CHAP XXII.

1809-1810.

Bernadotte elected Prince Royal of Sweden—­Count Wrede’s overtures to Bernadotte—­Bernadottes’s three days’ visit to Hamburg—­ Particulars respecting the battle of Wagram—­Secret Order of the day—­Last intercourse of the Prince Royal of Sweden with Napoleon—­ My advice to Bernadotte respecting the Continental system.

I now come to one of the periods of my life to which I look back with most satisfaction, the time when Bernadotte was with me in Hamburg.  I will briefly relate the series of events which led the opposer of the 18th Brumaire to the throne of Sweden.

On the 13th of march 1809 Gustavus Adolphus was arrested, and his uncle, the Duke of Sudermania, provisionally took the reins of Government.  A few days afterwards Gustavus published his act of abdication, which in the state of Sweden it was impossible for him to refuse.  In May following, the Swedish Diet having been convoked at Stockholm, the Duke of Sudermania was elected King.  Christian Augustus, the only son of that monarch, of course became Prince Royal on the accession of his father to the throne.  He, however, died suddenly at the end of May 1810, and Count Fersen (the same who at the Court of Marie Antoinette was distinguished by the appellation of ’le beau Fersen’), was massacred by the populace, who suspected, perhaps unjustly, that he had been accessory to the Prince’s death.

—­[Count Fereen, alleged to have been one of the favoured lovers of Marie Antoinette, and who was certainly deep in her confidence, had arranged most of the details of the attempted flight to Varennes in 1791, and he himself drove the Royal family their first stage to the gates of Paris.]—­

On the 21st of August following Bernadotte was elected Prince Royal of Sweden.

After the death of the Prince Royal the Duke of Sudermania’s son, Count Wrede, a Swede, made the first overtures to Bernadotte, and announced to him the intention entertained at Stockholm of offering him the throne of Sweden.  Bernadotte was at that time in Paris, and immediately after his first interview with Count Wrede he waited on the Emperor at St. Cloud; Napoleon coolly replied that he could be of no service to him; that events must take their course; that he might accept or refuse the offer as he chose; that he (Bonaparte) would place no obstacles in his way, but that he could give him no advice.  It was very evident that the choice of Sweden was not very agreeable to Bonaparte, and though he afterwards disavowed any opposition to it, he made overtures to Stockholm, proposing that the crown of Sweden should be added to that of Denmark.

Bernadotte then went to the waters of Plombieres, and on his return to Paris he sent me a letter announcing his elevation to the rank of Prince Royal of Sweden.