“May it please the only God, the Almighty, to direct your steps and theirs. The Pasha of Aulis shall continue at Bender, with a regiment of spahis and another of janissaries, to defend it in your absence. Now, by following our Imperial orders and wishes in all these points and details, you will earn the continuance of our royal favour, as well as the praise and rewards due to all such as observe them.
“Given at our Imperial residence of Constantinople, the 2nd day of the month Cheval, 1124 of the Hegira.”
While they were waiting for the Sultan’s answer the King had written to the Porte, to complain of the supposed treachery of the Kan. But the passages were well guarded, and the ministry against him, so that his letters never reached the Sultan. The Vizir would not allow M. Desaleurs to go to Adrianople, where the Porte then was, lest he, as the King of Sweden’s agent, tried to thwart their design of driving him away. Charles, indignant at seeing himself hunted, as it were, from the Sultan’s territory, resolved not to stir a step. He might have asked to return through German territory, or to take ship at the Black Sea, in order to reach Marseilles by the Mediterranean, but he preferred to ask no favour and see what happened.
When the 1,200 purses arrived, his treasurer, Grothusen, who from long residence in Turkey had learned to speak the language, went to the Pasha without an interpreter, hoping to get the money from him, and then to form some new intrigue at the Porte, on the false supposition that the Swedish party would at last arm the Ottoman Empire against the Czar.
Grothusen told the Pasha that the King’s equipage could not be prepared without money. “But,” said the Pasha, “we are going to defray all the expense of departure; your master will have no expenses while he continues under the protection of mine.” Grothusen replied that the difference between the Turkish equipages and those of the Franks was so great that they must apply to the Swedish and Polish workmen at Varnitsa.
He assured him that his master was ready to go and that this money would facilitate and hasten his departure. The too credulous Pasha gave him the 1,200 purses, and in a few days came and respectfully asked the King to give orders for his departure.
He was most surprised when the King told him he was not ready to go and that he wanted 1,000 purses more. The Pasha was overcome by this, and remained speechless for some time; then he walked to a window, where he was seen to shed some tears. Then, turning to the King, he said, “I shall lose my head for having obliged your Majesty. I have given you the 1,200 purses contrary to the express orders of my sovereign.” With these words he took leave and was going away full of grief.
The King stopped him and told him he would excuse him to the Sultan. “Ah!” replied the Turk, “my master can punish mistakes, but not excuse them.”
Ishmael Pasha went to tell the news to the Kan of Tartary. The Kan, having received the same order as the Pasha, not to let the 1,200 purses be delivered before the King’s departure, and having agreed to their delivery, was as apprehensive of the Sultan’s resentment as the Pasha himself. They both wrote to the Porte to clear themselves, and explained that they had only parted with the 1,200 purses on a solemn promise made by the King’s minister that they would go at once, and they entreated his Highness not to attribute the King’s refusal to their disobedience.
Charles, quite convinced that the Kan and the Pasha intended to hand him over to his enemies, ordered M. Funk, his envoy at the Ottoman Court, to lay his complaints against them before the Sultan and to ask for 1,000 purses more. His great generosity, and his indifference to money, hindered him from seeing the baseness of this proposal. He only did it to get a refusal so that then he might have a fresh pretext for failing to depart; but a man must be reduced to great straits when he has recourse to such tricks. Savari, his interpreter, a crafty and enterprising character, carried the letter to Adrianople in spite of the Grand Vizir’s care to have the roads guarded. Funk was forced to go and deliver this dangerous message, and all the answer he got was imprisonment.