His ambassador presented memoirs in his name to the Grand Vizir,
Poniatowski, and supported them with his readily-acquired prestige.
The intrigue succeeded entirely; he wore only Turkish dress, and he
insinuated himself everywhere; the Grand Seignior had him presented
with a purse containing 1,000 ducats, and the Grand Vizir said to
him, “I will take your King with one hand, and a sword in the other,
and I will lead him to Moscow at the head of 200,000 men.” But the
first minister soon changed his mind. The King could only treat, while
the Czar could pay; he did pay, and it was the money that he gave
that Charles used; the military chest taken at Pultawa provided new
arms against the vanquished. No more mention was made of making war
on Russia. The Czar’s influence was all-powerful at the Porte; they
granted honours and privileges to his ambassador at Constantinople
such as had never been enjoyed by a previous envoy; he was allowed to
have a seraglio, that is, a palace in the quarters of the Franks, and
to converse with foreign ministers. The Czar even felt strong enough
to demand that Mazeppa should be handed over to him, just as Charles
had demanded Patkul. Chourlouli-Ali-Pasha now found it impossible to
refuse anything to a Prince who made demands with millions behind him.
Thus the same Grand Vizir who had solemnly promised to take the King of
Sweden to Russia with 200,000 men, had the impudence to propose to him
that he should consent to the betrayal of Mazeppa. Charles was enraged
at the request. It is hard to say how far the Vizir would have carried
the matter had not Mazeppa, who was then seventy years old, died at
this juncture.
The King’s grief and resentment increased when he heard that Tolstoy,
who had become ambassador from the Czar to the Porte, was served in
public by the Swedes who had been enslaved at Pultawa, and that these
brave men were daily sold in the market-place at Constantinople.
Besides, the Russian ambassador remarked aloud that the Mussulman
troops at Bender were there rather as a guard to the King than for his
honour.