The most influential of them, and the most dangerous enemy that the King of Poland had, was Cardinal Radjouski, archbishop of Gnesna, primate of the kingdom and president of the Diet; his conduct was full of duplicity and artifice, and he was entirely dominated by an ambitious woman whom the Swedes called Madame la Cardinale, and who never ceased to urge him to intrigue and faction. King John Sobieski, Augustus’s predecessor, had first made him archbishop of Varmia and vice-chancellor of the kingdom. By favour of the same Prince, the Bishop got a Cardinal’s hat; this dignity soon opened his way to the primacy, and thus uniting in his person all that impresses people, he was able to undertake great enterprises with impunity. On the death of John he exerted his interest to place Jacques Sobieski on the throne; but the great hate they bore the father, great as he was, led to the rejection of the son. Then the Cardinal-Primate united with the Abbé Polignac, ambassador from France, to give the crown to the Prince of Conti, who actually was elected. But the money and the troops of the Saxons got the better of him. At last he allowed himself to be drawn into the party which crowned the Elector of Saxony, and waited impatiently for a chance of sowing dissension between the nation and the new king. The victories of Charles XII, protector of Prince James Sobiesky, the civil war in Lithuania, the general dissatisfaction of all his people with King Augustus, made the Cardinal-Primate hope that the time had come when he might send Augustus back into Saxony, and open the way to the throne for Prince John. This Prince, who had formerly been the innocent object of the Poles’ hatred, was beginning to be their idol, in proportion as King Augustus lost their favour; but he dare not even conceive such a revolution, of which the Cardinal had insensibly laid the foundations.