At the mouth of the river Tistendall, near the bay of Denmark, between Bahus and Anslo, stands Fredericshall, a place of strength and importance, which is considered the key to the kingdom. Charles began its siege in December. The cold was so extreme that the soldiers could hardly break the ground. It was like digging trenches in rock, but the Swedes were nothing daunted by fatigue which the King shared so readily. Charles had never suffered so severely. His constitution was so hardened by sixteen years’ hardship that he would sleep in the open in a Norwegian mid-winter on boards or straw, wrapped only in his mantle, and yet keep his health. Some of the soldiers fell dead at their posts, but others who were nearly dying dare not complain when they saw their King bearing it all. Just before this expedition he heard of a woman who had lived for several months on nothing but water, and he who had tried all his life to bear the hardest extremes that nature can bear resolved to try how long he could fast. He neither ate nor drank for five days, and on the sixth, in the morning, he rode two leagues to his brother’s, where he ate heartily, yet neither his large meal nor his long fast incommoded him. With such a body of iron, and a soul of so much strength and courage, there was not one of his neighbours who did not fear him. On the 11th of December, St. Andrew’s day, he went to view his trenches at about nine in the evening, and finding the parallel not advanced as much as he wished, he was a little vexed at it. But M. Megret, the French engineer who was conducting the siege, told him the place would be taken in eight days’ time. “We shall see,” said the King, “what can be done.” Then, going on with the engineer to examine the works, he stopped at the place where the branch made an angle with the parallel; kneeling upon the inner slope, he leaned with his elbows on the parapet, to look at the men who were carrying on the entrenching by starlight. The least details relating to the death of such a man as Charles are noted. It is therefore my duty to say that all the conversation reported by various writers, as having taken place between the King and the engineer, are absolutely false. This is what I know actually happened.