Bernadotte, who succeeded Mortier in the command of our army in Hanover, is a man of a different stamp.  His father was a chair-man, and he was born at Paris in 1763.  In 1779 he enlisted in the regiment called La Vieille Harine, where the Revolution found him a sergeant.  This regiment was then quartered at Toulon, and the emissaries of anarchy and licentiousness engaged him as one of their agents.  His activity soon destroyed all discipline, and the troops, instead of attending to their military duty, followed him to the debates and discussions of the Jacobin clubs.  Being arrested and ordered to be tried for his mutinous, scandalous behaviour, an insurrection liberated him, and forced his accusers to save their lives by flight.  In April, 1790, he headed the banditti who murdered the Governor of the Fort St. Jean at Marseilles, and who afterwards occasioned the Civil War in Comtat Venaigin, where he served under Jourdan, known by the name of Coup-tell, or cut-throat, who made him a colonel and his aide-de-camp.  In 1794, he was employed, as a general of brigade, in the army of the Sambre and Meuse; and during the campaigns of 1795 and 1796, he served under another Jourdan, the general, without much distinction,—­except that he was accused by him of being the cause of all the disasters of the last campaign, by the complete rout he suffered near Neumark on the 23d of August, 1796.  His division was ordered to Italy in 1797, where, against the laws of nations, he arrested M. d’ Antraigues, who was attached to the Russian legation.  When the Russian Ambassador tried to dissuade him from committing this injustice, and this violation of the rights of privileged persons, he replied:  “There is no question here of any other right or justice than the right and justice of power, and I am here the strongest.  M. d’Antraigues is our enemy; were he victorious, he would cause us all to be shot.  I repeat, I am here the strongest, ’et nous verrons’.”

After the Peace of Campo Formio, Bernadotte was sent as an Ambassador to the Court of Vienna, accompanied by a numerous escort of Jacobin propagators.  Having procured the liberty of Austrian patriots, whose lives, forfeit to the law, the lenity of the Cabinet of Vienna had spared, he thought that he might attempt anything; and, therefore, on the anniversary day of the fete for the levy en masse of the inhabitants of the capital, he insulted the feelings of the loyal, and excited the discontented to rebellion, by placing over the door and in the windows of his house the tri-coloured flag.  This outrage the Emperor was unable to prevent his subjects from resenting.  Bernadotte’s house was invaded, his furniture broken to pieces, and he was forced to save himself at the house of the Spanish Ambassador.  As a satisfaction for this attack, provoked by his own insolence, he demanded the immediate dismissal of the Austrian Minister, Baron Thugut, and threatened, in case of refusal, to leave Vienna, which he did on the next day.  So disgraceful was his conduct regarded, even by the Directory, that this event made but little impression, and no alteration in the continuance of their intercourse with the Austrian Government.