At first he seemed to wish to reconcile the King with the republic. He sent circular letters apparently dictated by the spirit of concord and charity, a common and well-known snare, but one by which men are always caught; he wrote a touching letter to the King of Sweden, imploring him, in the name of Him whom all Christians adore, to give peace to Poland and her King. Charles XII answered the Cardinal’s intentions rather than his words, for he remained with his victorious army in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, declaring that he had no desire to disturb the Diet, that he was making war on Augustus and the Saxons, and not on Poland, and that far from attacking the State he had come to save it from oppression. These letters and answers were for public perusal. The springs which made the Diet act were the emissaries, who continually came and went between the Cardinal and Count Piper, and the private meetings held at this prelate’s house. They proposed to send an embassy to Charles XII, and were unanimous in their demands that their King should not call in the aid of any more Russians, and that he should send his Saxon troops away. Augustus’s bad luck had already brought about what the Diet asked him. The treaty made secretly with the Russians at Birzen had turned out to be as useless as it had seemed formidable. He was far from being able to send the Czar the 15,000 men he had promised to raise in the Empire. The Czar himself, a dangerous enemy of Poland, was not at all anxious at that time to help a divided kingdom, hoping to have some share in the spoils. He contented himself with sending 20,000 Russians into Lithuania, and they did more mischief than the Swedes, fleeing continually before the conqueror, and ravaging Polish territory, till at last, being chased by the Swedish generals and finding nothing else to ravage, they returned in bands to their own country. As to the scattered remains of the Saxon army which had been beaten at Riga, King Augustus sent them to winter and recruit in Saxony, that this sacrifice might regain him the affections of the Polish nation in his present difficult position. Then the war was abandoned for a series of intrigues, and the Diet divided into almost as many factions as there were dukedoms. One day the interests of King Augustus were paramount, the next they were rejected. Everybody clamoured for liberty and justice, yet they had no conception of either; the time was spent in secret cabals and public debate. The Diet knew nothing about what they might or should do; great assemblies seldom agree on good measures in time of civil uproar, because bold men in such assemblies are generally factious, while more reliable men are usually timid.