The adventures they encountered together were endless. On inspecting the regiments before the opening of the campaign of 1706, they rode five hundred miles in six days, were never in bed, and hardly ever out of the saddle, and frequently reduced to milk and water as their only nourishment—
"Alike to Charles was tide or time,
Moonless midnight or matin prime."
Having on another occasion lost their road and escort during a stormy night, they arrived in the midst of a tempest before the town of Tousha. Neither calling nor firing brought any one to the gates. The king at last dismounted and sought for an entrance, while the prince held the horses in the pelting rain. An entrance having at last been discovered, they took possession of a hut in which was a fire. The king threw himself, booted and spurred, on a bundle of straw, and fell fast asleep. The prince, less hardy, took off his boots, filled them with straw, and placed them by the fire. While sleeping, the flame caught and consumed the valuable gambodoes. The prince was next day obliged to get a pair of peasant's boots, in which he rode about for eight days; a proof that the princely wardrobe was but slenderly furnished.
And yet the camp was not without its gayeties either; for while the head-quarters were wintering at Rawitcz, the town became the scene of great festivities; balls and parties succeeding each other as rapidly as battles had done before. Charles was usually present, was always very polite, but made only a short stay, and retired as soon as he could.
Charles XII. and an unwilling recruit.
During the stay of the army in this place, a fire broke out and consumed several houses. The king flew to aid in extinguishing the flames. He ascended to the top of a house that was already on fire, and continued working till the building was sinking under him. He escaped with difficulty, was thrown down by one of the beams, and for a moment believed to be dead. "It was discovered two years afterward," says Bardili, "that the place was set on fire by an incendiary bribed by Augustus II. to slay the king of Sweden in the confusion;" and a man actually came forward and denounced himself as the intended assassin, declaring that some unknown power had prevented him from stabbing the king when he got near his person. Charles said the man was mad, and sent him about his business. Napoleon would have sent him before a military commission and had him shot, as he caused the student at Schönbrunn to be shot.
We regret that we cannot give a sufficient account of the Duke of Marlborough's visit to Charles's head-quarters at Altranstadt; for what Voltaire says on the subject is but an idle fable. That the English general should easily have penetrated the views of the Swedish conqueror, which the latter took no pains to conceal, is sufficiently probable; but that the conversation between two such men should have turned principally on the king's large boots, which, as Voltaire says, Charles told Marlborough "he had not quitted for seven years," is of course a mere puerility. Besides, we find from Max's "Memoirs," that Charles was not so coarse in his dress as is usually represented, for his clothes were made of fine materials. He always wore a plain blue coat with gilt buttons, buff waistcoat and breeches, a black crape cravat, and a cocked hat; a waist-belt, and a long cut-and-thrust sword. He never disfigured himself by the full-bottomed wig of the period, but always wore his own brown hair, combed back from his forehead. His camp-bed consisted of a blue silk mattress, pillow and coverlid; materials that would have suited even a dandy guardsman.
The invasion of Saxony occasioned great uneasiness at Vienna, Charles's arrival being considered alike dangerous to the Catholic states of the Empire and to the success of the Grand Alliance. It happened, under these unpleasant feelings, that at a party the Swedish Minister, Count Stralenghielm, proposed his master's health as a toast. An imperial chamberlain, a Count Zabor, a magnate of Hungary, refused to drink it, declaring that "no honest man ought to drink the health of the Turk, the devil, and of a third person." The Swede struck the offender, and swords were drawn; but the adversaries were of course separated. The ambassador demanded satisfaction for the insult; and Zabor was arrested, and sent in irons to Stettin, and delivered up to the Swedes. Charles instantly set him at liberty, simply desiring him to "be more guarded in his speeches for the future."