CHAPTER IV.
Charles at last took leave of Saxony, in September, 1707, followed by an army of forty-three thousand men, formerly covered with steel, but now shining with gold and silver, and enriched with the spoils of Poland and Saxony. Every soldier carried with him fifty crowns in ready money. Not only were all the regiments complete, but in every company there were several supernumeraries. Besides this army, Count Löwenhaupt, one of his best generals, waited for him in Poland with twenty thousand men. He had another army of fifteen thousand in Finland; and fresh recruits were coming to him from Sweden. With all these forces it was not doubted but that he would easily dethrone the czar.
That ruler was already in Lithuania, endeavoring to reanimate a party which Augustus seemed to have abandoned. His troops, divided into several bodies, fled on all sides at the first report of the King of Sweden's approach. He himself had enjoined his generals never to wait for the conqueror with unequal forces; and he was scrupulously obeyed.
