Russian gold and Russian promises soon gained a powerful faction in Poland; Peter exerted himself to please.
His portrait, enriched with diamonds, was presented to the officers who had fought at Kalisz, and gold and silver medals to the soldiers; it was the Czar’s great pride to mention that these records of his first victory had been struck in his new capital.
The Diet at Lublin, however, distracted by faction and intrigue, fearful of Sweden and suspicious of the Czar, made little progress towards any settlement of the affairs of Poland; it would recognize neither Augustus nor Stanislaus, but was by no means agreed as to the man to put in the place of these monarchs. Peter, with a slowness that led his enemy into despising him, remained at Lublin watching these intrigues and training his army, his sole encounters with the enemy being skirmishes between wandering parties of Muscovites and detachments of Lewenhaupt’s Swedes in Livonia and Lithuania; a kind of warfare which ruined the wretched country without giving any advantage to either side. Meanwhile the Sapieha and Oginski, again commenced pillaging and burning, marauding friend and foe alike, causing Karl to send Stanislaus with General Rehnsköld to Poland to endeavor to reduce these disorders.
Peter, finding it impossible to maintain an army any longer in a country so ruined and desolate, and pursuing his waiting policy, left the Diet of Lublin to their deliberations and fell back on his base in Lithuania, daily strengthening his forces and filling the courts of Europe with his plaints against Karl and his demands for the return of Patkul.
This left Stanislaus sole master of Poland, and the power of Karl was at its height; his camp at Altranstadt held envoys from all the princes of Europe, seeking his favor, endeavoring to discover his plans and to gain his alliance.
In this moment Karl gave little thought to Peter, save to issue scornful orders for the suppression of his predatory bands of Tartars and Cossacks.
Karl now turned his attention to the Empire, and in revenge for a slight he thought he had received at the hands of the Emperor’s chamberlain, he demanded reparation from Joseph in the haughtiest terms, insisting not only on the banishment of the offending Count Tobar, but on that nobleman’s delivery into his own hands, and the surrender of the Muscovite refugees that had escaped over the frontier into Austria.