Among the prisoners was that unfortunate French regiment, the _débris_ of the battle of Hochstet, which had first served Augustus, and afterwards Charles. Most of the soldiers were drafted into a new regiment belonging to the son of the Prince of Anhalt, and he was their fourth master. In Ruegen the commander of this vagrant regiment was then the famous Count Villelongue, who had so nobly risked his life at Adrianople to save Charles. He was taken with all his men, and was ill rewarded for all his services, fatigues and sufferings. The King, having only weakened himself by all these prodigies of valour, pent up in Stralsund and expecting to be taken, was yet the same as he had been at Bender. Nothing could surprise him. All day he was making ditches and entrenchments behind the walls, and at night he sallied out against the enemy. The town was badly damaged, bombs fell thick and fast, and half the town was in ashes. The townsfolk, far from complaining, were full of admiration for their master, whose temperance, courage and fatigues were astonishing; they acted as soldiers under him, following to the attack, and were now as good as another garrison. One day, as the King was dictating to a secretary some dispatches for Sweden, a bomb fell into the house, came through the roof, and burst very near his room. Part of the floor fell in, but the ante-room where he was at work, being attached to a thick wall, was undisturbed, and by a lucky chance none of the splinters came in at the door, though it was open. In this noise and confusion the secretary dropped his pen, thinking that the house was coming down. “What is the matter?” said the King calmly; “why are you not writing?” The man could only stammer out, “The bomb, Sire!” “Well,” said the King, “what has that to do with our writing? Go on.” An ambassador of France, a M. de Croissy, was then shut up with the King in Stralsund. To send a man on an embassy to Charles was like sending him to the trenches. The King would talk with Croissy for hours together, in the most exposed places, where people were falling on all sides, killed by the bombs and cannon; the King was unconscious of the danger, and the ambassador did not care to say anything to make him chose a safer place for business. Before the siege this minister tried his best to make a treaty between the Kings of Sweden and Prussia; but the one expected too much, and the other would not make any concessions. So that the only satisfaction that Croissy got out of his embassy was the familiarity he enjoyed with this remarkable man. He often slept on the same cloak with him, and, as they shared so many dangers and fatigues, he was outspoken with him. Charles encouraged this in the case of those he liked, and would sometimes say to Croissy, “Veni, maledicamus de rege.” “Come, let us talk scandal of Charles.”