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CHA terrible march through a hostile country. Wherever he came the Russians fled at his approach, and Peter himself, who was in Grodno, retreated to Petersburg. Had Charles marched thither, the campaign would have been ended; but instead, he pursued his way to Smolensk; Mazeppa, the Cossack hetman of the Ukraine, who was disaffected to the czar, offering to join him with thirty thousand men and provisions, and thus facilitate his conquest of Moscow. It was in vain that Count Piper and his most experienced officers dissuaded him from this rash enterprise; and with amazement and exultation Peter saw him, about midsummer, marching away towards the Ukraine.

It was the 23rd of October, winter and a fearful country were before them; but no persuasions could induce the military madman to give up the hopeless march he purposed. The unexampled winter of 1708-9 set in, and his troops fell by hundreds, frozen on the way. On reaching Baturin, Mazeppa's capital, in November, where they expected to pass the winter, they found it a heap of ashes. Prince Menzikow had been before them, burnt down the city, laid waste the country, and hung the effigy of Mazeppa on a gallows. Even Mazeppa now joined with his own officers to persuade Charles to a retreat, but he would not listen to it, and went on through the winter, losing men, artillery, and ammunition. Reaching Pultowa, the Russians kept him out of the city, with a garrison of eight thousand, and Peter marched down upon him with sixty-five thousand fresh troops. Charles, in a skirmish, was shot through the ankle, and whilst thus disabled, Peter attacked him, and completely routed his army. This celebrated battle, which was fought on the 27th of June, 1709, saw the hitherto unconquered king of Sweden flying in a litter for the frontiers of Turkey; not only his army, but his generals, his military chest, containing six millions of Saxon dollars, and his able and faithful minister, Piper, in the hands of the Russians. After a painful flight of three weeks, he crossed the Bug into Turkey, and was received at Bender with much honour, though attended by merely a thousand followers. His enemies now overran his territories, and hoped to seize and divide Sweden amongst themselves. Augustus of Saxony abandoned the treaty of Altranstadt, and prepared to recover the throne of Poland. Peter overran Livonia, and the king of Denmark landed in Schonen to make himself master of Sweden. But the Swedes, under General Stenbock, drove the Danes from Schonen, and passed over to defend Finland against the Russians, who, however, poured in such shoals into that province, that they were irresistible. The news of those invasions roused Charles to endeavour to induce the Poles to join him in a war against the Russian czar, whom he represented as designing next to attack Turkey. He was so far successful, that the Turks declared war against Russia, and at Falczin on the Pruth, a great battle was fought on the 30th of June, 1711, in which the Russians were routed with great slaughter, and Peter himself and his czarina, Catherine, taken prisoners. Peter was so completely disheartened that he shut himself up in his tent, saying—"Now I am far worse off than my brother Charles at Pultowa!" But the wit of his wife rescued him from his dilemma. Charles was furious, and made vehement representations to the Porte of the dangers to be apprehended from Peter, but in vain; the Russian agents were already making their representations in Constantinople, and Charles received instant orders to quit Turkey. He refused unless he received six hundred thousand dollars; they were sent, but he demanded five hundred thousand more. At this the sultan ordered him to be driven out with force. The madman and three hundred followers fortified his little camp at Varnitza, near Bender, and set at defiance the whole Turkish army. His defences were attacked and driven in, the thatched hut in which he lived set on fire, and in making a furious sally on his enemies, the desperate Swede fell, on which a crowd of Turks rushed upon him and overpowered him. He was then conducted to Demotika, where he continued to importune the sultan to make alliance with him against Russia; and to prevent his being sent away, he pretended to be ill, lay in bed for two months, and kept his chamber for ten, amusing himself with reading and writing; but at length convinced that the grand Turk was immovable, he suddenly announced his intention to depart, and was accompanied on his way by a splendid retinue of Turks. Suddenly, however, leaving them, he rode away day and night for a fortnight, having left all his own attendants behind, except Colonel Düring, and in that time travelling nearly thirteen hundred miles without once going to bed, he reached Stralsund at midnight on the 22nd of November, 1714, to the great wonder and joy of the people. His boots had to be cut from his legs, they were so swollen, but he had not much time for rest. Nothing could be worse than the situation of his affairs; he had destroyed a noble army, ruined the exchequer of his country, and found, in addition to his old trio of enemies, the kings of England and Prussia joined with them in the league against him—Prussia in possession of Swedish Pomerania, the dukedom of Bremen and Verden sold by the Danes to Hanover. He was himself immediately besieged in Stralsund by an overwhelming army of allied Russians, Danes, Saxons, and Prussians, and though he did wonders of bravery, he was compelled to evacuate the city on the 23rd of December, 1715, and crossed in haste to Lund, in order to take measures for the defence of his own coasts. That winter he spent with Görtz in striving to restore the national finances. In the beginning of February he marched into the mountains of Norway to avenge himself on Denmark, to which it belonged, but with indifferent success. He spent again the winter in Lund, planning with Görtz a treaty with Russia. There was a talk of a combined Russian and Swedish army landing on the coast of Scotland to drive George I. thence; but no sooner did his affairs appear to be taking an auspicious turn, than he once more invaded Norway with twenty-seven thousand men. One division, under General Armfeld, commenced its march in August, 1718, but was overtaken in the mountains by winter, and perished almost to a man. Whole regiments seized by the frost stiffened as they stood in the ranks erect; whole squadrons lay overwhelmed in the snows, and others slipping from the ice-covered rocks, perished in the abysses below. Long after these mountains were thronged with bears and wolves, which had been drawn there by the scent of the remains of Armfeld's host, and were reckoned the best hunting grounds in Norway. Scarcely five hundred of this unfortunate ten thousand reached Sweden again. Charles reconducted his division by the southern route to Friedrickshall, where on Sunday evening, December 11, 1718, about nine o'clock, he walked out with two French officers, the chief engineer, Megret, and the lieutenant-general, Siquier, to note the progress of the siege. The officers left him resting his arms on the breastwork of a battery, watching the firing from the city. Soon after, Megret returned with some of the officers, when Siquier met them and informed them that the king was dead. On reaching the place they found him leaning with his back against the wall, his hand on his sword, his head and gloves bloody. He was shot through the head, as was at first supposed, by a ball from the city. But it was discovered that the ball was a pistol-ball, and it was then recollected that not even a musket-ball could have reached him at that distance. There was no doubt that he had fallen by the hand of an assassin, and the suspicion fell on Megret. As there was a violent opposition party in Sweden, it was believed that the nobles of that party had bribed these two Frenchmen to commit the murder.

The passion of Charles for war amounted to little short of insanity. For the rest he had many virtues. He despised luxury and effeminacy. He was most simple and temperate in his diet, he avoided pleasures and amusements, eat coarse bread, banished wine from his table, and dressed in a coarse blue coat with brass buttons, leather breeches, huge jack-boots, and buff-leather gloves, reaching nearly to his elbows. He lay on the bare ground in his camp, like his soldiers, wrapt in his mantle. In the most desperate circumstances his spirit never gave way, and in the brief times of peace he was busily engaged in promoting the commerce and the maritime affairs of the country, and in enjoying the company of men of genius and learning, whom he allowed incomes to enable them to travel. The life of Charles has been written by his chaplain, Norberg, and by Voltaire; his military achievements by Adlereld.—W. H.  CHARLES XIII., King of Sweden and Norway, second son of Adolphus Frederick and Louisa Ulrica, sister of Frederick the Great, born in 1748; died in 1818. He was carefully trained to the naval service, having been appointed at his birth to the dignity of high admiral. In the revolutionary troubles of 1772, he powerfully supported his brother Gustavus III., who, to show his gratitude, named him governor of Stockholm, and duke of Sudermania. Gustavus having been assassinated in 1792, his son, a minor, acceded to the throne, under the tutelage of his uncle Charles, to whom the late king, by testament, had assigned the regency. Having, during the reign of his brother, 