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Culture of the Period 217
that his own house was on fire, that the fruits of forty
years of labor, his botanical work, the unpublished
part of his Atlantica, and his many priceless collec-
tions were perishing in flames. But he did not desert
his post, and thus was saved what could be saved by
the unyielding efforts of the seventy-two-year-old
man."
He saved both the treasures of the library and the
beautiful cathedral. To those who deplored his own
personal losses he replied: "The Lord gave, and the
Lord hath taken away ; blessed be His name forever."
Shortly after this his busy, active life came to an end
in 1702.
CHAPTER XIII
REIGN OF CHARLES XII, 1697-1718
A. INTRODUCTION
Charles Declared of Age. Again a child was king
of Sweden. Charles XI had provided for a regency
composed of his mother and five members of his coun-
cil. But at the first Riksdag, assembled in the fall of
1697, the Estates declared the fifteen-year-old Charles
of age and intrusted him with the absolute control of
the kingdom. The proposition came from the nobility,
who hoped by this act to ingratiate themselves with
the young sovereign. They naturally supposed that it
would not be hard to induce a youth of fifteen to make
concessions in the matter of the Land Resumption, and
that he would think it a pleasure to show generosity.
A History of Sweden. 15.
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