“Your Majesty might be truly the liberator of this distracted country and unite all factions in concord under your protection; the Romist faith whose arrogant clergy have enslaved these people might in this manner receive a shrewd blow, and your Majesty appear as defender of the Evangelical faith.”
Karl did not reply to this proposition with that rude coldness with which he generally received suggestions not entirely in accordance with his own preconceived plans.
The truth was that the prospect held out by Count Piper tempted him.
The great Gustavus had established the Lutheran faith in Sweden and had banished forever from the North the corruption, the tyranny, and the superstition of the Roman priests; to do the same in a country as large and as important as Poland would be a feat that recommended itself to the ambition of Karl.
To take Poland not only from Augustus, but from the Pope, would have been a triumph such as he would have keenly enjoyed, for, while religion had had little influence on his life, he accorded his hereditary faith full respect and always enforced the observances of Lutheranism in his camp.
Count Piper watched him in silence, seeing that he was at least pondering the idea.
“Where will your Majesty find a King for Poland?” urged the minister. “Not even your entreaties will prevail upon Alexander Sobieski to accept the crown while his elder brothers are prisoners—and where is there any other pretender worthy of notice?”
Karl knew that he spoke the truth; with the romantic chivalry characteristic of the Polish nation, the youngest Sobieski had refused to accept the crown that the fortune of war prevented the eldest from enjoying, and there was, indeed, no one else especially indicated.
But to take this throne for himself was not sufficiently glorious for Karl; he wished to do the unusual, the extraordinary, to make the world stare—not by what he accepted, but by what he refused.
Even the design of appearing as champion of the reformed faith lost its attraction for him, because a great prince lately dead had made his chief fame in this part; Karl did not wish to follow in the footsteps of anyone.