The King of Poland was then obliged to throw himself into the arms of the Senate. He made them two proposals by means of the Count of Mariemburg; either that they should leave him the control of the army, which he would pay two quarters in advance out of his own pocket, or else that they should allow him to bring 12,000 Saxons into Poland. The Cardinal replied as severely as the King of Sweden had done. He told the Count of Mariemburg, in the name of the Assembly, “That they had decided to send an embassy to Charles XII, and that it was not his affair to introduce Saxons.” In this extremity the King was anxious to preserve at least a semblance of royal authority. He sent one of his chamberlains to Charles to inquire when and how his Swedish Majesty would receive the embassy of the King, his master, and of the State. Unfortunately they had neglected to provide this messenger with a passport; so Charles threw him into prison, with the remark that he was waiting for an embassy from the State, and none from King Augustus. Then Charles, leaving garrisons behind him in some of the Lithuanian towns, advanced to Grodno, a town famous in Europe for the Diets held there, but ill-built and worse fortified. Some miles away from Grodno he met the embassy sent by the Polish State. Charles XII received them in his tent with some display of military pomp; their proposals were full of evasion and obscurity, they seemed afraid of Charles, and disliked Augustus, but they were ashamed of deposing a king whom they had elected at the order of a foreigner. Nothing was settled, and Charles gave them to understand that he would give them a decision at Warsaw.