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connection with it. Very amusing is the description of
his embassy to the Russian prince Witsnowitzky in his
camp about seventeen miles outside Mitau. He carried a
letter from his Colonel in which great complaints against
the conduct of the Polish soldiery were raised and redress
demanded. Accompanied by a non-commissioned officer
and four men, he arrived in the camp, where he was most
hospitably received. The prince even treated him to
champagne (u wijn de Schampanie ”), drank to the health
of his General, and then—offered him the post of a
Captain in a German regiment of dragoons! Terrible
sufferings awaited the writer in 1708. This is how he
describes the march against the Russians at Poltawa :
“For ten days we marched through a deserted country
without seeing a human being, passing through forests
and morasses which, I think, no foot ever trod before or
after us. We tasted neither bread nor meat for nearly a
fortnight, living on roots, turnips, and raw cabbage-stalks.
Not even our generals had bread or salt. Eatables which
we formerly would have refused with horror we now
swallowed with delight, as if they had been the finest
almond cake (“Marzipan”); the hours during which we
had encamped under the open sky in rain or snow now
appeared to us like hours spent in a soft, downy bed. If
any one had seen us in our then state, I doubt not but
that he would have shed tears of pity. And yet, God be
praised, we were saved from these as from so many other
dangers and sufferings. Having at last arrived at a small
village called Sewerin, we tasted what horseflesh was
like.”1
Petre then tells of the extraordinary cold during the
winter of 1708-1709. Even the customary Sunday sermon
at Christmas was countermanded by the King on its account.
1 Quennersted, loc. cit., i. 178 ff.
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