Fabricius had permission to go with the message attended by a janissary. After some miles’ journey he met the body of soldiers who were bringing Stanislas, and addressed one who rode in the midst, in a Frankish dress and indifferently mounted. He asked him in German where the King of Poland was. It proved to be Stanislas, whom he had not recognized in that disguise. “What,” said the King, “have you forgotten me?” Fabricius then told him of the King of Sweden’s sad condition, and of his unshaken but unsuccessful resolution.
When Stanislas came to Bender, the Pasha, who was returning from accompanying Charles, sent the King an Arabian horse with elegant trappings. He was received in Bender with a volley of artillery, and, except that he was a prisoner, had no cause to complain of his treatment there. Charles was on the way to Adrianople and the town was full of gossip about his battle. The Turks both admired him and thought him blame-worthy; but the Divan was so exasperated that they threatened to confine him in one of the islands of the Archipelago.
Stanislas, who did me the honour of informing me on most of these details, assured me also that it was proposed in the Divan that he too should be kept prisoner in one of the Greek islands, but some months later the Sultan softened and let him go.
M. Desaleurs, who could have championed him and prevented this affront to all Christian kings, was at Constantinople, as well as Poniatowski, whose resourcefulness was always feared. Most of the Swedes were at Adrianople in prison, and the Sultan’s throne seemed inaccessible to any complaints from the King of Sweden.
The Marquis of Fierville, a private envoy to Charles at Bender, from France, was then at Adrianople, and undertook a service to the Prince at a time when he was either deserted or ill-used by all. He was luckily helped in this design by a French noble of good family, a certain Villelongue, a man of great courage and small fortune, who, fascinated by reports of the King of Sweden, had come on purpose to join his service.
With the help of this youth M. de Fierville wrote a memorial from the King of Sweden, demanding justice of the Sultan for the wrong offered in his person to all crowned heads, and against the treachery of the Kan and the Pasha of Bender.
It accused the Vizir and other ministers of having been corrupted by the Russians, of having deceived the Sultan, intercepted letters, and of having employed trickery to get from the Sultan an order contrary to the hospitality of the Mussulmans, in violation of the laws of nations, and this in a manner so unworthy of a great Emperor, that a king who had none but his retinue to defend him, and who had trusted the sacred word of the Sultan, was attacked by 20,000 men.
When this memorial had been drawn up it had to be translated into Turkish, and written upon the special paper used for the Sultan’s petitions.
They tried to get it done by several interpreters, but the King’s affairs were at such a pass, and the Vizir so openly his enemy, that none of them at all would undertake it. At last they found a stranger whose hand was not known, so for a considerable fee, and a promise of profound secrecy, he translated the memorial and copied it on to the right sort of paper. Baron Ardidson counterfeited the King’s hand and Fierville sealed it with the arms of Sweden. Villelongue undertook to deliver it to the Sultan as he went to the mosque. This had been done before by people with grievances against the ministers, but that made it now the more dangerous and difficult.
The Vizir was certain that the Swedes would seek justice from his master, and knew from the fate of his predecessors what the probable sequel was. So he forbade any one to approach the Sultan, and ordered that any one seen in the neighbourhood of the Mosque with petitions should be seized.