with Russia, and knew not how to meet the reproaches of the court of St. Petersburg for having so needlessly surrendered the most important fortress on the Turkish frontier.  In an interview which he held with the Russian ambassador his embarrassment was painful to witness.  To the Queen of Russia he wrote in terms expressive of the extreme agony of his mind, and, with characteristic want of magnanimity cast the blame of the very measures he had ordered upon the agents who had merely executed his will.

“While I am writing this letter,” he said, “to your imperial majesty, my heart is filled with the most excessive grief.  I was much less touched with the advantages gained by the enemy and the news of the siege of Belgrade, than with the advice I have received concerning the shameful preliminary articles concluded by Count Neuperg.

“The history of past ages exhibits no vestiges of such an event.  I was on the point of preventing the fatal and too hasty execution of these preliminaries, when I heard that they were already partly executed, even before the design had been communicated to me.  Thus I see my hands tied by those who ought to glory in obeying me.  All who have approached me since that fatal day, are so many witnesses of the excess of my grief.  Although I have many times experienced adversity, I never was so much afflicted as by this event.  Your majesty has a right to complain of some who ought to have obeyed my orders; but I had no part in what they have done.  Though all the forces of the Ottoman empire were turned against me I was not disheartened, but still did all in my power for the common cause.  I shall not, however, fail to perform in due time what avenging justice requires.  In this dismal series of misfortunes I have still one comfort left, which is that the fault can not be thrown upon me.  It lies entirely on such of my officers as ratified the disgraceful preliminaries without my knowledge, against my consent, and even contrary to my express orders.”

This apologetic letter was followed by a circular to all the imperial ambassadors in the various courts of Europe, which circular was filled with the bitterest denunciation of Count Neuperg and Marshal Wallis.  It declared that the emperor was not in any way implicated in the shameful surrender of Belgrade.  The marshal and the count, thus assailed and held up to the scorn and execration of Europe, ventured to reply that they had strictly conformed to their instructions.  The common sense of the community taught them that, in so rigorous and punctilious a court as that of Vienna, no agent of the emperor would dare to act contrary to his received instructions.  Thus the infamous attempts of Charles to brand his officers with ignominy did but rebound upon himself.  The almost universal voice condemned the emperor and acquitted the plenipotentiaries.