Full resolution (TIFF) - On this page / på denna sida - XIII. Reign of Charles XII, 1697–1718 - A. Introduction
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Reign of Charles XII 219
young prince had once remarked that the court painter
looked like a monkey. A scene followed. The father
stern and commanding, the mother, mild and persua-
sive, tried to get the boy to change his mind. No, the
boy insisted that the painter was like a monkey.
The father’s love of wild sports was inherited by
the son. Early the father took him along on rides
and bear hunts. At twelve he shot his first bear. But
by and by Charles thought it cowardly to use firearms
against the forest king. He hit on the plan of arming
himself and his companions with wooden forks and
nothing else. A duel it should be, not a hunt. When
the shaggy beast raised himself to deal a deathblow to
the bold enemy, the hunter thrust the prongs of the
fork about the bear’s neck and pushed him over. When
the bear was thus thrown on his back the rest of the
party hastened to tie the legs of the animal together.
His rides were of the wildest sort, over high fences,
across deep ditches, up high steeps where horse and
rider would roll back in summersaults. When his com-
panions rushed forward expecting to see him crushed,
his usual remark was "Lappri" (a trifle) .
Just before his seventh anniversary his teacher
wrote in the boy’s diary: "Make a wish of what you
most like." Charles wrote: "I wish that I may some
day have the good fortune to accompany my father in
battle." When his teacher asked him at the age of six
to describe a true gentleman, he replied : "He should be
kind, but have a heart in his bosom; to his enemies
bold as a lion, at home gentle as a lamb."
Charles As Ruler. Charles, however, did not allow
his pleasures to interfere with his duties as king, but
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