“He is a great soldier,” added Croy, in his stern way.
The Czar’s face darkened; he rose abruptly, his great height overtopping all of them.
“If he throws himself against Russia, he breaks himself,” he remarked gloomily.
“He will attempt anything,” said Croy; his imagination like that of most men of action had been fired by the figure of the Northern hero, who, like another Viking, had arisen to defend his country with so much majesty and cold magnanimity.
Peter did not care to hear his General praise his enemy.
“Where is Patkul; has he not returned?” he asked briefly. “He should have been here—I want news from Livonia.”
No one knew where Patkul might be; it was not easy to travel in the vast kingdoms of the Czar, and a man might be late in obeying his sovereign’s commands, and his letters might be lost, for no other reason than the size of the country and the primitive confusions of all its services.
Peter would have liked the presence of the fiery Livonian, with his rage against Swedish tyranny and his hatred of Karl XI, who had condemned him to death for protesting against the wrongs of his countrymen, and his scorn for the present King as a haughty boy who would soon be tripped up in his giant’s stride.
But Patkul, at present with Augustus of Saxony as ambassador of Russia, had not come nor answered the summons, and Peter knew very little of what was happening in any of the Baltic provinces; he saw them in his mind as a vast confusion, and felt impatient considering how much there was to be done and how inadequate his means were; his military plans had got no further than a proposed expedition to Esthonia, to seize, if possible, that province, and to send help to Augustus in Poland, or rather to effect a juncture with him, as Peter greatly relied on the trained Saxon troops and the polished diplomacy of the Elector; General Patkul should be with the Polish army, Peter knew, but since Dahlberg had worsted him at Riga, the Livonian’s credit as a soldier had fallen in the Czar’s eyes and he wished to consult with Augustus.
He was conscious of defects in his own statecraft; the Muscovite envoys whom he kept in Stockholm to swear friendly relations with Sweden had merely angered and disgusted the severe honor of the Northern King, and the Russian manifesto, in which the most puerile reasons were given for declaring war, had been better if never published; but so far no Czar of Russia had ever published any document concerning European diplomacy; in everything Peter trod new ground and was keenly conscious of his numerous mistakes.