A tax that he arranged on the clergy gave the final touch to the universal hatred; priests are only too ready to plead that their cause is God’s, and publicly declared him an atheist, because he asked for their money. The new coins were embossed with the figure of heathen gods, and hence they called them the gods of Gortz. The ministry joined in the universal hatred of him, all the more ardently because they were powerless. None in the country liked him except the King, whom his unpopularity confirmed in his affection. He placed absolute confidence in him, giving him also his entire confidence at home. He trusted to him, too, all negotiations with the Czar, especially as to the conference at Aland, which of all things he wished to urge on with the greatest haste. As soon as Gortz had completed at Stockholm the arrangements for the treasury which demanded his presence, he went away to complete with Osterman the great work he had in hand. These were the preliminaries of that alliance which was to have changed the face of affairs in Europe, as they were found among Gortz’s papers. The Czar was to keep Livonia, part of Ingria, and Carelia, leaving the rest to Sweden. He was to join Charles in restoring Stanislas, and to send to Poland 80,000 men to dethrone the very king on whose side he had been fighting for so many years before; he was to supply ships to carry 30,000 to Germany and 10,000 to England; the forces of both were to attack the King of England’s German dominions, especially Bremen and Verden; the same troops were to restore the Duke of Holstein and force the King of Prussia to an agreement by parting with a good deal of his new acquisitions. Charles acted henceforth as if his own victorious troops had done all this, and demanded of the Emperor the execution of the peace of Altranstadt. But the Court of Vienna scarcely deigned an answer to one whom they feared so little. The King of Poland was not altogether so safe, but saw the storm coming. Fleming was the most suspicious man alive and the least reliable. He suspected the designs of the Czar and the King of Sweden in favour of Stanislas, so he endeavoured to have him taken off to Deux Ponts, as James Sobieski had been in Silesia. But Stanislas was on his guard, and the design miscarried. In the meantime Charles was making a second attempt upon Norway in October 1718. He had so arranged matters that he hoped to be master of the country in six months. The winter is fierce enough in Sweden to kill the animals that live there, but he chose to go and conquer rocks where the climate is more severe and the snow and ice much worse than in Sweden, instead of trying to regain his beautiful provinces in Germany. He hoped his new alliance with the Czar would soon make it possible for him to retake them, and his ambition was gratified by the thought of taking a kingdom from his victorious foe.