Voltaire's history of Charles XII, king of Sweden

by Voltaire

This conversation was the only intrigue which placed Stanislas on his throne. Charles prolonged the conversation purposely, that he might the better sound the young deputy’s genius. After the conference he said aloud that he had never met a man so fit to reconcile all parties. He immediately made inquiries about the character of Leczinski, and found that he was brave and inured to fatigue, that he always slept on a kind of straw mattress, and that he required no personal service from his attendants; that he was more temperate than is usual in that climate, economical, adored by his servants, and perhaps the only popular prince in Poland, at a time when all ties were broken but those of interest and faction. This character, which corresponded in many respects with his own, made him make up his mind finally. He remarked aloud after the meeting, “There is a man who will always be my friend,” and people knew that that meant, “There is a man who shall be king.”

When the Primate of Poland heard that the King had nominated the Palatine Leczinski, he hastened to Charles to try to make him change his mind, for he wished to put the crown on the head of a certain Lubomirski. “But what objection have you to Stanislas?” asked the conqueror. “Sire,” said the Primate, “he is too young.” “He is much about my own age,” answered the King dryly, turning his back on the Prelate. Then he sent Count Horn to Warsaw at once to notify the Assembly that they must elect a king in three days, and that they must choose Stanislas Leczinski. Count Horn arrived on the 7th July, and fixed the election for the 12th, just as if he were arranging the decampment of a battalion. The Cardinal-Primate, disappointed of the fruit of so many intrigues, returned to the Assembly, where he left no stone unturned to ruin the election in which he had had no share; but the King of Sweden arrived incognito at Warsaw, so that he had to be silent. All that the Primate could do was to absent himself from the election: he took up the position of a neutral, being unable to oppose the conqueror and unwilling to assist him.

On Saturday, 12th July, the day appointed for the election, the Assembly met at Colo, at about three in the afternoon. They met there by arrangement, and the Bishop of Posnania presided instead of the Cardinal. Count Horn and two other officers were present at the ceremony, as ambassadors extraordinary from Charles to the Republic. The session lasted till nine in the evening, and the Bishop brought it to an end by declaring in the name of the Diet that Stanislas was elected King of Poland. They all threw their caps into the air, and the acclamations stifled the cries of the opposers.

It was no use for the Cardinal and his party to stay away from the elections; they were all obliged the next day to come and pay homage to the new King, who received them as if he were quite satisfied with their conduct; their greatest mortification was that they had to attend him to the King of Sweden’s quarters. His Majesty gave all honours to the King he had just made, and, to add weight to his new dignity, assigned money and troops for his use.

Charles XII left Warsaw at once to proceed to the completion of the conquest of Poland. He had ordered his army to meet before Leopold, the capital of the great Palatinate of Russia, a place important in itself, but still more so for the riches it held. It was thought that by means of the fortifications, which King Augustus had made there, it would hold out fifteen days. The conqueror invested it on the 5th, and took it the following day by assault. All who resisted were put to the sword. The victors, who were now masters of the town, did not disperse for pillage, in spite of the reports concerning treasure in Leopold: they ranged themselves in battle array in the great square. The King then proclaimed, by sounding a trumpet, that all who had anything belonging to King Augustus or his adherents should bring them themselves before sunset on pain of death. The arrangements were so well made that few dare disobey him, and they brought him 400 chests, filled with gold and silver coin, plate and other things of value.

The beginning of Stanislas’ reign was contemporaneous with a very different event. Some business for which he must be present had forced him to remain in Warsaw: he had with him his mother, his wife and two daughters; the Cardinal, the Bishop of Posnania and some prominent Poles made up his new court. His guards were 6,000 Poles of the royal army, who had lately entered his service, but whose fidelity had not yet been tried. General Horn, governor of the town, had only about 1,500 Swedes with him. They were at Warsaw in peace, and Stanislas was reckoning on starting in a few days for the conquest of Leopold, when suddenly they heard that an immense army was approaching the town. It was King Augustus, who was making a fresh effort; by one of the finest marches ever made he was coming up with 20,000 men to fall on Warsaw, after having eluded the King of Sweden; his purpose was to kidnap his rival.

Warsaw was not fortified, and the Polish troops who were defending it were not reliable. There were those in the town from whom Augustus got information, and if Stanislas delayed he would be ruined. He sent his family to Posnania, under the guard of Polish troops upon which he could absolutely rely. It was in this disorder that he feared he had lost his second daughter, aged one; she was lost by a nurse, and they discovered her in a manger, in a neighbouring village, where she had been left. That is the story that I have often heard him tell. It was this child who, after many vicissitudes, became Queen of France. Several gentlemen took different roads. The new King went to join Charles XII, learning early to suffer disgrace, and forced to leave his capital six weeks after he had been made King.

Augustus entered the capital as a victorious and enraged sovereign. The inhabitants, already fleeced by the King of Sweden, were more heavily taxed still by Augustus. The Cardinal’s palace and all the houses of the confederate lords were given over to plunder. The most extraordinary thing about this transient revolution was that the Papal Legate, who had come with King Augustus, demanded in the name of his master that the Bishop of Posnania should be handed over to him as responsible to the Court of Rome for having abetted a Prince who had been put on the throne by the arms of a Lutheran.

The Court of Rome, which had always endeavoured to increase its temporal power by means of the spiritual, had long established a kind of jurisdiction in Poland, with the Papal Legate at the head of it. These ministers never missed a chance of extending their power, which was revered by the majority, but always resisted by those of greater discernment. They had claimed the right of judging all ecclesiastical cases, and had, especially during periods of disturbance, usurped many other privileges which they maintained until about 1728, when they were deprived of them: for such abuses are seldom reformed till they have become intolerable.

King Augustus, very glad to be able to punish the Bishop with decency, and at the same time to do something acceptable to the Roman Court, though he would have opposed it on any other occasion, delivered up the Polish Prelate into the hands of the Legate. The Bishop, having seen his palace plundered, was taken by the soldiers into Saxony, where he died.