It is difficult to comprehend how Augustus could be prevailed on, after
this battle, to ratify a treaty which deprived him of all the fruits of
his victory. But Charles was still triumphant in Saxony, where his
very name spread terror. The success of the Russians appeared so
inconsiderable, and the Polish party against Augustus was so strong,
and, in fine, that monarch was so ill-advised, that he signed the fatal
convention. Neither did he stop here: he wrote to his envoy Finkstein a
letter, that was, if possible, more shameful than the treaty itself; for
therein he asked pardon for having obtained a victory, 'protesting, that
the battle had been fought against his will; that the Russians and the
Poles, his adherents, had obliged him to it; that he had, with a view of
preventing it, actually made some movements to abandon Menzikoff; that
Meyerfeld might have beaten him, had he made the most of that
opportunity; that he was ready to restore all the Swedish prisoners, or
to break with the Russians; and that, in fine, he would give the king of
Sweden all possible satisfaction,' for having dared to beat his troops.
This whole affair, unparalleled and inconceivable as it is, is,
nevertheless, strictly true. When we reflect, that, with all this
weakness, Augustus was one of the bravest princes in Europe, we may
plainly perceive, that the loss or preservation, the rise or decline of
empires, are entirely owing to fortitude of mind.
Two other circumstances concurred to complete the disgrace of the king
of Poland elector of Saxony, and heighten the abuse which Charles XII.
made of his good fortune; the first was his obliging Augustus to write a
letter of congratulation to the new king Stanislaus on his election: the
second was terrible, he even compelled Augustus to deliver up Patkul,
the czar's ambassador and general.[73] It is sufficiently known to all
Europe, that this minister was afterwards broke alive upon the wheel at
Casimir, in the month of September, 1707. Norberg, the chaplain,
confesses that the orders for his execution were all written in
Charles's own hand.