Kings & rulers > History of Charles XII, King of Sweden

BOOK VII. CpABLES XII.
Count Desaleurs softened the harshness of this an¬
swer when he reported it to the King. The day was
accordingly fixed. But before he would quit Turkey
Charles resolved to display the pomp of a great king,
though involved in all the difficulties of a fugitive
prince. He gave Grothusen the title of his ambassa¬
dor extraordinary, and sent him, with a retinue of
eighty persons, all richly dressed, to take leave m
form at the Porte.
The splendour of this embassy was only exceeded
by the meanness of the shifts which the King wag
obliged to employ in order to collect a sura of money
sufficient to defray the expence of it.
1VJ. Desaleurs lent him forty thousand crowns.-—
Grothusen had agents at Constantinople, who borrow¬
ed in his name, at the rate of fifty per cent, interest, a
thousand crowns of a Jew, two hundred pistoles of an.
English merchant, and a thousand livres of a Turk.
By these means they procured wherewithal to ena¬
ble them to act the splendid farce of the Swedish em¬
bassy before the divan. Grothusen received at the
Porte all the honours that are usually paid to ambas¬
sadors extraordinary on the day of their audience.—
The design of all this parade was only to obtain money
from the Grand Vizier; but that minister was inex¬
orable.
Grothusen made a proposal for borrowing a million
from the Porte. The Vizier answered coldly, that
his master knew how to give when he thought proper;
but that it was beneath his dignity to lend; that the
King should be supplied with plenty of every thing
necessary for his journey, in a manner worthy of the
person that sent him back, and that the Porte, perhaps,
might even make him a present in gold bullion, though
he would not have him depend upon it fbr certain.
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