dish conqueror. The country was subjugated, and Frederic
Augustus became a fugitive.

But Charles was not satisfied with expelling him from Poland. He
resolved to attack him also in Saxony itself. Saxony was then, next to
Austria, the most powerful of the German states. Nevertheless, Saxony
could not arrest the victorious career of Charles. The Saxons fled as
he approached. He penetrated to the heart of the electorate, and the
unfortunate Frederic Augustus was obliged to sue for peace, which was
only granted on the most humiliating terms; which were, that the
elector should acknowledge Stanislaus as king of Poland; that he
should break all his treaties with Russia, and should deliver to the
King of Sweden all the men who had deserted from his army. The humbled
elector sought a personal interview with Charles, after he had signed
the conditions of peace, with the hope of securing better terms. He
found Charles in his jack boots, with a piece of black taffeta round
his neck for a cravat, and clothed in a coarse blue coat with brass
buttons. His conversation turned wholly on his jack boots; and this
trifling subject was the only one on which he would deign to converse
with one of the most accomplished monarchs of his age.

Charles had now humbled and defeated all his enemies. He should now
have returned to Sweden, and have cultivated the arts of peace. But
peace and civilization were far from his thoughts. The subjugation of
all the northern powers became the dream of his life. He invaded
Russia, resolved on driving Peter from his throne.

[Sidenote: His Misfortunes.]

He was eminently successful in defensive war, and eminently
unsuccessful in aggressive war. Providence benevolently but singularly
comes to the aid of all his children in distress and despair. Men are
gloriously strong in defending their rights; but weak, in all their
strength, when they assail the rights of others. So signal is this
fact, that it blazes upon all the pages of history, and is illustrated
in common life as well as in the affairs of nations.

When Charles turned as an assailant of the rights of his enemies, his
unfortunate reverses commenced. At the head of forty-three thousand
veterans, loaded with the spoils of Poland and Saxony, he commenced
his march towards Russia. He had another army in Poland of twenty
thousand, and another in Finland of fifteen thousand. With these he
expected to dethrone the czar.

His mistakes and infatuation h