“There is still a Pope, then?”
“Oh! yes, although one of them has just died.”
“And what does the Hohenzollern want in Rome?”
“No one knows; some say that it is his ambition to become Roman-German emperor of the Evangelical Confession.”
“A syncretistic emperor dreamt of by John George of Saxony! I don’t want to hear anymore. The ways of Providence are strange, and we mortals, what are we? Dust and ashes!”
Charles XII. asked permission to speak.
“Can Swede tell me what has become of Poland?”
“Poland is no more. It has been split up.”
“Split up? And Russia?”
“Russia recently celebrated the foundation of Petersburg, and the Lord Mavor of Stockholm walked in the procession.”