When Charles XII. rested at Altranstadt in the winter of 1707–8, at the age of twenty-five, he felt himself with reason to be the wonder of the world. He was courted on all sides by the great powers, at that time distracted by the throes of the war of the Spanish Succession, and had he cared to play the rôle, might have posed as the arbiter of Europe. From Versailles came one of the most trusted diplomatists of Louis XIV., to remind the young prince of the long friendship of Sweden and France, and to entreat him to acknowledge the benefits of S. Germain en Laye by drawing his sword manfully for Louis at the crisis of his fate. But on behalf of the allies there appeared at the court of Charles metal still more attractive. Marlborough, the greatest soldier of the age, came personally to Altranstadt to plead the cause of Europe before Charles, with the laurels of Blenheim and of Ramillies still green upon his brow. His task was the easier one. He wanted not the assistance but the neutrality of Sweden. Charles was flattered by the attention paid to him, fascinated by the address of the hero diplomatist, and lent a willing ear to his suggestions. His Protestantism rejected the idea of an alliance with the author of the ‘dragonades.’ His desire for vengeance impelled him to come to close quarters with his enemy in the north. His soldierly pride shrank from committing himself to a war in which he would have to take a subordinate place. So in the spring of 1708 he turned his back deliberately on Germany and the Rhine, and marched to his ruin in the inhospitable north. [Sidenote: =His invasion of Russia.=]