In Karl’s place Peter would have behaved with the same severity; he had never shown mercy to those whom he judged rebels, and therefore he did not feel the fury of hate towards Karl that he felt towards Augustus, but he was conscious of a certain wonder that this young king whom he had regarded with secret admiration as being much greater than himself, could indulge in the same bloodthirsty vengeances.
“Is this Sweden’s famous clemency?” he asked bitterly. “Is he then so magnificent?”
He was silent, communing with his own soul; he thought he would have been more chivalrous than Karl, and not taken advantage of the weakness of Augustus to demand the surrender of a man in the employ of another monarch.
From that moment the cold knightly figure of the Scandinavian, vested with all the virtues to which he himself might never hope to aspire, was smirched in the eyes of Peter.
“The Muscovite prisoners were slain after Fraustadt--by whose orders?” he said. “And now this. This man is no better than I,” he added, with a strange simplicity, “and I shall defeat him.”
Then his thoughts turned to Augustus, and he flashed from brooding into wrath.
“How was the Elector received at Altranstadt?” he demanded.
“The Swede met him privately, they say, and treated him with a cold civility. Their talk was of trifles, mainly of the boots Karl wore, which he had never been without, he said, for ten years, save to sleep, and then Stanislaus Leczinski came, and Augustus had to salute him as King of Poland.”
“Is it possible there lives a prince so spiritless!” exclaimed Peter.
“He must have suffered,” said Mentchikoff with satisfaction. “After Kalisz Sweden’s terms became harder. Augustus had to send the archives and State jewels to Stanislaus, cause his name as King of Poland to be effaced from all documents and monuments, and write a letter of congratulation to Stanislaus.”
“And that is the mercy he obtained by throwing himself on the compassion of Karl!” cried the Russian, “and I was allied with such a prince! What does he mean to do now?”
“Karl is supposed to retire from Saxony and leave him in peace,” said Mentchikoff dryly. “As for the Palatine of Posnania, he has a poor gift in the throne of Poland--the factious nobles, such as the Sapieha, have laid waste what the Swedes and your Muscovites have spared. The country is a smoking ruin.”