One of those who seconded his designs most cleverly was a Portuguese doctor, Fonseca, living at Constantinople, a learned and able man, who had knowledge of men as well as of his own art, and whose profession gave him access to the Court, and often intimacy with the vizirs. I knew him well at Paris, and he confirmed all the details which I am going to relate. Count Poniatowski told me himself that he was clever enough to get letters through to the Sultana Valida, mother of the reigning Emperor, who had been at one time ill-used by her son, but was now beginning to recover her influence in the seraglio. A Jewess, who was often with the princess, was perpetually talking of the King of Sweden’s exploits, and charmed her by reciting them. The Sultana, by a secret inclination which most women feel for extraordinary men, even without having ever seen them, took the King’s part openly in the seraglio and called him “her lion.” “When will you,” she said sometimes to the Sultan her son, “help my lion to devour this Czar?” She even went beyond the strict rules of the seraglio so far as to write several letters with her own hand to Count Poniatowski, who still possesses them. However, the King was taken to Bender with pomp, across the desert formerly called the desert of Getæ. The Turks took care that his journey should be made as agreeable as possible; many Poles, Swedes and Cossacks, who had escaped from the Russians, came from different directions to increase his train. When he arrived at Bender he had 1,800 men with him, all fed and lodged, they and their horses, at the expense of the Grand Seignior. The King chose to encamp near Bender rather than in the town. The Serasquier, Jussuf, had a magnificent tent pitched for him, and also furnished all his suite with tents; some time after the King built a house on this spot, and his officers followed his example. The soldiers, too, raised barracks, so that the camp became gradually a little town. The King was not yet cured of his wound, and had to have a decayed bone removed from his leg, but as soon as he could mount a horse he renewed his usual exercises, rising at sunrise, tiring out three horses a day, and making his soldiers drill. His only amusement was an occasional game of chess. If details are typical of character, it may be remarked that he always brought out his king in the game; he used him more than his other pieces, and so always lost the game. At Bender he found plenty of everything about him, rare good fortune for a conquered and fugitive king; for besides more than enough provisions and the 500 crowns a day he got from the Ottoman generosity, he got money also from France, and borrowed of the Constantinople merchants. Part of this money was used to carry on the intrigues in the seraglio, in buying the vizirs or procuring their downfall; the rest he distributed profusely among his officers and the janissaries who guarded him at Bender.