Page:Works of Voltaire Volume 20.djvu/34

 of which she was so passionately fond, and for the sake of which she had renounced a crown at twenty-seven years of age.

Before her abdication, she prevailed upon the states of Sweden to elect her cousin, Charles Gustavus X., son to the Count Palatine, and Duke of Deux-Ponts, as her successor. This prince added new conquests to those of Gustavus Adolphus. He presently carried his arms into Poland, where he gained the famous battle of Warsaw, which lasted for three days. He waged a long and a successful war with the Danes; besieged them in their capital; re-united Schonen to Sweden; and confirmed the Duke of Holstein in the possession of Schleswig, at least for a time. At last, having met with a reverse of fortune, and concluded a peace with his enemies, he turned his ambition against his subjects, and formed the design of establishing a despotic government in Sweden. But, like the great Gustavus, he died in the thirty-seventh year of his age, without being able to finish his project, the full accomplishment of which was reserved for his son, Charles XI.

Charles XI. was a warrior, like all his ancestors, and more despotic than any of them. He abolished the authority of the senate, which was declared to be the senate of the king, and not of the kingdom. He was prudent, vigilant, indefatigable; qualities that must certainly have secured him the love of his subjects, had not his despotic measures been more apt to excite their fear than to gain their affections.

In 1680 he married Ulrica Eleonora, daughter to