Voltaire's history of Charles XII, king of Sweden · Voltaire
BOOK III
All Europe was amazed that, in opposition to the law of nations, and apparently to his own interest, he should venture to imprison the ambassador of the only prince who afforded him protection. The secret history of the affair was this: Patkul, proscribed in Sweden for having maintained the privileges of his country, Livonia, had become general to Augustus: but his high spirit not according with the proud disposition of General Fleming, the King’s favourite, and more imperious than himself, he had passed into the Czar’s service, and was then his general and ambassador to Augustus. He was a man of great discernment, and had found out that the proposal of Fleming and the Chancellor of Saxony was to offer Charles peace on his own terms. He at once formed a plan to prevent this and to bring about some arrangement between the Czar and Sweden. The Chancellor got wind of his project, and obtained leave to seize him. King Augustus told the Czar that Patkul was a wretch and would betray them both. His only fault was that he served his master too well: but an ill-timed piece of service is often punished as a treason. In the meantime, the 100,000 Russians, on one side, divided into several small bodies, burnt and ravaged the estates of Stanislas’ adherents: while Schullemburg, on the other, was advancing with fresh troops. But the fortune of the Swedes dispersed these two armies in less than two months. Charles XII and Stanislas attacked the separate corps of the Russians one after another, but so swiftly that one Russian general was beaten before he had heard of the defeat of his colleague. No obstacle could check the conqueror’s advance. If he found a river in the way he and his Swedes swam across it.
One party of the Swedes took the baggage of Augustus in which were 400,000 crowns of silver coin; Stanislas seized 800,000 ducats belonging to Prince Menzikoff, the Russian general, Charles, leading his cavalry, would often march thirty leagues in twenty-four hours, every soldier leading another mount to use when his own should be spent. The Russians, panic-stricken and reduced to a small band, fled in confusion beyond the Borysthenes. While Charles was thus driving the Russians into the heart of Lithuania, Schullemburg at last repassed the Oder and came at the head of 20,000 men to offer battle to the great Marshal Renschild, who was considered Charles’s best general, and was called the Parmenio of the North. These two famous generals, who seemed to share the fate of their respective masters, met near Punits, at a place called Frauenstadt, a territory which had already proved fatal to the troops of Augustus. Renschild had only thirteen battalions and twenty-two squadrons, which made a total of about 10,000 men, and Schullemburg had twice that number.
It must be remembered, too, that he had in his army between 6,000 and 7,000 Russians, who had been under discipline a long time, and were as reliable as veterans. This battle of Fraustadt was fought on 12th February, 1706: but the same General Schullemburg, who with 4,000 men had to a certain extent harassed the King of Sweden, was completely defeated by General Renschild. The battle did not last a quarter of an hour, in a moment the Saxons wavered, and the Russians threw down their arms on the first appearance of the Swedes. The panic was so sudden and the confusion so great that the conquerors found on the field 7,000 muskets ready loaded, which they had thrown away without firing. There never was a rout more sudden, more complete or more disgraceful: and yet all the Saxon and Swedish officers acknowledged that no general had ever arranged his men better; it was that day that they realized how little human foresight can pre-arrange events. Among the prisoners there was a whole regiment of French. These poor wretches had been taken by the Saxon troops in 1704 at the famous battle of Hochstet, which was so fatal to the greatness of Louis XIV. They had since enlisted under King Augustus, who had formed them into a regiment of dragoons, and put them under the command of a Frenchman called Joyeuse. The colonel was killed at the first and only charge of the Swedes, and the whole regiment became prisoners of war. From that day these Frenchmen petitioned to be taken into the service of the King of Sweden; they were received into that service by a singular fate, which preserved them for a further change of their conqueror to their master.
As to the Russians they begged for their life on their knees, but they were inhumanly massacred in cold blood, six hours after the battle, to punish them for the outrages of the compatriots, and to get rid of prisoners which the conquerors did not know what to do with. Augustus was now absolutely without resources. He had nothing left but Cracow, where he was shut up with two regiments of Russians, two of Saxons and some troops of the regal army, by whom he was afraid of being handed over to the conqueror; but his misfortune was at its height when he heard that Charles had at last entered Saxony, on the 1st September, 1706. He had crossed Silesia without deigning to even warn the Court of Vienna. Germany was in consternation: the Diet of Ratisbon, which represents the Empire, and the resolutions of which are often as ineffectual as they are solemn, declared the King of Sweden an enemy to the Empire if he crossed the Oder with his army; this very resolution was a further inducement to him to march into Germany.
Upon his approach the villages were deserted and the inhabitants fled in all directions. Charles acted as he had at Copenhagen: he had proclamations made everywhere that he only wanted to procure peace, and that all those who returned to their houses and paid the contributions that he would demand should be treated as his own subjects, while the rest should be pursued with no quarter. This declaration from a prince who had never been known to break his word brought back in large numbers all those of the inhabitants who had been dispersed by fear. He encamped at Altranstadt, near the plains of Lutzen, the field of battle famous for the victory and death of Gustavus Adolphus. He went to see the place where this great man fell, and when he reached the spot he said, “I have endeavoured to live like him; perhaps God may one day grant me a death as glorious.” From this camp he commanded the estates of Saxony to meet, and to send him without delay the register of Finance of the Electorate. As soon as he had them in his power, and had information of exactly what Saxony could supply, he levied a tax on it of 625,000 rixdollars a month.
Besides this contribution the Saxons were obliged to supply every Swedish soldier with two pounds of meat, two pounds of bread, two pots of beer and fourpence a day, together with forage for his horse. When the contributions had been thus fixed the King arranged a new method of protecting the Saxons from the insults of his soldiers. He ordered that in all the towns where his soldiers were quartered every housekeeper with whom the soldiers were lodged should give certificates of their behaviour each month, without which the soldier could not draw his pay; further, inspectors went round once a fortnight to inquire if the Swedes had done any damage, and housekeepers were carefully indemnified and culprits punished. The severe discipline under which Charles’s troops lived is well known; they did not pillage towns taken by assault without permission; they pillaged in an orderly way, and desisted at the first signal. The Swedes boast to this day of the discipline they kept in Saxony: yet the Saxons complain that the most terrible outrages were committed among them. These contradictory statements would be irreconcilable if we did not remember that men look at the same thing from different points of view.
It would have been very strange had not the conquerors sometimes abused their privileges, and had not the conquered regarded the smallest damage as the most terrible injury. One day as the King was riding near Leipzig a Saxon peasant threw himself at his feet to ask justice against a grenadier, who had just gone off with what he had intended for his family dinner. The King had the soldier called. “Is it true,” he asked sternly, “that you have robbed this man?” “Sire,” answered the soldier, “I have not done him so much harm as your Majesty has done his master, for you have stolen a kingdom from him, while I have only taken a turkey from this rustic.” The King gave the peasant ten ducats, and pardoned the soldier for the boldness of the repartee, but he added, “Remember, friend, that I have taken a kingdom from King Augustus, but I have taken nothing for myself.” The great Leipzig fair was held as usual, tradesmen attended it in perfect security; not one Swedish soldier was to be seen in the fair; it might have been said that the only object of the Swedish army in Saxony was to keep the peace: the King ruled throughout the Electorate with as absolute a power and as deep a tranquillity as in Stockholm.
King Augustus, a wanderer in Poland, and deprived both of his kingdom and his electorate, at last wrote a letter with his own hand to Charles XII to ask for a peace. He commissioned Baron Imhof, accompanied by M. Finsten of the Privy Council, secretly to deliver this letter; he gave them full powers and _carte blanche_, directing them to try to obtain for him reasonable and Christian conditions. He was obliged to conceal his overtures for peace and to refrain from having recourse to the mediation of any prince, for being then in Poland, at the mercy of the Russians, he had reason to fear that the dangerous ally whom he had abandoned would take vengeance on him for his submission to the conqueror. His two plenipotentiaries came by night to Charles’s camp and had a private audience. The King read the letter, and said, “Gentlemen, you shall have your answer in a moment.” Then he went into his office and wrote as follows-- “I consent to grant peace on the following conditions, in which it must not be expected that I will make the least alteration:-- “1. That King Augustus renounce for ever the crown of Poland, that he acknowledge Stanislas as lawful king; and that he promise never to recover the throne, even after the death of Stanislas.
“2. That he renounce all other treaties, and especially those he has made with Russia. “3. That he send back with honour into my camp the Princess Sobieski, and any other prisoners he may have taken. “4. That he deliver into my hands all the deserters who have taken service with him, particularly Jean Patkul; and that proceedings be stopped against all such as have passed from his service to mine.” He gave this paper to Count Piper, bidding him negotiate the rest with King Augustus’s plenipotentiaries. They were overwhelmed by the severity of the terms, and tried with the small skill which is possible to the powerless, to lessen the rigour of the King of Sweden. They had several conferences with Count Piper, the only answer he would give to all their suggestions was, “Such is the will of the King my master, and he never changes his mind.” While this peace was being negotiated secretly in Saxony, chance seemed to give King Augustus the opportunity of gaining more honourable terms, and of treating with his conqueror on a more equal footing.
Prince Menzikoff, commander-in-chief of the Russian army, went to join him in Poland with 30.000 men, at a time when he not only did not expect their assistance but even feared it. He was accompanied by Polish and Saxon troops, 6,000 in all. Surrounded by Prince Menzikoffs army, and with only this small body-guard, he was in terror lest they should discover his negotiation; he pictured himself simultaneously dethroned by his enemy, and in danger of being taken prisoner by his ally. In this critical state of affairs the army found itself in the near neighbourhood of one of the Swedish generals, called Meyerfield, who was at the head of 6,000 troops at Calish, near the Palatinate of Posnania. Prince Menzikoff pressed the King to give battle. The King, in this most difficult position, delayed under various pretexts, for though the enemy had only one third of his numbers, there were 4,000 Swedes in the army of Meyerfield, and that was enough to make the result doubtful. On the other hand, to fall upon the Swedes during the negotiations and to lose the day, would mean irretrievable ruin. He therefore resolved to send a reliable messenger to the enemy’s general to let him know the secret of the peace and to warn him to retreat. But this advice had a very different effect from what had been expected. General Meyerfield believed that it was a snare to intimidate him, and on that supposition alone he dared to risk a battle.
That day the Russians for the first time conquered the Swedes in a pitched battle. This victory, which King Augustus had gained in spite of himself, was complete; in the midst of his ill-fortune he entered in triumph into Warsaw, formerly his capital, but now a dismantled and ruined town, ready to receive any conqueror whatever, and to acknowledge the strongest as king. He was tempted to seize this moment of prosperity, and to attack the King of Sweden in Saxony with the Russian army. But when he remembered that Charles was at the head of a Swedish army, which had till then been invincible; that the Russians would forsake him directly they had information that the treaty had been begun; that Saxony, his hereditary dominions, already drained of men and money, would be ravaged by the Russians as well as by the Swedes; that the Empire, occupied with the French war, could not help him; and that he would be left without dominions, friends, or money, he considered it better to accept the King of Sweden’s terms. These terms were made even more severe when Charles heard that King Augustus had attacked his troops during the negotiations. His rage and the pleasure of still further humbling an enemy who had just conquered his troops, made him more inflexible about all the articles of the treaty. Thus the victory of King Augustus was wholly to his own disadvantage, a circumstance in which his experience was unique.
He had just had the Te Deum sung in Warsaw, when Finsten, one of his plenipotentiaries, arrived from Saxony, with the treaty of peace which deprived him of his crown. Augustus signed it after some hesitation, and then started for Saxony, in the vain hope that his presence might soften the King of Sweden, and that his enemy might recall the former bonds between their houses, and their common blood. The two Princes first met at Gutersdorf, in Count Piper’s quarters. The meeting was unceremonious; Charles was in jack-boots, with a piece of black taffeta tied carelessly round his neck instead of a cravat; his coat was as usual made of coarse blue cloth with brass buttons. He was wearing the long sword which he had used in the battle of Narva, and often leaned upon it. The conversation turned entirely upon those great boots. Charles told Augustus that he had not had them off for six years, except at bed-time. These details were the only subject discussed by two kings, whereof one had taken the crown from the other.
Augustus adopted during the whole interview that air of delight and satisfaction which princes and great men accustomed to business know how to assume in the midst of the cruelest mortifications. The two kings dined together several times afterwards. Charles always pretended to give the place of honour to Augustus, but far from relaxing his terms, he made them even more severe. It was bad enough for a sovereign to be forced to hand over a general and a public minister, it was a great humiliation to be forced to send to his successor, Stanislas, the crown jewels and archives, but it was the finishing touch to this humiliation to be forced to congratulate on his accession him who had taken his place on the throne. Charles insisted on a letter from Augustus to Stanislas: the King showed no haste to comply with this demand; but Charles had made up his mind, and it had to be written. Here is a faithful copy of the original, which King Stanislas still keeps, and which I have lately seen.
Text from Project Gutenberg, public domain in the United States.