Voltaire's history of Charles XII, king of Sweden

by Voltaire

The least details relating to the death of such a man as Charles are noted. It is therefore my duty to say that all the conversation reported by various writers, as having taken place between the King and the engineer, are absolutely false. This is what I know actually happened.

The King stood with half his body exposed to a battery of cannon directed precisely at the angle where he stood. No one was near him but two Frenchmen: one was M. Siquier, his aide-de-camp, a man of capacity and energy, who had entered his service in Turkey, and was particularly attached to the Prince of Hesse; the other was the engineer. The cannon fired grape-shot, and the King was more exposed than any of them. Not far behind was Count Sveren, who was commanding the trenches. At this moment Siquier and Megret saw the King fall on the parapet, with a deep sigh; they came near, but he was already dead. A ball weighing half-a-pound had struck him on the right temple, leaving a hole large enough to turn three fingers in; his head had fallen over the parapet, his left eye was driven in and his right out of its socket; death had been instantaneous, but he had had strength to put his hand to his sword, and lay in that posture.

At this sight Megret, an extraordinary and feelingless man, said, “Let us go to supper. The play is done.” Siquier hastened to tell the Count Sveren, and they all agreed to keep it a secret till the Prince of Hesse could be informed. They wrapped the corpse in a grey cloak, Siquier put on his hat and wig; he was carried under the name of Captain Carlsbern through the troops, who saw their dead King pass, little thinking who it was.

The Prince at once gave orders that no one should stir out of the camp, and that all the passes to Sweden should be guarded, till he could arrange for his wife to succeed to the crown, and exclude the Duke of Holstein, who might aim at it.

Thus fell Charles XII, King of Sweden, at the age of thirty-six and a half, having experienced the extremes of prosperity and of adversity, without being softened by the one or in the least disturbed by the other. All his actions, even those of his private life, are almost incredible. Perhaps he was the only man, and certainly he was the only king who never showed weakness; he carried all the heroic virtues to that excess at which they become faults as dangerous as the opposed virtues. His resolution, which became obstinacy, caused his misfortunes in Ukrania, and kept him five years in Turkey. His liberality degenerated into prodigality, and ruined Sweden. His courage, degenerating into rashness, was the cause of his death. His justice had been sometimes cruel, and in later years his maintenance of his prerogative came not far short of tyranny. His great qualities, any one of which would immortalize another prince, were a misfortune to his country. He never began a quarrel; but he was rather implacable than wise in his anger. He was the first whose ambition it was to be a conqueror, without wishing to increase his dominions. He desired to gain kingdoms with the object of giving them away. His passion for glory, war, and vengeance made him too little of a politician, without which none has ever been a conqueror. Before a battle he was full of confidence, very modest after a victory, and undaunted in defeat. Sparing others no more than himself, he made small account of his own and his subjects’ labours; he was an extraordinary rather than a great man, and rather to be imitated than admired. But his life may be a lesson to kings and teach them that a peaceful and happy reign is more desirable than so much glory.

Charles XII was tall and well shaped. He had a fine forehead, large blue eyes, full of gentleness, and a well-shaped nose, but the lower part of his face was disagreeable and not improved by his laugh, which was unbecoming. He had little beard or hair, he spoke little, and often answered only by the smile which was habitual to him.

Profound silence was preserved at his table. With all his inflexibility he was timid and bashful; he would have been embarrassed by conversation, because, as he had given up his whole life to practical warfare, he knew nothing of the ways of society. Before his long leisure in Turkey he had never read anything but Cæsar’s commentaries and the history of Alexander, but he had made some observations on war, and on his own campaigns from 1700-1709; he told this to the Chevalier Folard, and said that the MSS. had been lost at the unfortunate battle of Pultawa. As to religion, though a prince’s sentiments ought not to influence other men, and though the opinion of a king so ill-informed as Charles should have no weight in such matters, yet men’s curiosity on this point too must be satisfied.

I have it from the person who has supplied me with most of my material for this history, that Charles was a strict Lutheran till the year 1707, when he met the famous philosopher Leibniz, who was a great freethinker, and talked freely, and had already converted more than one prince to his views. I do not believe that Charles imbibed freethought in conversation with this philosopher, since they only had a quarter of an hour together; but M. Fabricius, who lived familiarly with him seven years afterwards, told me that in his leisure in Turkey, having come in contact with diverse forms of faith, he went further still.

I cannot help noticing here a slander that is often spread concerning the death of princes, by malicious or credulous folk, viz., that when princes die they are either poisoned or assassinated. The report spread in Germany that M. Siquier had killed the King; that brave officer was long annoyed at the report, and one day he said to me, “I might have killed a King of Sweden, but for this hero I had such a respect that, had I wished to do it, I should not have dared.”

I know that it was this Siquier himself who originated this fatal accusation, which some Swedes still believe, for he told me that at Stockholm, when delirious, he shouted that he had killed the King of Sweden, that he had even in his madness opened the window and publicly asked pardon for the crime; when on his recovery he learned what he had said in delirium, he was ready to die with mortification. I did not wish to reveal this story during his life; I saw him shortly before his death, and I am convinced that, far from having murdered Charles, he would willingly have laid down his life for him a thousand times over. Had he been capable of such a crime it could only have been to serve some foreign Power who would no doubt have recompensed him handsomely, yet he died in poverty at Paris, and had even to apply to his family for aid.