♦Great services of the king.♦ Though satisfactory, the terms were not glorious; but that they should have been obtained at all by a handful of men in the direst extremities was cause enough for rejoicing. A moral triumph like this, following so close upon a crisis so dreadful, carries with it an air of romance. Yet, making every allowance for good fortune and the earnest mediation of his allies, we must regard it as due in the first instance to the potency of the name of Sobieski. With an insignificant force at his back he had conducted to a favourable issue five successive campaigns against the Turks--four of them on Polish ground--and had previously many times repulsed the hordes of Tartars which they had poured into the country. By thus foiling the aggression of the Turks when at the height of their power John III. had rendered a signal service to Europe. ♦Death of Köprili.♦ The minister whose vast designs he had thwarted was now upon his death-bed. Seven days after the peace of Zurawno (October 23rd), Köprili expired at Constantinople. Had it not been for Sobieski this able vizier would have extended the dependencies of Turkey from the Black Sea to the Baltic, and would have found a golden opportunity for his attack upon the empire. His successor Mustapha, called “Kara,” or “the Black,” was a man of a different calibre. He owed his advancement to the intrigues of the seraglio; he had married a daughter of the Sultan and possessed great influence over his master; and he inherited the ambitious dreams of Köprili without his ability to realise them. ♦Enthusiasm of Europe.♦ All Europe, with the exception perhaps of Austria, rejoiced at the peace of Zurawno. Madame de Sevigné, writing on the 18th of November, 1676, expresses the general admiration for the hero of Poland;[71] and Condé sent a special messenger to congratulate his friend. Louis XIV. eagerly sought his alliance. He commissioned his ambassador in Poland, the Marquis of Bethune, brother-in-law of the king, to invest him with the order of the Holy Ghost. John imprudently accepted the honour, and thus, in spite of the enthusiasm with which he had been received, excited general murmurs. He was accused of wearing the livery of France, and binding the republic to follow her interests. In the Diet which assembled the next year (January, 1677,) his opponents were clamorous. They complained that, besides part of the Ukraine, he had given up Kaminiec, the key of the realm; and that instead of striving to recover them, he was meditating war against Brandenburg and Austria. They also accused him of aiming at absolute power by the secret help of the French monarch. The majority of the Diet, however, did not forget the dangers from which they had been rescued; and Gninski, palatine of Kulm, was sent to Constantinople to ratify the peace of Zurawno.