e
turned principally on the king's large boots, which, as Voltaire says,
Charles told Marlborough "he had not quitted for seven years," is of
course a mere puerility. Besides, we find from Max's "Memoirs," that
Charles was not so coarse in his dress as is usually represented, for
his clothes were made of fine materials. He always wore a plain blue
coat with gilt buttons, buff waistcoat and breeches, a black crape
cravat, and a cocked hat; a waist-belt, and a long cut-and-thrust
sword. He never disfigured himself by the full-bottomed wig of the
period, but always wore his own brown hair, combed back from his
forehead. His camp-bed consisted of a blue silk mattress, pillow and
coverlid; materials that would have suited even a dandy guardsman.

The invasion of Saxony occasioned great uneasiness at Vienna,
Charles's arrival being considered alike dangerous to the Catholic
states of the Empire and to the success of the Grand Alliance. It
happened, under these unpleasant feelings, that at a party the Swedish
Minister, Count Stralenghielm, proposed his master's health as a
toast. An imperial chamberlain, a Count Zabor, a magnate of Hungary,
refused to drink it, declaring that "no honest man ought to drink the
health of the Turk, the devil, and of a third person." The Swede
struck the offender, and swords were drawn; but the adversaries were
of course separated. The ambassador demanded satisfaction for the
insult; and Zabor was arrested, and sent in irons to Stettin, and
delivered up to the Swedes. Charles instantly set him at liberty,
simply desiring him to "be more guarded in his speeches for the
future."

The Saxon nobility (Ritterschaft, chivalry) having been taxed to aid
in defraying the Swedish contributions, applied to Charles, claiming
their privilege of exemption from all taxation, except that of
furnishing horses for the chivalry engaged in defence of the country.
"Had the Saxon chivalry," said Charles, "acted up to the duties to
which they owe their privilege, I should not have been here."

The King of Sweden left Saxony, and set out on his Russian expedition
at the head of 43,000 men. Of these 8,000 remained in Poland; so that
he undertook the march to Moscow with only 35,000--a force amounting
to about one-fifteenth part of the army with which Napoleon set out on
a similar expedition. The Russians followed the same system they
afterward employed against the French, retiring and laving waste the
country. The dif