But Karl was not to be moved; not even this powerful alliance against his arch-enemy, not even the prospect of gaining the dearest wish of his life in humbling Peter could shake him for an instant from the course that he considered the just and right, nor into forsaking his friend, even at that friend’s request.
He was no politician, and, now that Count Piper was not there to guide him, solved these questions by the simple code of a soldier’s honor, a proceeding strange indeed to the councilors of Europe.
“I will never make peace with Augustus, who has broken the peace of Altranstadt like the villain he is, nor with Denmark, who has broken the treaty of Traventhal, nor with Prussia and Hanover, who have vilely bought my lands from the false princes. Times will change—do you think I shall always be like this—and then I will smite them as I smote before. Mark you, M. Fabrice, it was only behind my back they dared to raise their heads—and when I return——”
He made an instinctive movement towards his sword, and finding only the empty straps gave a start, while the color paled in his face.
Instantly recovering himself, he turned to M. Fabrice with a proud smile.
“You know that I am not given to boasting,” he said. “And you know that when I return the affairs of Europe will change.”
As he spoke these words, the quiet confidence of which was not affected, he was without any resource in the world, not even master of his own person.
His enemies had indeed reared their heads in his absence; Denmark had fallen on his provinces and succeeded in achieving some success despite the Swedish victory of Helsingborg; Augustus was again firmly established on the throne he had vowed to renounce; the Elector of Hanover, now King of England, and for that reason dangerous, had bought some of the territory wrested from Karl in his absence, and was prepared to defend what he held; and Frederic of Prussia would be Sweden’s foe if Karl did not consent to the resignation of Stanislaus.
Therefore Karl had practically the whole of Europe either secretly or openly against him, and no friend or ally; both Louis XIV and the Emperor were unfriendly to him, and it had been one of the excuses he had made for not leaving Bender that he could not trust himself in the territories of either of these nations.
The condition of his own country, without her ruler, drained of her best manhood, with commerce ruined, the command of the Baltic lost, and surrounded by enemies, was deplorable.