“His Majesty was advised not to bring any Saxons into Poland as the Diet was on the point of sending an embassy to the King of Sweden.”
In this extremity Augustus resolved to throw himself once more on the mercy of Karl; he privately sent a chamberlain to the Swedish camp to inquire how and where the conqueror would receive an envoy from himself and from Poland.
This secret ambassador suffered an even severer reception than that which had been accorded to the Countess von Königsmarck; as the formality of the passport had been overlooked Karl put the chamberlain in prison without seeing him, declaring that while he might listen to the Republic he would not hear anything from King Augustus.
The only consolation that this unfortunate prince had in his disasters was that of seeing that the Republic was treated almost as harshly as himself.
Karl received the five senators sent by the Diet in his tent near Grodno, with a pomp that was unusual to him—surrounded by his dragoons and generals, seated on a throne, and clad in a rich uniform with damascened cuirass; but the two spokesmen, Tarlo and Galesky, could, after all, only obtain from him the sentence with which he had sent away Aurora von Königsmarck that he would “discuss peace in Varsovia.”
Flooding the country with manifestos, in which he declared that his cause was identical with that of Poland, and that his arms were directed solely against the Saxon, Karl marched on the capital.
His propaganda was insidiously aided by the Cardinal Primate, and by those numerous senators who were either secretly of his interest or actively opposed to Augustus, who remained abandoned by all save the few nobles who were of his party and the envoys of Peter, the Pope, and the Emperor. His orders to the Polish nobility to take arms with their followers and come to his assistance were ignored while the Poles hesitated, watching with more satisfaction than dismay, the daily advance of the conqueror.
Even those senators loyal to Augustus would not consent to his calling in his Saxons, but he had secretly commanded the 12,000 he had asked for to advance to his aid, and had recalled another 8000 that he had promised to the Emperor to use against France.
He knew that to do this was to violate the Polish law that did not allow him more than 10,000 foreign troops, and that he was risking a revolt throughout the country, but his necessity was desperate, and he believed that he had now little to lose in Poland.
While he was waiting for the arrival of these troops he left Varsovia and went from one Palatinate of Poland to the other, endeavoring to secure the nobility on his behalf, and to raise some sort of an army with which to face the conqueror. Meanwhile, Karl arrived before Varsovia, which, not fortified and without a garrison, opened her gates at once.