VOLTAIRE

HISTORY OF CHARLES XII 1682 - 1718 King of Sweden

 

 

BOOK VIII

Charles marries his sister to the Prince of Hesse—He is besieged in Stralsund and escapes to Sweden—The enterprise of Baron Gortz his premier—Plans of reconciliation with the Czar—An attack on England—Charles besieges Frederickshal in Norway—He is killed—His character—Gortz is beheaded.

 

DURING these preparations the King gave his only surviving sister in marriage to Frederic, Prince of Hesse-Cassel. The Queen Dowager, his grandmother, aged fourscore years, did the honours of the fête on the 4th of April, 1715, and died shortly afterwards. The King could not attend the ceremony, as he was so busy finishing the fortifications of Stralsund, which was in danger from the Kings of Denmark and Prussia. But he made his brother-in-law generalissimo of all the forces of Sweden. This Prince had served the States-General in the French war, and was considered a good soldier, a qualification for his sister’s hand in the eyes of Charles XII.

Misfortunes now followed as fast as victories had once done. In June 1715 the English King’s German forces and those of Denmark invested the strong town of Wismar; the Danes, Saxons and Prussians, 36,000 of them, marched in a body to Stralsund to form a siege. Not far from Stralsund, five Swedish ships were sunk by the Danes and Prussians.  The Czar held the Baltic with two large men-of-war, and 150 transports, which had 30,000 men on board. He threatened a descent on Sweden, appearing alternately on the coast of Elsingburg and Stockholm. All Sweden was in arms, expecting an invasion; his land forces were chasing the Swedes from the places they held in Finland towards the Gulf of Bothnia, but he attempted nothing further. At the mouth of the Oder, a river that divides Pomerania, and, passing Stetin, falls into the Baltic, there is a little island called Usedom. Its position makes it a place of considerable importance, for it commands the Oder both on the right and the left, and whoever holds it is master of the navigation of that river. The King of Prussia had dislodged the Swedes, and was holding the place as well as Stetin, saying that he did so purely for the sake of peace. But the Swedes had retaken Usedom in May 1715, and held two forts there, one called Suine, on a branch of the Oder of that name, the other called Penamonder, of greater importance, on another branch of the river. The forts were manned with only 250 Pomeranians, commanded by an old Swedish officer called Kuze-Slerp, a man who deserves to be remembered. On the 4th of April the King of Prussia sent 1,500 foot and 800 dragoons into the island. They arrived and landed on the side of Suine without opposition. The Swedish commander had left them this fort, as being the least important, and, not being able to divide his small force, he withdrew to the castle of Penamonder, resolving to await the worst.

So they were forced to make a formal siege. They shipped artillery at Stetin, and sent in a reinforcement of 1,000 Prussian foot and 400 horse. On the 18th, they opened the trenches in two places, and a brisk battery was played by cannon and mortars. During the siege a Swedish soldier, sent privately with a letter to Charles, found means to land on the island and slip into the place. He gave the letter to the commander. It was as follows: “Do not fire till the enemy come to the edge of the ditch; defend yourselves to the last drop of your blood.—Charles.”

Slerp read the note, resolved to obey, and die as he was bid in his master’s service. On the 22nd, at daybreak, the assault was made. The besieged did as they were told, and killed many, but the ditch was full, the breach large, and the besiegers too numerous. They entered at two different places at once.

The commander now thought that he had no further duty but to obey orders and sell his life dear, so he abandoned the breaches, entrenched his few troops, who all had honour and courage enough to go with him, and placed them so that they should not be surrounded.

The enemy hastened up, surprised that he did not ask for quarter; but he fought a whole hour, and when he had lost half his soldiers, was killed at last with his lieutenant and major. There were then left 100 men and one officer; these asked that their lives might be spared, and were taken prisoners. In the commander’s pocket they found his master’s letter, which was taken to the King of Prussia.

Just as Charles had lost Usedom, and the neighbouring islands which were quickly taken, while Wismar was on the point of surrender, with no fleet to lend aid, and Sweden in great danger, he himself was at Stralsund, besieged by 36,000 men. Stralsund, famous throughout Europe for the siege the King of Sweden sustained there, is one of the strongest places in Pomerania. It is built between the Baltic and the Lake of Franken, near the Straits of Gella. There is no land passage to it but across a narrow crossway defended by a citadel, and by retrenchments that were once thought inaccessible. There was in it a garrison of 9,000 men, and, more than all, the King of Sweden himself. The Kings of Denmark and Prussia besieged it with an army of 36,000 men, consisting of Saxons, Prussians and Danes. The honour of besieging Charles was too great an incitement to them to make any task difficult, so the trenches were opened on the night between the 19th and 20th of October, 1715.

The King of Sweden said at first that he wondered how any place well manned and fortified could be taken. True, he had taken many towns himself in the course of his victories, but none by regular attack. It was the fame of his exploits that gained them; besides, he never judged others by his own standard, and always underrated his enemies. The besiegers carried on their work with great alacrity, and they were assisted by a curious chance.

It is well known that the Baltic has no flux and reflux. The entrenchments of the town were thought impregnable, as there was an impassable marsh on the west and the sea on the east.

No one had remarked before that in a strong westerly wind the waves of the Baltic roll back so as to leave only three feet of water under the entrenchment. They had always thought it deep. A soldier, happening to fall from the top of the entrenchment, was surprised to find a bottom; but having made that discovery, he concluded that it might make his fortune. So he deserted, and going to the quarters of Count Wakerbath, General of the Saxon forces, he told him that the sea was fordable, and that it would be easy to carry the Swedes’ entrenchments. The King of Prussia was not slow to take the hint.

The next day the west wind was still blowing; Lieutenant-Colonel Kepel entered the water with 1,800 men, and 2,000 advanced at the same time on the causeway; all the Prussian artillery fired, and the Prussians and Danes gave an alarm on the other side. The Swedes were sure they could deal with those who were advancing with such rashness by the causeway; but Kepel, coming in behind them from the sea, enclosed them so that they could make no headway, and the position was carried after terrible slaughter on both sides. Some of the Swedes retired into the town, but they were pursued by the besiegers, and some entered pell-mell with those that were fleeing. Two officers and four Saxon soldiers were already on the drawbridge, but they had just time to shut it, and took the men, and so for that time the town was saved. They found four-and-twenty pieces of cannon on the entrenchments, which they turned against the town. After this success the siege was carried on eagerly, the town being cannonaded and bombarded without remission.

Opposite Stralsund on the Baltic is the island of Ruegen, which is a rampart of the place, whither the garrison and people could retire if they only had boats. This island was of the first importance to Charles, for he knew that if the enemy were masters of it he would soon be invested both by sea and land, and probably buried in the ruins of Stralsund, or else taken prisoner by those whom he had formerly despised so much and used so harshly.

However, the wretched state of his affairs had prevented him from sending a sufficient garrison to Ruegen, and there were not more than 2,000 regular troops altogether on the island. For three months the enemy had been making all the preparations for an attack on it, but having built boats for the purpose, the Prince of Anhalt, favoured by good weather, made a landing at last with 12,000 men on the 15th of November.

The King, who was everywhere, was in this island; he joined 2,000 men who were entrenched near a little haven, about three leagues from where the enemy had landed. He marched with them at midnight, with great silence. The Prince of Anhalt had used what seemed unnecessary caution to entrench his cannon. His officers expected no attack by night, and had no idea but that Charles was safe at Stralsund. But the Prince, who knew Charles much better, ordered a deep ditch, with chevaux de frise on the edge, and took as much care as if he had to do with a superior force.

At two in the morning Charles came to the enemy’s camp, without the slightest noise. His soldiers said to one another, “Come, let us pull up the chevaux de frise.” These words were overheard by the sentinels; the alarm was quickly given, and the enemy stood to arms. The King, raising the chevaux de frise, saw a great ditch. “Ah,” he said, “impossible; this is more than I expected.” Not at all discouraged, and knowing nothing of their numbers, nor they of his, for the night favoured him in that, he decided at once, leaped into the  ditch, followed by some of the boldest. The chevaux de frise was removed, the earth levelled with any trunks and branches they could find, and the bodies of the dead for fascines. The King, generals, and boldest of the officers and soldiers got on one another’s shoulders as in assaults.

The fight began in the enemy’s camp; the vigour of the Swedes threw the Danes and Prussians into disorder, but their numbers being too disparate, the Swedes were repulsed in about a quarter of an hour, and repaired to the ditch.

The unfortunate King rallied his troops in the field, and the fight was renewed with equal warmth on both sides. He saw his favourite Grothusen fall, and General Dardoff, and as he fought passed over the body of the latter while he was still breathing. During, his companion from Turkey to Stralsund, was killed before his face. The King himself was shot near the left breast; Count Poniatowski, who had been so lucky as to save his life before at Pultawa, had the good fortune to do the same again, and gave him a new mount. The Swedes retired to a part of the island named Alteferre, where they still held a fort; from thence the King returned to Stralsund, obliged to leave those brave troops who had served him so well in that expedition; they were all prisoners of war two days later.

Among the prisoners was that unfortunate French regiment, the débris of the battle of Hochstet, which had first served Augustus, and afterwards Charles. Most of the soldiers were drafted into a new regiment belonging to the son of the Prince of Anhalt, and he was their fourth master. In Ruegen the commander of this vagrant regiment was then the famous Count Villelongue, who had so nobly risked his life at Adrianople to save Charles. He was taken with all his men, and was ill rewarded for all his services, fatigues and sufferings.

The King, having only weakened himself by all these prodigies of valour, pent up in Stralsund and expecting to be taken, was yet the same as he had been at Bender. Nothing could surprise him. All day he was making ditches and entrenchments behind the walls, and at night he sallied out against the enemy. The town was badly damaged, bombs fell thick and fast, and half the town was in ashes. The townsfolk, far from complaining, were full of admiration for their master, whose temperance, courage and fatigues were astonishing; they acted as soldiers under him, following to the attack, and were now as good as another garrison.

One day, as the King was dictating to a secretary some dispatches for Sweden, a bomb fell into the house, came through the roof, and burst very near his room. Part of the floor fell in, but the ante-room where he was at work, being attached to a thick wall, was undisturbed, and by a lucky chance none of the splinters came in at the door, though it was open. In this noise and confusion the secretary dropped his pen, thinking that the house was coming down. “What is the matter?” said the King calmly; “why are you not writing?” The man could only stammer out, “The bomb, Sire!” “Well,” said the King, “what has that to do with our writing? Go on.”

An ambassador of France, a M. de Croissy, was then shut up with the King in Stralsund. To send a man on an embassy to Charles was like sending him to the trenches. The King would talk with Croissy for hours together, in the most exposed places, where people were falling on all sides, killed by the bombs and cannon; the King was unconscious of the danger, and the ambassador did not care to say anything to make him chose a safer place for business. Before the siege this minister tried his best to make a treaty between the Kings of Sweden and Prussia; but the one expected too much, and the other would not make any concessions. So that the only satisfaction that Croissy got out of his embassy was the familiarity he enjoyed with this remarkable man. He often slept on the same cloak with him, and, as they shared so many dangers and fatigues, he was outspoken with him. Charles encouraged this in the case of those he liked, and would sometimes say to Croissy, “Veni, maledicamus de rege.” “Come, let us talk scandal of Charles.”

Croissy stayed in the town till the 13th of November. Then, with the permission of the enemy to pass with his baggage, he took leave of Charles, whom he left among the ruins of Stralsund with only a third of his garrison left, and fully resolved to stand an assault.

In fact, the assault on the horn-work was made in four days. The enemy took it twice, and were twice beaten off.

At last numbers prevailed, and they became masters of it. Charles stayed two days longer in the town, expecting every moment a general assault; on the 16th he stayed till midnight in a little ravelin quite destroyed by bombs and cannon; the day after the principal officers begged him to stay no longer in this untenable situation, but retreat was now as dangerous as to stay there. The Baltic was full of Russian and Danish ships; in the port at Stralsund there was only one boat with sails and oars. So many dangers made retreat glorious, and determined Charles to go; he embarked on the evening of December 20th, with ten persons aboard. They were obliged to break the ice, and it was several hours before they could get away. The enemy’s admiral had strict orders not to let Charles escape from Stralsund. Happily they were to leeward of him, and could not approach. He ran the most risk in passing a place called the Barbette, in Ruegen, where the Danes had fixed a battery of twelve cannon. They fired, and he made all the sail he could to get clear of their range. Two men were killed close by him, and at another shot the mast was shattered. In the midst of these dangers the King met two of his ships that were cruising in the Baltic, and the next day Stralsund was surrendered, and the garrison made prisoners of war. The King landed at Isted in Scania, and came to Carlscrona, in a very different state from that in which he had left it, ten years before, when he started in a ship of twelve guns, to dictate to the North.

As he was so near his capital, it was concluded he would go there after so long an absence. But he could not bear the thought of it till he had gained some great victories. Nor did he want to see his people who loved him, and to whose burdens he had perforce to add to defend himself against his enemies. He only wanted to see his sister, and he sent for her to meet him near Lake Wetter, in Ostrogothia. He rode post-haste with one attendant, spent a day with her, and returned.

At Carlscrona, where he passed the winter, he levied new forces everywhere. He thought his subjects were only born to follow him to war, and he had accustomed them to think so too. He enlisted many of but fifteen years old. In many villages there were only old men, women and children left; in some places the women ploughed unaided.  It was still more difficult to get a fleet. But to bring that about commissions were given to privateers, who enjoyed great privileges to the ruin of the country, but who provided him with some ships. This was the last effort of Sweden to meet the great expense; all the houses were searched, and half their provisions carried into the King’s warehouses. All the iron in the country was bought up for his use and paid for in paper, which he sold for ready money. Whoever wore silk, or wigs, or gilded swords was taxed, and there was a heavy hearth-rate.

A people thus loaded with taxation would have revolted under any other King, but here the most miserable peasant knew that his master was faring harder than he himself. So they quietly bore what their King was always the first to bear. In the public danger, private misfortunes were not thought of. They expected hourly an attack from the Russians, Danes, Prussians, Saxons, and the English. Their fear was so strong, and so well justified, that those who possessed valuables buried them.

It was a surprise to all Europe, who had still an eye on Charles, when, instead of defending his country about to be attacked by so many princes, he invaded Norway at the head of 20,000 men. Since the time of Hannibal there had been no instance of a general who, unable to hold his own against his enemies at home, had gone to attack them in their own dominions. His brother-in-law, the Prince of Hesse, accompanied him. There is no way from Sweden to Norway except by dangerous by-ways, where at every turn one meets with pools of water, formed by the sea between the rocks; bridges have to be made every day. A very few Danes might have stopped the Swedish army, but they were not ready for such a rapid invasion.

Europe was still more surprised to find the Czar so quiet, without descending on Sweden as he had intended.

The reason was that he had a plan, which was one of the greatest, and one of the most difficult to carry out, that has ever been conceived.

Baron Gortz, a Franconian by birth, and Baron of the empire, having done the King of Sweden important services during his sojourn at Bender, was now his favourite and Prime Minister. He was the boldest and the most diplomatic of men: full of resource in adversity, ambitious in his plans, and active in his policy, no project was too ambitious for him, no means too dear for his end; he was prodigal with presents, oaths, truth and falsehood. From Sweden he went to England, France, Holland, to himself lay the train which he meant to use; he was able to inflame all Europe, and that was his idea. What his master was at the head of an army, he was in the cabinet, and this gave him more influence over Charles than any minister had ever had before. This King, who from the age of twenty had given orders to Court Piper, was now willing to receive them from Baron Gortz, and was the more submissive because his misfortunes had made it necessary for him to ask advice, and because Gortz’s advice suited with his courageous disposition. He found that of all the princes in league against him Charles felt especially resentful to George of Hanover, King of England: because he was the only one whom Charles had never injured, and had entered into the affair only as a mediator, with intent to hold Bremen and Verden, which he bought for a trifle from the King of Denmark.

It was early that he discovered the Czar’s secret discontent with the allies, who all wanted to prevent his getting any footing in Germany.

Since the year 1714 the Czar had been in a position to make a descent on Sweden, but whether he could not agree with the Kings of Poland, England, Denmark, and Prussia, allies whose suspicions were justifiable, or whether he thought his troops not seasoned enough to attack that people at home, whose very peasants had beat the pick of the Danish forces, he still took care to put it off.

The want of money was what had hitherto delayed him. For the Czar was one of the greatest monarchs in the world, but not one of the richest, his revenue not amounting to more than 18,000,000 French francs. He had discovered gold, silver, iron and copper mines, but the profit they yielded was uncertain, and the working of them expensive. He had established a great trade, yet at first it did not flourish; his new conquests increased his power and his fame, but brought him very little treasure.

Time was necessary to bind up the wounds of Livonia, a fertile country which had suffered much from a fifteen years’ war, by fire, sword and plague—almost desolate of inhabitants, and a burden to the conqueror. The fleets he now maintained; and every day some new enterprise was exhausting all his treasures. He had been reduced to the bad expedient of raising the value of the coinage, a remedy which never cures the evil, and is particularly injurious to any country where the imports exceed the exports. It was upon these grounds that Gortz had laid the basis of a revolution; he was bold enough to suggest to the King of Sweden that he should make peace with the Czar, insinuating that the Czar was very angry with the Kings of Poland and England, and that Peter and Charles together might make the rest of Europe tremble.

There was no making peace with the Czar, unless he yielded a good many provinces to the east and west of the Baltic, but he called his attention to the fact that in yielding such places as the Czar possessed already, and which he could not possibly regain, he might have the honour of replacing Stanislas on the throne of Poland, and setting James II’s son upon that of England, besides restoring the Duke of Holstein.

Charles was pleased with all this, and without giving the matter much consideration he gave the minister full powers to act: Gortz left Sweden with carte blanche for any prince he wished to treat with. His first business was to try how the Court of Moscow stood, which he did through the Czar’s chief physician, a man devoted to the Pretender’s interests, as most of the Scots are, where they are not in the pay of the English Court. This physician represented to Prince Menzikoff, with all the eagerness of a man much interested, the greatness and importance of such a plan. Prince Menzikoff was pleased with it, and the Czar approved it. Instead of an invasion of Sweden he sent his troops to winter in Mecklenburg, and came there himself on the pretext of settling some disputes between his nephew the Duke and his nobles: his real object was to gain a principality in Germany, for which he hoped to bargain with the Duke.

The allies were angry at this step, not caring to have so terrible and formidable a neighbour, who, should he once gain German provinces, might become Emperor and oppress the sovereigns. The greater was their resentment, the more that Gortz’s plan flourished. But he negotiated with all the confederates in order to conceal his private intrigues.  The Czar fed them all with vain hopes. Charles was all this while with his brother-in-law in Norway at the head of 20,000 men, the country was defended by 110,000 Danes in separate bands, which were routed by the King and Prince of Hesse. Charles advanced to Christiania, the capital, and fortune smiled on him again, but from want of provisions he was forced to retire to Sweden, there to await the result of his minister’s plan.

This affair was to be carried through with profound secrecy, and elaborate preparations were necessary: these two are incompatible. Gortz planned to go as far as Asia in his quest, and though the means seemed undesirable, it would at least bring men, money and ships to Sweden, which could be used for an attack on Scotland.

For some time the pirates of all nations, and especially the English, had banded themselves together to infest the seas of Europe and America; they had received no quarter and had retired to Madagascar, a large island on the east coast of Africa; they were quite desperate, and famed for actions which would have made them heroes had they been legal. They wanted a prince to take them under his protection, but international law shut them out from every harbour.

When they heard that Charles XII was returned to Sweden they hoped that, as he was devoted to war and forced to take share in it, and needed a fleet and soldiers, he would be glad to make terms with them. So they sent a deputy, who travelled to Europe in a Dutch ship, to propose to Baron Gortz that they might be received at Gothenburg, where they promised to prepare three-score ships loaded with treasure.

The Baron persuaded the King to agree, and two Swedes were sent to negotiate with them. Then more honourable and substantial help came from Cardinal Alberoni, who directed the government of Spain long enough for his own reputation but not for the good and glory of that kingdom.

He took up the project of setting James II’s son on the English throne with great enthusiasm. But as he had only just taken up the ministry, and Spain was to be settled before he could attempt to overthrow thrones, it appeared that there was no great likelihood of his undertaking the task at present. Yet in two years he had done so much for Spain, and had so raised her prestige in Europe that he had got the Turks (it is reported) to attack the Emperor. Then he took steps to remove the Duke of Orleans from the Regency and King George from the English throne. Such danger lies in the power of one single man who is absolute, and has the sense and capacity to use his power.

Gortz, having made this beginning in the Courts of Russia and Spain,  went secretly to France, and thence to Holland, where he interviewed representatives of the Pretender’s party. He got special information concerning the strength, number, and position of the disaffected in England, what money they could raise, and what men they could put in the field. They only wanted 10,000 men, with which they would feel assured of success. Count Gyllemburg, the Swedish ambassador in England, acting under Gortz’s instructions, had several meetings with the disaffected; he encouraged them and promised them all they wanted. The Pretender’s party even advanced considerable sums, which Gortz received in Holland, and with which he bought ships and ammunition.

Then he secretly sent some officers to France, especially a certain Folard, who, having served in thirty French campaigns without mending his fortune, had volunteered with Charles, not with any ulterior motive, but just to serve under a prince with such a reputation. He especially hoped to get the Prince to adopt the new discoveries he had made in the art of war, which he had studied theoretically and had published views of in a commentary of Polybius. Charles was pleased with his ideas, and, as he was never governed by convention, he intended to make use of Folard in his attack on Scotland.

The main point for Baron de Gortz was to settle a peace between Charles and the Czar, in spite of the many difficulties in the way. Baron Osterman, a man of weight in Russia, was not so ready to agree with Gortz. He was as cautious as the other was enthusiastic. One was for letting things gradually ripen, the other wanted to reap and sow together. Osterman was afraid his master, pleased with the plan, would grant too advantageous terms with Sweden, and so delayed the conclusion of the matter. Luckily for Gortz the Czar himself came to Holland at the beginning of 1717 on the way to France, for he had yet to see this nation, criticized, envied, and imitated by all Europe. He wanted to satisfy his insatiable curiosity, but also he hoped to arrange some political matters.

Gortz had two talks with the Emperor at the Hague, and did more by their means than he could have done in six months with plenipotentiaries. Everything went well, his great plans seemed quite unsuspected, and he hoped they would only be known to Europe in their execution. The first who discovered these intrigues was the Duke of Orleans, Regent of France, who had spies everywhere. The Duke, having personal obligations to the King of England, made the discovery of the whole plot against him. At the same time the Dutch, having suspicions of Gortz’s behaviour, communicated them to the English ministry. Gortz and Gyllemburg were getting on with their schemes rapidly, when one was arrested at the Hague and the other in London.

As Gyllemburg had broken international law by the conspiracy they did not scruple in England to attack his person. But it was thought exceedingly strange that the States-General imprisoned Baron Gortz out of mere friendship for the King of England. They even went so far as to appoint Count Velderen to question him. This was going very far, and as it turned out, only added to their confusion. Gortz asked Velderen if he knew him. “Yes,” said the Dutchman. “Well, then,” he answered, “you must then be aware that I shall only answer what I like.”

All the foreign ministers protested against the wrong done to the persons of Gortz and Gyllemburg. Nothing could excuse the Dutch from breaking so sacred a law in seizing the King of Sweden’s premier, who had never done anything against them, and so violating the spirit of freedom which has attracted so many strangers and has been the cause of her greatness. The King of England acted within his rights in seizing an enemy, so that the letters found among Gyllemburg’s papers from him to Gortz were printed to justify the King’s proceedings.

The King of Sweden was in Scania when the printed letters came with the news of his ministers having been seized. He only smiled and asked if his letters were printed too, and ordered the English ambassador and all his family to be seized. But he could not take the same vengeance on the Dutch, because they had no minister then at the Court of Sweden. He kept a disdainful silence towards England and Holland.

The Czar’s behaviour was just the opposite: as he was not named but only hinted at by distant references in the letters of Gortz and Gyllemburg, he wrote a long letter full of congratulations to the King of England on the discovery, with assurances of his good-will. King George received his protestations with incredulity, but pretended to believe them. A plot laid by private men is at an end when once discovered, but where kings are concerned a discovery only makes it go further. The Czar came to Paris in 1717, and did not spend all his time in viewing the wonders of art and nature there: the academies, public libraries, cabinets of the antiquaries and royal palaces. He made a proposal to the Regent which, had it been accepted, would have put the finishing touch to the greatness of Russia. It was this: to himself ally with the King of Sweden, who would yield many countries to him, to take from the Danes their power in the Baltic, to weaken England by a civil war, and to attract to Russia all the trade of the North. He had thoughts, too, of setting up Stanislas against King Augustus, so that when the fire was kindled in all directions he could fan the flame or damp it as he saw fit. With these views he proposed to the King’s Regent to mediate between Sweden and Russia, and to make an offensive and defensive alliance with them and Spain. The treaty, though so natural and so useful to the nations concerned, putting into their hands the balancing of power in Europe, was yet rejected by Orleans, for he did just the opposite and made a league with the Emperor and the King of England.

Political motives were then so powerful with all princes that the Czar was going to declare war against his old friend Augustus, and to help Charles his mortal enemy; while France, for the sake of the English and Germans, was going to declare war against a grandson of Louis XIV, after having so long supported him at great expenditure of blood and treasure against those very enemies. All that the Czar could obtain was that the Regent should interpose for the freeing of Baron Gortz and Gyllemburg. He returned to Russia about the end of June, having shown a rare example of an emperor travelling to improve his mind. But what most of the French people saw of him was a rough, unpolished exterior, the result of his education, while they were blind to the legislator and the genius who had founded a new nation. What he had sought for in Orleans he soon found in Alberoni, who governed all Spain. Alberoni wanted to restore the Pretender: first as the minister of Spain,  so ill-used by the English, and secondly because he had a personal quarrel with the Duke of Orleans for his close alliance with England against Spain; besides, he was a priest of that Church for which the Pretender’s father had lost his crown.

The Duke of Ormond, as unpopular in England as the Duke of Marlborough was admired, had left the country at the time of George’s accession, and was now in Spain. He went with full powers from the King of Spain to meet the Czar, in Courland, accompanied by a certain D’Irnegan, an Englishman of ability and daring. The business was to ask the Princess Anna, the Czar’s daughter, for marriage with James’s son, in the hopes that such an alliance would bring the Czar over to the King’s side. Baron Gortz, among his other schemes, had intended this lady for the Duke of Holstein, who did marry her later. As soon as he heard of the Duke of Ormond’s plan he grew jealous and did what he could to defeat it.

He left prison in August with the Count Gyllemburg, without any apology from the Swedish to the English King. At the same time the English ambassador and his family were released at Stockholm, where their treatment had been a great deal worse than Gyllemburg’s in London.

Gortz at liberty was an implacable enemy, for besides his other aims he now sought vengeance. He went post-haste to the Czar, who was now better pleased with him than ever, for he undertook to remove in less than three months all obstacles to a peace with Sweden. He took up a map which the Czar had drawn himself, and, drawing a line from Wibourg, by Lake Ladoga, up to the frozen ocean, promised to bring his master to part with all that lay east of that line, besides Carelia, Ingria, and Livonia. Then he mentioned the marriage of the Czar’s daughter to the Duke of Holstein, holding out hopes that the Duke would readily give his country instead, and if once he became a member of the Empire the Imperial crown would, of course, come to him or some of his descendants. The Czar named the isle of Aland for the conferences between Osterman and Gortz; he asked the English Duke of Ormond to withdraw lest the English Court should take alarm. But D’Irnegan, his confidant, remained in the town with many precautions, for he only went out at night and never saw the Czar’s ministers but in the disguise of either a peasant or a Tartar.

As soon as the Duke of Ormond went, the Czar impressed upon the King his courtesy in having sent away the chief partisan of the Pretender, and Baron Gortz returned to Sweden with great hopes of success.

He found his master at the head of 30,000 troops with all the coast guarded by militia. The King needed nothing but money, but he had no credit at home or abroad. France, under the Duke of Orleans, would give him none. He was promised money from Spain, but that country was not yet in a position to support him.

Baron Gortz then tried a project he had tried before. He gave copper the same value as silver, so that a copper coin whose intrinsic value was a halfpenny might, with the royal mark, pass for thirty or forty pence, just as the governors of besieged towns have sometimes paid their soldiers with leather money till they could get better. Such expedients may be useful in a free country, and have often been the salvation of a republic, but they are sure to ruin a monarchy, for the people quickly lose confidence, the minister is unable to keep faith, the money paper increases, individuals bury their specie, and the whole plan fails, often with disastrous results. This was the case in Sweden. Baron Gortz had paid out his new coin with discretion, but was soon carried beyond what he had intended by forces he could not check. Everything became excessively dear, so that he was obliged to multiply his copper coin. The more there was of it the less was its value. Sweden was inundated with this false money, and one and all complained of Gortz. So great was the veneration of the people for Charles that they could not hate him, so the weight of their displeasure fell on the minister who, as a foreigner and financier, was sure to suffer their opprobrium.

A tax that he arranged on the clergy gave the final touch to the universal hatred; priests are only too ready to plead that their cause is God’s, and publicly declared him an atheist, because he asked for their money. The new coins were embossed with the figure of heathen gods, and hence they called them the gods of Gortz.

The ministry joined in the universal hatred of him, all the more ardently because they were powerless. None in the country liked him except the King, whom his unpopularity confirmed in his affection. He placed absolute confidence in him, giving him also his entire confidence at home. He trusted to him, too, all negotiations with the Czar, especially as to the conference at Aland, which of all things he wished to urge on with the greatest haste.

As soon as Gortz had completed at Stockholm the arrangements for the treasury which demanded his presence, he went away to complete with Osterman the great work he had in hand. These were the preliminaries of that alliance which was to have changed the face of affairs in Europe, as they were found among Gortz’s papers.

The Czar was to keep Livonia, part of Ingria, and Carelia, leaving the rest to Sweden. He was to join Charles in restoring Stanislas, and to send to Poland 80,000 men to dethrone the very king on whose side he had been fighting for so many years before; he was to supply ships to carry 30,000 to Germany and 10,000 to England; the forces of both were to attack the King of England’s German dominions, especially Bremen and Verden; the same troops were to restore the Duke of Holstein and force the King of Prussia to an agreement by parting with a good deal of his new acquisitions.

Charles acted henceforth as if his own victorious troops had done all this, and demanded of the Emperor the execution of the peace of Altranstadt. But the Court of Vienna scarcely deigned an answer to one whom they feared so little. The King of Poland was not altogether so safe, but saw the storm coming. Fleming was the most suspicious man alive and the least reliable. He suspected the designs of the Czar and the King of Sweden in favour of Stanislas, so he endeavoured to have him taken off to Deux Ponts, as James Sobieski had been in Silesia. But Stanislas was on his guard, and the design miscarried.

In the meantime Charles was making a second attempt upon Norway in October 1718. He had so arranged matters that he hoped to be master of the country in six months.

The winter is fierce enough in Sweden to kill the animals that live there, but he chose to go and conquer rocks where the climate is more severe and the snow and ice much worse than in Sweden, instead of trying to regain his beautiful provinces in Germany.

He hoped his new alliance with the Czar would soon make it possible for him to retake them, and his ambition was gratified by the thought of taking a kingdom from his victorious foe.

At the mouth of the river Tistendall, near the bay of Denmark, between Bahus and Anslo, stands Fredericshall, a place of strength and importance, which is considered the key to the kingdom. Charles began its siege in December. The cold was so extreme that the soldiers could hardly break the ground. It was like digging trenches in rock, but the Swedes were nothing daunted by fatigue which the King shared so readily. Charles had never suffered so severely. His constitution was so hardened by sixteen years’ hardship that he would sleep in the open in a Norwegian mid-winter on boards or straw, wrapped only in his mantle, and yet keep his health.

Some of the soldiers fell dead at their posts, but others who were nearly dying dare not complain when they saw their King bearing it all. Just before this expedition he heard of a woman who had lived for several months on nothing but water, and he who had tried all his life to bear the hardest extremes that nature can bear resolved to try how long he could fast. He neither ate nor drank for five days, and on the sixth, in the morning, he rode two leagues to his brother’s, where he ate heartily, yet neither his large meal nor his long fast incommoded him.

With such a body of iron, and a soul of so much strength and courage, there was not one of his neighbours who did not fear him.

On the 11th of December, St. Andrew’s day, he went to view his trenches at about nine in the evening, and finding the parallel not advanced as much as he wished, he was a little vexed at it. But M. Megret, the French engineer who was conducting the siege, told him the place would be taken in eight days’ time. “We shall see,” said the King, “what can be done.” Then, going on with the engineer to examine the works, he stopped at the place where the branch made an angle with the parallel; kneeling upon the inner slope, he leaned with his elbows on the parapet, to look at the men who were carrying on the entrenching by starlight.

The least details relating to the death of such a man as Charles are noted. It is therefore my duty to say that all the conversation reported by various writers, as having taken place between the King and the engineer, are absolutely false. This is what I know actually happened.

The King stood with half his body exposed to a battery of cannon directed precisely at the angle where he stood. No one was near him but two Frenchmen: one was M. Siquier, his aide-de-camp, a man of capacity and energy, who had entered his service in Turkey, and was particularly attached to the Prince of Hesse; the other was the engineer. The cannon fired grape-shot, and the King was more exposed than any of them. Not far behind was Count Sveren, who was commanding the trenches. At this moment Siquier and Megret saw the King fall on the parapet, with a deep sigh; they came near, but he was already dead. A ball weighing half-a-pound had struck him on the right temple, leaving a hole large enough to turn three fingers in; his head had fallen over the parapet, his left eye was driven in and his right out of its socket; death had been instantaneous, but he had had strength to put his hand to his sword, and lay in that posture.

At this sight Megret, an extraordinary and feelingless man, said, “Let us go to supper. The play is done.” Siquier hastened to tell the Count Sveren, and they all agreed to keep it a secret till the Prince of Hesse could be informed. They wrapped the corpse in a grey cloak, Siquier put on his hat and wig; he was carried under the name of Captain Carlsbern through the troops, who saw their dead King pass, little thinking who it was.

The Prince at once gave orders that no one should stir out of the camp, and that all the passes to Sweden should be guarded, till he could arrange for his wife to succeed to the crown, and exclude the Duke of Holstein, who might aim at it.

Thus fell Charles XII, King of Sweden, at the age of thirty-six and a half, having experienced the extremes of prosperity and of adversity, without being softened by the one or in the least disturbed by the other. All his actions, even those of his private life, are almost incredible. Perhaps he was the only man, and certainly he was the only king who never showed weakness; he carried all the heroic virtues to that excess at which they become faults as dangerous as the opposed virtues. His resolution, which became obstinacy, caused his misfortunes in Ukrania, and kept him five years in Turkey. His liberality degenerated into prodigality, and ruined Sweden. His courage, degenerating into rashness, was the cause of his death. His justice had been sometimes cruel, and in later years his maintenance of his prerogative came not far short of tyranny. His great qualities, any one of which would immortalize another prince, were a misfortune to his country. He never began a quarrel; but he was rather implacable than wise in his anger. He was the first whose ambition it was to be a conqueror, without wishing to increase his dominions. He desired to gain kingdoms with the object of giving them away. His passion for glory, war, and vengeance made him too little of a politician, without which none has ever been a conqueror. Before a battle he was full  of confidence, very modest after a victory, and undaunted in defeat. Sparing others no more than himself, he made small account of his own and his subjects’ labours; he was an extraordinary rather than a great man, and rather to be imitated than admired. But his life may be a lesson to kings and teach them that a peaceful and happy reign is more desirable than so much glory.

Charles XII was tall and well shaped. He had a fine forehead, large blue eyes, full of gentleness, and a well-shaped nose, but the lower part of his face was disagreeable and not improved by his laugh, which was unbecoming. He had little beard or hair, he spoke little, and often answered only by the smile which was habitual to him.

Profound silence was preserved at his table. With all his inflexibility he was timid and bashful; he would have been embarrassed by conversation, because, as he had given up his whole life to practical warfare, he knew nothing of the ways of society. Before his long leisure in Turkey he had never read anything but Cæsar’s commentaries and the history of Alexander, but he had made some observations on war, and on his own campaigns from 1700-1709; he told this to the Chevalier Folard, and said that the MSS. had been lost at the unfortunate battle of Pultawa. As to religion, though a prince’s sentiments ought not to influence other men, and though the opinion of a king so ill-informed as Charles should have no weight in such matters, yet men’s curiosity on this point too must be satisfied.

I have it from the person who has supplied me with most of my material for this history, that Charles was a strict Lutheran till the year 1707, when he met the famous philosopher Leibniz, who was a great freethinker, and talked freely, and had already converted more than one prince to his views. I do not believe that Charles imbibed freethought in conversation with this philosopher, since they only had a quarter of an hour together; but M. Fabricius, who lived familiarly with him seven years afterwards, told me that in his leisure in Turkey, having come in contact with diverse forms of faith, he went further still.

I cannot help noticing here a slander that is often spread concerning the death of princes, by malicious or credulous folk, viz., that when princes die they are either poisoned or assassinated. The report spread in Germany that M. Siquier had killed the King; that brave officer was long annoyed at the report, and one day he said to me, “I might have killed a King of Sweden, but for this hero I had such a respect that, had I wished to do it, I should not have dared.”

I know that it was this Siquier himself who originated this fatal accusation, which some Swedes still believe, for he told me that at Stockholm, when delirious, he shouted that he had killed the King of Sweden, that he had even in his madness opened the window and publicly asked pardon for the crime; when on his recovery he learned what he had said in delirium, he was ready to die with mortification. I did not wish to reveal this story during his life; I saw him shortly before his death, and I am convinced that, far from having murdered Charles, he would willingly have laid down his life for him a thousand times over. Had he been capable of such a crime it could only have been to serve some foreign Power who would no doubt have recompensed him handsomely, yet he died in poverty at Paris, and had even to apply to his family for aid.

As soon as he was dead the siege of Fredericshall was raised. The Swedes, to whom his glory had been a burden rather than a joy, made peace with their neighbours as fast as they could, and soon put an end to that absolute power of which Baron Gortz had wearied them. The States elected Charles’s sister Queen, and forced her to solemnly renounce her hereditary right to the throne, so that she held it only by the people’s choice. She promised by oath on oath that she would never secure arbitrary government, and afterwards, her love of power overcome by her love for her husband, she resigned the crown in his favour and persuaded the States to choose him, which they did under the same condition. Baron Gortz was seized after Charles’s death, and condemned by the Senate of Stockholm to be beheaded under the gallows, an instance rather of revenge than of justice, and a cruel insult to the memory of a king whom Sweden still admires.

Charles’s hat is preserved at Stockholm, and the smallness of the hole by which it is pierced is one of the reasons for supposing he was assassinated.