Charles was usually present, was always very polite, but made only a short stay, and retired as soon as he could.
During the stay of the army in this place, a fire broke out and consumed several houses. The king flew to aid in extinguishing the flames. He ascended to the top of a house that was already on fire, and continued working till the building was sinking under him. He escaped with difficulty, was thrown down by one of the beams, and for a moment believed to be dead. "It was discovered two years afterward," says Bardili, "that the place was set on fire by an incendiary bribed by Augustus II. to slay the king of Sweden in the confusion;" and a man actually came forward and denounced himself as the intended assassin, declaring that some unknown power had prevented him from stabbing the king when he got near his person. Charles said the man was mad, and sent him about his business. Napoleon would have sent him before a military commission and had him shot, as he caused the student at Schonbrun to be shot.
We regret that we cannot give a sufficient account of the Duke of Marlborough's visit to Charles's head-quarters at Altranstadt; for what Voltaire says on the subject is but an idle fable. That the English general should easily have penetrated the views of the Swedish conqueror, which the latter took no pains to conceal, is sufficiently probable; but that the conversation between two such men should have turned principally on the king's large boots, which, as Voltaire says, Charles told Marlborough "he had not quitted for seven years," is of course a mere puerility. Besides, we find from Max's "Memoirs," that Charles was not so coarse in his dress as is usually represented, for his clothes were made of fine materials. He always wore a plain blue coat with gilt buttons, buff waistcoat and breeches, a black crape cravat, and a cocked hat; a waist-belt, and a long cut-and-thrust sword. He never disfigured himself by the full-bottomed wig of the period, but always wore his own brown hair, combed back from his forehead. His camp-bed consisted of a blue silk mattress, pillow, and coverlid; materials that would have suited even a dandy guardsman.
The invasion of Saxony occasioned great uneasiness at Vienna, Charles's arrival being considered alike dangerous to the Catholic states of the Empire and to the success of the Grand Alliance. It happened, under these unpleasant feelings, that at a party the Swedish Minister, Count Stralenghielm, proposed his master's health as a toast. An imperial chamberlain, a Count Zabor, a magnate of Hun- gary, refused to drink it, declaring that "no honest man ought to drink the health of the Turk, the devil, and of a third person." The Swede struck the offender, and swords were drawn; but the adversaries were of course separated. The ambassador demanded satisfaction for the insult; and Zabor was arrested, and sent in irons to Stettin, and delivered up to the Swedes. Charles instantly set him at liberty, simply desiring him to "be more guarded in his speeches for the future."
The Saxon nobility (Ritterschaft, chivalry) having been taxed to aid in defraying the Swedish contributions, applied to Charles, claiming their privilege of exemption from all taxation, except that of furnishing horses for the chivalry engaged in defence of the country. "Had the Saxon chivalry," said Charles,
