Voltaire's history of Charles XII, king of Sweden · Voltaire
BOOK VII
The Turks remove Charles to Demirtash--King Stanislas is seized at the same time--Bold action of M. de Villelongue--Revolutions in the seraglio--Battles in Pomerania--Altena is burnt by the Swedes--Charles returns to his kingdom--His strange method of travelling--His arrival at Stralsund--The state of Europe at that time--The losses of King Charles--The successes of Peter the Great--His triumphal entry into Petersburg. THE Pasha of Bender waited in state in his tent, with a certain Marco for interpreter, expecting the King. He received him with great respect, and asked him to rest on a sofa; but the King disregarded his civilities and continued standing. “Blessed be the Almighty,” said the Pasha, “that your Majesty is safe. I am grieved that you have forced me to execute the Sultan’s orders.” The King, on the other hand, was only vexed that his 300 men had allowed themselves to be taken in their entrenchments, and said, “Ah! if they had fought like men we should have held out these ten days.” “Alas,” said the Pasha, “what a pity that so much courage should be misapplied.” Then the King was taken on a fine horse with magnificent trappings to Bender. All the Swedes were either killed or taken prisoners. The King’s equipage, furniture and papers, and the most needful of his clothes were pillaged or burned; on the roads the Swedish officers, almost naked and chained in pairs, followed the horses of the Tartars and janissaries. The Chancellor and the general officers were in the same condition, becoming slaves to those of the soldiers to whose share they fell.
The Pasha Ishmael, having brought the King to his seraglio at Bender, gave him his own room, where he was served in state, but not without a guard of janissaries at the room door. They prepared a bed for him, but he threw himself down on a sofa in his boots, and fell fast asleep. An officer in waiting near by put a cap on his head; the King threw it off directly he awaked, and the Turk was amazed to see a king sleeping on a sofa in his boots and bare-headed. In the morning Ishmael brought Fabricius to the King, and when he saw his Prince’s clothes all rent, his boots, his hands, and his whole person covered with blood and dust, his eyebrows scorched, yet even in this state smiling, he threw himself on his knees unable to speak; but, soon reassured by the natural and gentle manner of the King, he resumed his ordinary familiarity, and they began to make sport of the battle. “They tell me,” said Fabricius, “that your Majesty killed no fewer than twenty janissaries.” “No, no,” said the King, “you know a story always grows in the telling.” In the midst of the conversation the Pasha brought to the King his favourite Grothusen and Colonel Ribbins, whom he had generously ransomed at his own expense. Fabricius undertook to ransom all the other prisoners.
Jeffreys, the English ambassador, helped him with money, and La Mottraye, the French noble who had come to Bender from curiosity to see him, and who has written some account of these matters, gave all he had. These strangers, assisted by the Czar’s advice and money, redeemed all the officers and their clothes from the Tartars and Turks. Next morning they took the King in a chariot decked with scarlet to Adrianople, and his treasurer Grothusen was with him; the Chancellor Mullern and some officers followed in another carriage. Many others were on horseback, and could not restrain tears at the sight of the King’s chariot. The Pasha commanded the escort. Fabricius remarked that it was a shame that the King had no sword. “God forbid,” said the Pasha; “he would soon be at our throats if he had a sword.” But some hours after he had one given to him. While they were carrying, disarmed and a captive, the King who had shortly before dictated to so many countries, and been arbiter of the North and the terror of all Europe, there occurred in the same neighbourhood another instance of the frailty of human greatness. King Stanislas, seized in the Turkish dominions, was being taken prisoner to Bender at the same time as Charles was being taken to Adrianople. Stanislas, without support from the hand that had made him king, having no money, and so no friends in Poland, retired to Pomerania, and as he was not able to keep his own kingdom had done his best to defend his benefactor’s.
He even went to Sweden to hasten the recruits needed in Livonia and Poland; he did all that could be expected of him as friend to the King of Sweden. At this time the first King of Prussia, a very wise prince, justly uneasy at the near neighbourhood of the Russians, planned to league with Augustus and the Polish republic to dismiss the Russians to their own country, and to get Charles himself to share in the project. There would be three great results from such a course: the peace of the North, the restoration of Charles to his estates, and a barrier erected against the Russians, who were becoming formidable to Europe. The preliminary of this treaty, on which the tranquillity of the republic depended, was the abdication of Stanislas; Stanislas not only agreed, but he undertook to carry through a peace which deprived him of the throne: necessity, the public good, the glory of sacrifice, and the interests of Charles, to whom he owed so much, decided him. He wrote to Bender, explaining to the King the position of affairs, the evils and their remedies. He besought him not to oppose an abdication which was necessary under the circumstances, and which was to take place from honourable motives; he begged him not to sacrifice the interests of Sweden to those of an unhappy friend, who would rather sacrifice himself for the public good.
Charles XII received the letters at Varnitsa, and said, in a rage, to the courier, before many people, “Well, if he will not be a king I shall find some one else.” Stanislas insisted on the sacrifice that Charles refused to accept; he wished to go himself to persuade Charles, and he risked more in the losing of a throne than he had done to gain it. He stole away at nine one night from the Swedish army, which he was commanding in Pomerania, and started with Baron Sparre, who was afterwards the Swedish ambassador to England and France, and another colonel. He took the name of a Frenchman called Haran, then major in the King of Sweden’s army and since killed at Dantzig. He passed round the whole of the hostile army, stopped several times, but released under a passport in the name of Haran; at last he arrived after many risks at the Turkish frontier. When he reached Moldavia he sent Baron Sparre back to his army, believing himself safe in a country where the King of Sweden had been so honoured; he was far from suspecting what had happened since.
They inquired who he was, and he said a major in Charles’s service. They stopped him at the bare mention of his name; he was brought before the hospodar of Moldavia, who, already informed from the newspapers that Stanislas had stolen away, had some inkling of the truth. They had described the King’s appearance to him, and it was very easy to recognize his pleasant face with its extraordinary look of sweetness. The hospodar questioned him pointedly, and at last asked what had been his work in the Swedish army. Stanislas and the hospodar were speaking in Latin. “Major,” said Stanislas. “_Imo maximus est_,” replied the Moldavian, and at once offering him an arm-chair he treated him like a king, but like a captive king, and they kept a strict watch outside the Greek convent where he was forced to stay till they got the Sultan’s orders. The order came to take him to Bender, whence they had just removed Charles. The news was brought to the Pasha as he was travelling with the King of Sweden, and he told Fabricius who, coming up in a chariot, told Charles that he was not the only king prisoner in Turkey, and that Stanislas was prisoner a few miles away. “Hasten to him, my dear Fabricius,” said the King, “and tell him never to make peace with King Augustus, for we shall certainly have a change of affairs soon.”
Fabricius had permission to go with the message attended by a janissary. After some miles’ journey he met the body of soldiers who were bringing Stanislas, and addressed one who rode in the midst, in a Frankish dress and indifferently mounted. He asked him in German where the King of Poland was. It proved to be Stanislas, whom he had not recognized in that disguise. “What,” said the King, “have you forgotten me?” Fabricius then told him of the King of Sweden’s sad condition, and of his unshaken but unsuccessful resolution. When Stanislas came to Bender, the Pasha, who was returning from accompanying Charles, sent the King an Arabian horse with elegant trappings. He was received in Bender with a volley of artillery, and, except that he was a prisoner, had no cause to complain of his treatment there. Charles was on the way to Adrianople and the town was full of gossip about his battle. The Turks both admired him and thought him blame-worthy; but the Divan was so exasperated that they threatened to confine him in one of the islands of the Archipelago. Stanislas, who did me the honour of informing me on most of these details, assured me also that it was proposed in the Divan that he too should be kept prisoner in one of the Greek islands, but some months later the Sultan softened and let him go.
M. Desaleurs, who could have championed him and prevented this affront to all Christian kings, was at Constantinople, as well as Poniatowski, whose resourcefulness was always feared. Most of the Swedes were at Adrianople in prison, and the Sultan’s throne seemed inaccessible to any complaints from the King of Sweden. The Marquis of Fierville, a private envoy to Charles at Bender, from France, was then at Adrianople, and undertook a service to the Prince at a time when he was either deserted or ill-used by all. He was luckily helped in this design by a French noble of good family, a certain Villelongue, a man of great courage and small fortune, who, fascinated by reports of the King of Sweden, had come on purpose to join his service. With the help of this youth M. de Fierville wrote a memorial from the King of Sweden, demanding justice of the Sultan for the wrong offered in his person to all crowned heads, and against the treachery of the Kan and the Pasha of Bender. It accused the Vizir and other ministers of having been corrupted by the Russians, of having deceived the Sultan, intercepted letters, and of having employed trickery to get from the Sultan an order contrary to the hospitality of the Mussulmans, in violation of the laws of nations, and this in a manner so unworthy of a great Emperor, that a king who had none but his retinue to defend him, and who had trusted the sacred word of the Sultan, was attacked by 20,000 men.
When this memorial had been drawn up it had to be translated into Turkish, and written upon the special paper used for the Sultan’s petitions. They tried to get it done by several interpreters, but the King’s affairs were at such a pass, and the Vizir so openly his enemy, that none of them at all would undertake it. At last they found a stranger whose hand was not known, so for a considerable fee, and a promise of profound secrecy, he translated the memorial and copied it on to the right sort of paper. Baron Ardidson counterfeited the King’s hand and Fierville sealed it with the arms of Sweden. Villelongue undertook to deliver it to the Sultan as he went to the mosque. This had been done before by people with grievances against the ministers, but that made it now the more dangerous and difficult. The Vizir was certain that the Swedes would seek justice from his master, and knew from the fate of his predecessors what the probable sequel was. So he forbade any one to approach the Sultan, and ordered that any one seen in the neighbourhood of the Mosque with petitions should be seized. Villelongue knew the order, and that he was risking his life; but he dressed as a Greek, and, hiding the letter in his breast, went early to the place. He feigned madness, and danced into the midst of the two lines of janissaries, where the Sultan was to pass, and now and then dropped some money to amuse the guards.
When the Sultan was coming they wanted to push Villelongue aside; he fell on his knees and struggled with the soldiers. At last his cap blew off, and showed that he was a Frank, from his long hair: he received several blows and was ill-used. The Sultan heard the scuffle, and asked what was the matter; Villelongue cried with all his might, “Amman, Amman” (mercy), and pulled out the letter. The Sultan commanded that he should be brought before him. Villelongue hastened forward, and embracing his stirrup gave him the paper, saying, “Sued call dan” (the King of Sweden gives it to thee). The Sultan put the letter in his breast, went on to the mosque, and Villelongue was secured in one of the out-houses of the seraglio.
The Sultan read the letter on his return from the mosque, and resolved to examine the prisoner himself. He changed the Imperial coat and turban, and, as he often does, took the disguise of an officer of janissaries, and took an old Maltese with him as interpreter. Thanks to his disguise Villelongue had a private talk of a quarter of an hour with the Turkish Emperor, an honour that was never done to any other Christian ambassador. He did not fail to detail all the King of Sweden’s hardships, accusing the minister and demanding vengeance with the greater freedom, because he was throughout the conversation talking to the Sultan as to an equal. He had recognized the Sultan, although the prison was very dark, and this made him the bolder in his discourse. The seeming officer of the janissaries said to him, “Christian, be assured that the Sultan my master has the soul of an Emperor, and that if the King of Sweden is in the right he will do him justice.” Villelongue was soon released, and some weeks after there was a sudden change in the seraglio, which the Swedes attribute to this conference. The mufti were deprived, the Kan of Tartary banished to the Rhodes, and the serasquier Pasha of Bender to an island in the Archipelago. The Ottoman Porte is so subject to such storms that it is hard to say whether this was an attempt to appease the King of Sweden or not; his subsequent treatment by the Porte showed little anxiety to please him.
Ali-Coumourgi, the favourite, was suspected of having made all these changes for some private ends of his own; the pretext for the banishment of the Kan and the serasquier of Bender was that they had given the King 1,200 purses against the express orders of the Sultan. He put on the Tartar throne the son of the deposed Kan of Tartary, a young man who cared little for his father and on whom Ali counted for military help. Some weeks after this the Grand Vizir Joseph was deposed, and the Pasha Soliman was declared Prime Vizir. I must say that M. de Villelongue, and many Swedes, have assured me that the letter he gave was the cause of these changes, but M. de Fierville denies this, and I have in other cases met with contradictory accounts. Now, an historian’s duty is to tell plain matter of fact, without entering into motives, and he must relate just what he knows, without guessing at what he does not know. In the meantime, Charles was taken to a little castle called Demirtash, near Adrianople. Crowds of Turks had collected there to see him alight. He was carried on a sofa from his chariot to the castle; but to avoid being seen by this mob he covered his face with a cushion. It was several days before the Porte would consent to his residence at Demotica, a little town six leagues from Adrianople, near the river Hebrus, now called Marizza. Coumourgi said to the Grand Vizir, “Go and tell the King of Sweden he can stay at Demotica all his life. I warrant he will ask to move of his own accord before the year is over, and be sure you do not let him have a penny of money.”
So the King was moved to the little town of Demotica, where the Porte allowed him sufficient supplies for himself and his retinue. They allowed him twenty-five crowns a day to buy pork and wine, a sort of provisions that the Turks do not supply, but as to the allowance of five hundred crowns a day, which he had had at Bender, it was quite withdrawn. Scarcely had he arrived at Demotica with his small court than the Grand Vizir Soliman was deposed; his place was given to Ibrahim Molla, a haughty, bold and rough man. He had been a common sailor till the accession of Achmet III. This Emperor often disguised himself as a private citizen, a priest, or a dervish; he would then slip in the evening into the cafés and other public places of Constantinople to listen to what was said of him, and to hear the people’s opinions with his own ears. One day he heard this Molla finding fault with the Turkish ships because they never brought home any prizes, and swore that were he a captain he would never return home without some infidel ship. The next morning the Sultan gave him a ship and sent him out on a cruise. A few days later the Captain brought back a Maltese boat and a Genoese galley, and in another two years he was Admiral, and then Grand Vizir. He was no sooner appointed than he began to think that he could dispense with the favourite, and to make himself indispensable he planned to make war on the Russians; in order to do so he set up a tent near the castle where the King of Sweden was living.
He invited the King to meet him there with the new Kan of Tartary and the French ambassador. The King’s misfortunes made him feel the indignity of being sent for by a subject the more; he ordered the Chancellor Mollern to go in his place, and because he feared that the Turks might be disrespectful, and force him to compromise his dignity, he resolved to stay in bed during his stay at Demotica. This he did for ten months, just as if he had been ill. The Chancellor, Grothusen, and Colonel Dubens were his only table-companions. They had none of the conveniences of the Franks, all had been carried off at Bender, so that their meals lacked pomp and elegance. They waited on themselves, and Chancellor Mullern did all the cooking during that time. While Charles was thus staying in bed, he heard news of the wreck of all his foreign dominions. General Steinbock, famous for having driven the Danes out of Scandinavia, and for having defeated their picked troops with a band of peasants, was still maintaining the credit of the Swedish arms. He defended Pomerania, Bremen, and the King’s possessions in Germany as long as he could, but could not prevent the Saxons and Danes united from passing the Elbe and besieging Stade, a strong town near that river, and in the Duchy of Bremen. It was bombarded and burnt to ashes, and the garrison was obliged to surrender at discretion, before Steinbock could come to their assistance.
He had about 10,000 men, and half of them were cavalry, with which he pursued the enemy, though they were twice his number, and forced them to recross the Elbe. He caught them at a place called Gadebesck, on a small river of the same name, on the 20th December, 1712. The Saxons and Danes were posted with a marsh in front and a wood in the rear; they had all the advantage both in number and position, for there was no getting at them but across the marsh, through the fire of their artillery. Steinbock led on his men, and, advancing in battle order, began one of the most bloody engagements that had ever taken place between those rival nations. After a sharp fight of three hours’ duration, the Danes and the Saxons were forced back and had to leave the field. After this victory Steinbock could not but remember how the Danes had reduced Stade to ashes, and resolved to avenge himself on Altena, a town belonging to the King of Denmark. Altena is above Hamburg, on the river Elbe, which brings up large vessels thither. The King of Denmark had granted it great privileges, in the hope of making it a place of considerable trade. Hamburg therefore got jealous, and wished nothing but their destruction. When Steinbock came within sight of the place, he sent a herald to bid them begone at once with their possessions, for he intended to destroy their town immediately.
The magistrates came and threw themselves at his feet and offered him a ransom of 100,000 crowns. Steinbock said he must have 200,000. They begged for time to send to their correspondent at Hamburg, and promised that he should have it by the next day. The General told them that if they did not pay at once he would burn their town about their ears. His soldiers were in the suburbs ready with their torches in their hands. The town had no defence but a poor wooden gate and a dry ditch; so that the poor wretches were forced to flee at midnight. It was on the 9th of January, 1713; the weather was severely cold, and a great north wind helped to spread the flames, and to increase the sufferings of the people exposed in the open fields. Men and women, loaded with their property, went weeping and lamenting towards the neighbouring ice-clad hills. Paralytic old folk were carried by the young on their shoulders, women just delivered were carrying their children, and died of cold on the hillside, in sight of their burning homes. The people had not all left the town when the Swedes fired it. It burned from midnight to about ten the next morning; the houses, being mostly of wood, were easily burnt, so that by morning there was scarcely any trace of a town left. The aged, the sick, and the women of delicate health, who had refuged on the frozen ground while their houses were burning, dragged themselves to the gates of Hamburg, and begged that they would let them in and save their lives, but they were refused on the ground that there had been infectious disease among them. So that most of these poor wretches died under the walls, calling Heaven to witness the cruelty of the Swedes, and of the still more inhuman Hamburgers.
All Germany was scandalized by this violence. The ministers and generals of Poland and Denmark wrote to Steinbock, complaining of his cruelty, which was inexcusable because it was uncalled for, and must set God and man against him. He replied that he never would have gone to these extremities were it not to show his master’s enemies how war ought to be made--not like barbarians, but in consideration of the laws of nations; that they had committed atrocities in Pomerania to ruin that beautiful country, and sell 100,000 people to the Turks; that his torches at Altena were only a fitting return for the red-hot bullets they had used at Stade; that it was with such violence that the Swedes and their enemies made war on each other. If Charles could have appeared then in Poland, he might possibly have retrieved his former fortune. His armies, though they needed his presence among them, were yet actuated by his spirit; but when the master is away success is seldom turned to good account. Steinbock gradually lost all that he had gained in those great actions, which might have been decisive at a more fortunate time.
Text from Project Gutenberg, public domain in the United States.