He bid them open the shutters that the light of the illuminations might fall across the room, and the sound of his people’s acclamations come to his ears.
He was soon in a deep slumber of absolute exhaustion; his hand, even in his sleep, stretched towards his sword that lay by his side.
In this wild way did the wild King come home.
PART IV
FREDRIKSSTEN
“Voilà la pièce finie, allons souper.”—Mégret at Fredrikssten.
THE King of Sweden was in his camp before Fredrikssten, the fortress that protected Frederikshald, the town that was considered the Key of Norway.
This was the second expedition against Norway that the King had undertaken since his return from Turkey, both in the dead of winter, to the astonishment of Europe; it seemed that it would have been more reasonable for him to remain and defend his bankrupt kingdom menaced on all sides, in a state of siege and reduced to using leather money; but Karl never did the reasonable thing nor what other men expected of him.
None of his ancient success had attended him in his fresh campaigns against his enemies; Stralsund, after a long siege and desperate battles in which the King fought hand-to-hand with his foes, had been taken by assault, and Karl had escaped across the half-frozen Baltic to Karlskrona, leaving among the dead in the burning town Grothusen, During, and Dahldorf, three faithful friends of his exile.
His enemies now included the King of Prussia, who had bought Stettin and a part of Pomerania from the King of Denmark, and the Czar and the King of England who had purchased the rest of Sweden’s spoils, Breme and Verden, from the astute Frederic, who was not slow to turn his conquests into ready cash.
Peter retained his own booty; this consisted of Riga, Livonia, Ingria, Carelia, Vasa, Finland, the Isles in the Baltic, some of which were not twelve leagues from Stockholm.