Page:Works of Voltaire Volume 20.djvu/38

 of April, 1697, in the forty-second year of his age, and the thirty-seventh of his reign, at a time when the empire, Spain, and Holland, on the one side, and France on the other, had referred the decision of their quarrels to his arbitration, and when he had already concerted the terms of accommodation between these different powers.

He left to his son, who was then fifteen years of age, a throne well established and respected abroad; subjects poor, but valiant and loyal; together with a treasury in good order, and managed by able ministers.

Charles XII. at his accession to the throne, found himself the absolute and undisturbed master, not only of Sweden and Finland, but also of Livonia, Carelia, Ingria, Wismar, Viborg, the islands of Rügen and Oesel, and the finest part of Pomerania, together with the duchies of Bremen and Verden, all of them the conquests of his ancestors, secured to the crown by long possession, and by the solemn treaties of Münster and Olivia, and supported by the terror of the Swedish arms. The peace of Ryswick, which was begun under the auspices of the father, being fully concluded under those of the son, he found himself, from the first moment of his reign, the mediator of Europe.

The laws of Sweden fix the majority of their kings at the age of fifteen; but Charles XL, who was entirely absolute, put off, by his last will, the majority of his son to the age of eighteen. In this he favored the ambitious views of his mother, Edwiga-Eleonora of Holstein, dowager of Charles X., who was appointed by the king, her son, guardian to