,” said Peter instantly.
“He will not,” replied Mentchikoff simply. “His design is solely against
Russia.”
“He troubles himself not at all about the West?”
“Not at all, I think. He would be Alexander—Saxony is but his Thrace—
Russia must be his Persia, and he thinks all his conquests little things beside
that battle that must be his Gaugamela!”
“He would dethrone me, and I would break him utterly,” remarked Peter.
“It only is to be seen which is the stronger man.”
He pressed Mentchikoff’s hand and left the room abruptly, seeking that
comfort which never failed to soothe him in his most gloomy and bitter
moods, Katherina, now his wife.
He found her in the garden amid the lilac thickets that were just
beginning to be covered with their pale flowers.
The Livonian peasant girl was now rather stout, heavy and indolent in
habit, slow in her movements, generally silent, with a good-natured smile
on her full lips.
Her extraordinary elevation had in no way altered her disposition; she
was as unassuming as she had been when she was the servant of
Mentchikoff; she did not mingle in the least in politics of which she
understood nothing, but she was intelligent enough to at least feign an
appreciation of what Peter was trying to do for Russia, and her quiet
sweetness, her placid cheerfulness never grew stale to Peter; he looked
upon her almost as his savior, from the devils of melancholy and horror that
tore at his soul.
He was not nice in his tastes. Her lack of refinement did not vex him; her
over-blown, untidy beauty still satisfied him, neither her manners nor her
past troubled him; with a certain grandeur he disdained everything but the
fact that she was the one woman he had found wholly pleasing; she went
everywhere with him and knew all his secrets; so far she had been faithful
to him, perhaps because in her heart she was entirely afraid of him, and, for
all her outward calm, very wary.
The Czar flung himself on the seat she reclined on, and put his arm
round her shoulders, turning her fair countenance, framed in the long,
Russian veil, towards him.
 “Saxony has delivered my Patkul to Sweden!” he said.
“Alas, poor gentleman!” cried Katherina, in genuine distress.
Peter kissed her fiercely.
“What do you think I shall do, my rose?” he asked.
“Why, rescue him, Peter Alexievitch.”
“That, if I can—if I am too late—” the veins stood out on his forehead
and a light foam gathered on his lips. “Do you not think I shall avenge
him?” he asked pitifully.
Katherina answered as if he had been a child.
“Why, of course,” she said.

CHAPTER II

E UROPE, absorbed in the war of the Spanish Succession, paid no heed to

the Czar’s bitter protests against Saxony and Sweden, and Patkul was
sent to Kazimicry.
Peter, with an army of 60,000 trained men, officered by Germans,
obtained secretly from the Emperor of Austria, who was alarmed by the
near approach of the terrible Swede, marched into Poland.
General Lewenhaupt was not able to guard the entries into this country
which was neither fortified nor united, and the Czar took Lublin which had
been left without a Swedish garrison, and there convoked a Diet on the
model of that of Varsovia, thereby further distracting an already thrice
distracted country.
Augustus was now as hateful as Stanislaus in the eyes of Peter, and his
project was to give all that the Elector had renounced by the peace of
Altranstadt to a third king; he had in his mind Racoczy, Prince of
Transylvania.
Russian gold and Russian promises soon gained a powerful faction in
Poland; Peter exerted himself to please.
His portrait, enriched with diamonds, was presented to the officers who
had fought at Kalisz, and gold and silver medals to the soldiers; it was the
Czar’s great pride to mention that these records of his first victory had been
struck in his new capital.
 The Diet at Lublin, however, distracted by faction and intrigue, fearful of
Sweden and suspicious of the Czar, made little progress towards any
settlement of the affairs of Poland; it would recognize neither Augustus nor
Stanislaus, but was by no means agreed as to the man to put in the place of
these monarchs. Peter, with a slowness that led his enemy into despising
him, remained at Lublin watching these intrigues and training his army, his
sole encounters with the enemy being skirmishes between wandering
parties of Muscovites and detachments of Lewenhaupt’s Swedes in Livonia
and Lithuania; a kind of warfare which ruined the wretched country without
giving any advantage to either side. Meanwhile the Sapieha and Oginski,
again commenced pillaging and burning, marauding friend and foe alike,
causing Karl to send Stanislaus with General Rehnsköld to Poland to
endeavor to reduce these disorders.
Peter, finding it impossible to maintain an army any longer in a country
so ruined and desolate, and pursuing his waiting policy, left the Diet of
Lublin to their deliberations and fell back on his base in Lithuania, daily
strengthening his forces and filling the courts of Europe with his plaints
against Karl and his demands for the return of Patkul.
This left Stanislaus sole master of Poland, and the power of Karl was at
its height; his camp at Altranstadt held envoys from all the princes of
Europe, seeking his favor, endeavoring to discover his plans and to gain his
alliance.
In this moment Karl gave little thought to Peter, save to issue scornful
orders for the suppression of his predatory bands of Tartars and Cossacks.
Karl now turned his attention to the Empire, and in revenge for a slight
he thought he had received at the hands of the Emperor’s chamberlain, he
demanded reparation from Joseph in the haughtiest terms, insisting not only
on the banishment of the offending Count Tobar, but on that nobleman’s
delivery into his own hands, and the surrender of the Muscovite refugees
that had escaped over the frontier into Austria.
This abuse of the law of nations passed without a murmur in Europe, so
powerful was Sweden, as did also Karl’s demand that their ancient
privileges be restored to the Protestants of Silesia.
Joseph humbled himself as Augustus had done, and the court of Vienna
was as humble as that of Saxony.
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