Balashev, who was on the alert all through the dinner, replied that just as "all roads lead to Rome," so all roads lead to Moscow: there were many roads, and "among them the road through Poltava, which
Charles XII chose." Balashev involuntarily flushed with pleasure at the aptitude of this reply, but hardly had he uttered the word Poltava before Caulaincourt began speaking of the badness of the road from Petersburg to Moscow and of his Petersburg reminiscences.
That "my dear chevalier" was like the revenge taken by Peter the Great on
Charles XII. at Pultawa for all his past defeats.
1713 - Sweden's King
Charles XII is taken prisoner by the Ottoman Sultan.
Russia has a deep fear of western incursion,
Charles XII, Napoleon and Hitler all ravaged the Motherland.
He is also insightful at elucidating the sometimes tortuous foreign policy priorities of such diverse European players as the papacy, Frederick William I, Peter the Great,
Charles XII, and Elizabeth Farnese.
The famous,
Charles XII of Sweden, and the infamous, the princesse des Ursins, the well-known, Swift, and the unknown, Turner the messenger, grace the pages.
The first is his Histoire de
Charles XII roi de Suede (1731) which was his first important historical work and a great success, reprinted many times during his lifetime and many more afterwards.
Just a few years earlier Stenbock had been one of the highest-ranking individuals in the Swedish Empire, a favourite of
Charles XII, the last and most enigmatic of the country's warrior kings.
In the end the young king
Charles XII commuted the sentence, and ruled that Bielke should reside at his country seat as a stranger both to the court and to Stockholm.