“There is not one man in Poland loyal to me,” replied Augustus bitterly; “this cursed war has alienated all of them.”
The Countess knew that good statecraft would have foreseen this; Poland, afraid of Sweden and jealous of its Saxon King, was fiercely resentful of a war bound to end in her subjugation either at the hands of Karl XII or at those of her own elected monarch; the remnants of the Saxon troops who had survived the battle of Riga Augustus had had to send back to Saxony to quiet the Poles, and for the same reason he had been obliged to call a Diet when he wished to raise an army.
Aurora, remembering the time and money spent on acquiring the crown of Poland, wondered if the bargain had been a good one for Augustus, who, used to being an absolute ruler in his own hereditary dominions, found himself little more than head of a Republic in Poland.
“Who are your enemies in the Diet?” she asked gently.
“Leczinski, of course, the Lubomirski, and the Sobieski—these and their followers are all secretly with the King of Sweden, and, naturally,” added Augustus, with, for him, considerable heat, “Cardinal Radziekowski is playing his own game which is not mine.”
“In brief,” said Aurora, “these Poles are seizing this moment for their own intrigues; they consider you as more dangerous than Karl, and would as willingly see you overthrown.”
This plain view of the case slightly startled Augustus, but he had to admit that it was true.
“And there is the revolt in Lithuania,” he added gloomily. “The Sapieha and the Oginski at each other’s throats—my troops in fugitive parties living on rapine because I have not the money to pay them——”
“You cannot summon the Polish nobles to raise their followers on your behalf?”
“I dare not—for it would be to risk a refusal.”