rg back to the Turkish camp to
settle some items which yet required adjustment. This proved, to every
mind, the insincerity of Charles. The Russians, thus forsaken by
Austria, also made peace with the Turks. They consented to demolish
their fortress of Azof, to relinquish all pretensions to the right of
navigating the Black sea, and to allow a vast extent of territory upon
its northern shores to remain an uninhabited desert, as a barrier
between Russia and Turkey. The treaty being definitively settled, both
Marshal Wallis and Count Neuperg were arrested and sent to prison, where
they were detained until the death of Charles VI.

Care and sorrow were now hurrying the emperor to the grave. Wan and
haggard he moved about his palace, mourning his doom, and complaining
that it was his destiny to be disappointed in every cherished plan of
his life. All his affairs were in inextricable confusion, and his empire
seemed crumbling to decay. A cotemporary writer thus describes the
situation of the court and the nation:

"Every thing in this court is running into the last confusion and ruin;
where there are as visible signs of folly and madness, as ever were
inflicted upon a people whom Heaven is determined to destroy, no less by
domestic divisions, than by the more public calamities of repeated
defeats, defenselessness, poverty and plagues."

Early in October, 1740, the emperor, restless, and feverish in body and
mind, repaired to one of his country palaces a few miles distant from
Vienna. The season was prematurely cold and gloomy, with frost and
storms of sleet. In consequence of a chill the enfeebled monarch was
seized with an attack of the gout, which was followed by a very severe
fit of the colic. The night of the 10th of October he writhed in pain
upon his bed, while repeated vomitings weakened his already exhausted
frame. The next day he was conveyed to Vienna, but in such extreme
debility that he fainted several times in his carriage by the way.
Almost in a state of insensibility he was carried to the retired palace
of La Favourite in the vicinity of Vienna, and placed in his bed. It was
soon evident that his stormy life was now drawing near to its close.
Patiently he bore his severe sufferings, and as his physicians were
unable to agree respecting the nature of his disease, he said to them,
calmly,

"Cease your disputes. I shall soon be dead. You can then open my body
and ascertain the cause of my death."

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