Sobieski was merely an elective monarch.  Leopold was a hereditary king and an emperor.  Leopold even expressed some doubt whether it were consistent with his exalted dignity to grant the Polish king the honor of an audience.  He inquired whether an elected monarch had ever been admitted to the presence of an emperor; and if so, with what forms, in the present case, the king should be received.  The Duke of Lorraine, of whom he made the inquiry, disgusted with the mean spirit of the emperor, nobly replied, “With open arms.”

But the soulless Leopold had every movement punctiliously arranged according to the dictates of his ignoble spirit.  The Polish and Austrian armies were drawn up in opposite lines upon the plain before the city.  At a concerted signal the emperor and the king emerged from their respective ranks, and rode out upon the open plain to meet each other.  Sobieski, a man of splendid bearing, magnificently mounted, and dressed in the brilliant uniform of a Polish warrior, attracted all eyes and the admiration of all hearts.  His war steed pranced proudly as if conscious of the royal burden he bore, and of the victories he had achieved.  Leopold was an ungainly man at the best.  Conscious of his inability to vie with the hero, in his personal presence, he affected the utmost simplicity of dress and equipage.  Humiliated also by the cold reception he had met and by the consciousness of extreme unpopularity in both armies, he was embarrassed and deject.  The contrast was very striking, adding to the renown of Sobieski, and sinking Leopold still deeper in contempt.

The two sovereigns advanced, formally saluted each other with bows, dismounted and embraced.  A few cold words were exchanged, when they again embraced and remounted to review the troops.  But Sobieski, frank, cordial, impulsive, was so disgusted with this reception, so different from what he had a right to expect, that he excused himself, and rode to his tent, leaving his chancellor Zaluski to accompany the emperor on the review.  As Leopold rode along the lines he was received in contemptuous silence, and he returned to his palace in Vienna, tortured by wounded pride and chagrin.

The treasure abandoned by the Turks was so abundant that five days were spent in gathering it up.  The victorious army then commenced the pursuit of the retreating foe.  About one hundred and fifty miles below Vienna, where the majestic Danube turns suddenly from its eastern course and flows toward the south, is situated the imperial city of Gran.  Upon a high precipitous rock, overlooking both the town and the river, there had stood for centuries one of the most imposing fortresses which mortal hands have ever reared.  For seventy years this post had been in the hands of the Turks, and strongly garrisoned by four thousand troops, had bid defiance to every assault.  Here the thinned and bleeding battalions of the grand vizier sought refuge.  Sobieski and