"I know nothing," Roger admitted, "and would be grateful for enlightenment."
"You will know at least that for the half-century preceding Gustavus's ascension of the throne, the Kings of Sweden were but puppets, entirely under the control of an oligarchy; and that in 1772, just a year after he became King, he carried out a coup d'etatby which he put a curb- upon their power and became in theory an autocratic monarch?"
"Yes, I have heard tell of that swift and bloodless revolution. For a young Prince of twenty-six, he appears to have carried it through with remarkable skill and resolution; but I thought that he had made himself abolute in fact."
She shook her head. "He has all the appearance of a despot without the actual power. His mistake lay in the new Constitution he gave Sweden, which he wrote himself. He gave his pledge that he would never alter it, and although, by it, he reassumed many of the prerogatives of the ancient monarchy, he also bound himself not to do certain things without the consent of his Riksdag. For example, he not only allowed them to retain the purse-strings of the nation but solemnly undertook not to engage in an offensive war without their agreement. To Russia the knowledge that her north-west frontier cannot be attacked without the consent of the Swedish parliament is worth an Army Corps."
"You mean because the obtaining of such an assent would give her ample warning of Sweden's hostile intentions?"
"Not only that. Russia controls the Riksdagand so could ensure its veto."
"How so, Madame?"
"You will have heard of the Caps and the Hats?" "They were the two great political parties of Sweden, were they not? But I had thought that King Gustavus abolished both on his seizure of power."
"He forbade the use of the terms, but the parties still exist. The nicknames arose, I am told, from Old Count Horn, who was Prime Minister of Sweden some sixty years ago, being dubbed a 'Night-cap' from' the sleepy, unambitious policy that he pursued. His opponents, a group of vigorous, warlike young nobles, then adopted the soubriquet'Hats' from the tricornes that they wore. In due course the Hats got the upper hand, and financed by France, made war on Russia. The war proved disastrous for Sweden and gradually the power of the Hats declined. In the meantime Russia had begun to finance the nobles of the Cap party in secret and they in turn came to power. The pendulum has oscillated a little since; but the Caps still take their orders from Petersburg, and the leading Hats are still the pensioners of France. And France, having in recent years become Russia's ally, no longer disputes her policies in the Baltic, but instructs her Swedish bondmen to dance to Russia's tune. So you see now why nine-tenths of the Swedish nobility look, not to their King, but to my father, as their suzerain."
Roger "saw" in no unmistakable fashion, and was appalled to learn that Sweden, the only possible bulwark in the north of the new Triple Alliance, was so riddled with venal treachery.
Without waiting for an answer Natalia Andxeovna added: "As for the Finns, they have long been bitterly resentful of Swedish despotism. In the event of war, Gustavus would find himself hard put to it to prevent his Finnish levies from going over to Russia, and offering to liberate their country in order that they might lay it at the feet of the Empress. Therefore, whatever ambitions Gustavus may cherish in secret, he can do little to further them at the expense of Russia, unless he is prepared to defy his Riksdag and jeopardise his crown."
It was just such intelligence of the way the Russians saw things, garnered from the highest sources, that Mr. Pitt had foreseen that Roger, in his character of a well-bred, wealthy, young idler, might be able to pick up; and as Natalia Andreovna clearly knew what she was talking about he would have liked to continue the conversation for much longer. But, rising to her feet and shaking out her wide, star-spangled skirts, she said with a smile: "And now, Monsieur, for one evening I have given you a more than fair measure of my time; so you may take me back to the ballroom, that I may dance with a few of my beaux before I go home."
Roger was too tactful to seek to detain her; but, as he escorted her upstairs he pressed her to give him an early opportunity of seeing her again, and she said that he might present himself at her salonon Thursday evening. They had hardly reached the ballroom before half-a-dozen men came up and formed a little court round her, so with one last, meaning look straight into her green eyes, he bowed himself away.
It was now past two o'clock. Queen Sophia Magdalena had already left and many of the older guests were leaving. As the party no longer held any interest for Roger he decided to go too, and, having made his adieu to his pretty hostess, he went downstairs again and had his hired coach called up to the door.
As it rumbled back towards the city he felt that he had ample cause to congratulate himself on the fruits of his first night in Sweden. In it he had accomplished more than during the whole of the fifteen days he had spent in Denmark; as the good relations he had established with the French Ambassador's wife and the Russian Ambassador's daughter could not possibly have been bettered for his purpose.
He smiled to himself a little as he thought of the familiarities he had so boldly taken with Natalia, and wondered if he would have dared to do so had he then known that she was regarded as a semi-royalty. All unknowing he had taken a big risk, for had she been of a different temperament she might have held it against him and seriously queered his pitch, but it seemed that he could hardly have played his cards better.
She had not the faintest resemblance to any other girl that he had ever met, and he could not make up his mind if he liked her or not'. She had a great opinion of herself, but not without reason, as she was unusually intelligent as well as beautiful in a strange way that was all her own. He recalled the Marquise's warning that the slim, green-eyed Russian was reputed to have a most malicious sense of humour, and his own experience of her led him to believe that when her passions were aroused she would prove extremely vicious; but he knew that he was already strongly attracted, and decided that it was, perhaps, just as well that his inclination coincided with his duty, since it was so clearly in the interests of his mission to develop his budding affaire with her.
The whole of the next day he spent in exploring the city and entering into conversation with everyone with whom he came in contact; and the opinions of the townsfolk gave him cause to moderate the view that Natalia Andreovna had given him of King Gustavus, as a monarch with little real power or prestige.
He gathered that before Gustavus's reign Sweden had been reduced to abject poverty by the misrule of several generations of rapacious nobles who had preyed upon her mercilessly; whereas, during the past sixteen years the King had brought her people both freedom and prosperity. With the aid of the banker Liljencrantz he had straightened out the appalling mess in which he found the country's finances; and with the aid of the jurist Liliestrale he had. restored both justice and the dignity of the church. He had himself impeached the two Supreme Courts before the Senate, disbenched five of the eight judges, and dismissed scores of lesser magistrates convicted of taking bribes. He had redistributed the clergy's livings and compelled the venal priests among them to live in their parishes and serve their parishioners, instead of taking their fees for doing nothing. He had reorganised the army, abolished the sale of commissions, and made merit the only road to promotion.
The latter step was one of the causes of the hostility with which the nobles regarded him, but their main grievance was that, having robbed their Estate of much of its former power, they could no longer sell their votes on domestic matters to the highest bidder, which venality had previously been one of their main sources of income.
The King, it emerged, was a great lover of the spectacular and also of the theatre. Some people resented the large sums he spent on display, and his purchase of a magnificent collection of art treasures from all parts of Europe; but most were of the opinion that the former was compensated for by the resulting free entertainments and that the latter redounded to the glory of their country.
The only matter in which Gustavus had
seriously jeopardised his popularity with the masses was in the taxation of spirits. Formerly it had been an age-old right for everyone to distil whatever they required for their own consumption, and the bare idea of taxing liquor raised a most frightful outcry. Troops had to be employed to collect the tax, and, on even this proving ineffective, the King had sought to turn the manufacture into a royal monopoly by ordering the destruction of all private stills and erecting large distilleries of his own. Riots had ensued, and the indignant mob burnt down several of the royal distilleries, so the King had endeavoured to sell the monopoly to the Government, but without success, and the struggle still continued.
Apart from this grievance, Roger formed the opinion that the great mass of the people was solidly behind their King. Moreover, they both hated and feared the Russians, and since they still regarded the Baltic provinces as the rightful property of the Swedish crown, were quite prepared to support Gustavus in a war aimed at retrieving this portion of their old empire.
Next morning Roger drove out to the French Embassy, and at breakfast there was introduced by the Ambassador to several gentlemen, most of whom were Swedes. Among them was Count Hans Axel af Fersan, a great Francophile, who openly avowed that when he had been a visitor at the Court of Versailles he had fallen in love with Queen Marie Antoinette. He and Roger took an immediate liking to one another and on Roger's side, although he was in no situation to acknowledge it, the bond was strengthened by the discovery that they were both partially of Scots descent; since his mother had been a McElfic and the daughter of the Eail of Kildonan, while the af Fersans were a branch of the Macpherson clan which had settled in Sweden many years before.
The name of Count Axel af Fersan was already known to Roger, from his talks with various people on the previous day, as that of a prominent Swedish statesman who was the leader of the Hat party and one of the King's most bitter opponents in the Riksdag; but he felt that his new acquaintance could hardly be old enough to have played a leading part in Swedish politics for any length of time, and on his tactful inquiry the Count burst out laughing.
"Nay, nay, my friend!" he declared with a shake of his head. "You are confusing me with my revered senior Count Fredrik, who was already a great figure in Sweden before I was born. And, being of a j younger generation, I do not share the prejudices against the King which still rankle among the older nobility. In fact I think that many of the reforms he has introduced were long overdue, and in some ways I have a considerable admiration for him."
Roger smiled. "I notice, Count, that you qualify your last statement. Would it be indiscreet to inquire the traits that you admire in him and those you do not?"
"Since he has given us a free press and the right of free speech I will do so willingly," Count Hans smiled back. "Being a normal man myself, to whom the vices of the Greeks have never made any appeal, I regard his private life as most unsavoury; and his character leaves much to be desired. Mayhap 'tis due to the manner in which he was brought up, with his person surrounded by people whom he could only regard as spies and enemies, that is to blame; but he is so secretive and deceitful that it would be difficult to find his equal as a liar. On the other hand he is a man of great attainments, high courage and prodigious brain. As a lad he was extraordinarily precocious, with a vivid imagination and most retentive memory. He had only to see a play to absorb the whole content of it; and his attendants declare that on dressing the following day he would solemnly declaim the longest speeches to which he had listened, without fault. Before he was twenty-five he had read every important book of which French literature can boast, and among others, acquired a mastery of the barbarous ^ Swedish tongue. He was- the first monarch capable of addressing his people in their own language that we have had for generations; and, even in the age when oratory has again become a great art, he is among the finest orators in all Europe. He is an arch-plotter but capable, resolute and brave. His greatest merit, to my mind, is his intense love of his country, and 'tis that which attaches me to him more than anything else."
To Roger's annoyance their host interrupted the conversation at that moment to inquire as to the length of his stay in Sweden. He returned an evasive answer, and then became involved in general talk; as several of the gentlemen present, including Count Hans, asked him to call upon them and offered to show him some of the beauties of their country.
When he was about to leave, the black-clad major-domo came up to him and said that Madame la Marquise hoped that his engagements were not so pressing that he would fail to wait upon her in her boudoir before returning to the city; so he willingly allowed himself to be conducted upstairs.
During his short stay in Sweden Roger had already been struck with the individuality of the house furniture. It was nearly all of natural unpolished wood or else painted white and decorated with scrolls of flowers in the gayest colours; but Madame de Pons' boudoir was a little oasis of Versailles set down in this far-northern country. Its cabinets, chairs and occasional tables, were of highly polished and elaborately inlaid satin-wood, a Buhl clock adorned the mantel and pictures by Boucher and Fragonard hung in the satin-covered panels of the walls. It was the perfect setting for its elegant owner.
She made Roger sit down and tell her all about himself, then she discoursed a little plaintively on the hard lot of a diplomat's wife, separated for years on end from her family and friends. Roger learned that her name was Angelique, which he thought very pretty; and that before coming to Sweden she and her husband had been stationed in Berlin. She greatly preferred Stockholm to the Prussian capital, as there were many more entertainments at King Gustavus's court than there had been at that of the mean, cantankerous Frederick the Great, who had ruled from his bleak, barrack-like town of Potsdam until his death twenty-one months ago. But, even so, she hankered sadly after the super-civilised delights of her own country.
Roger sought to console her and by gentle stages introduced a flirtatious note into his conversation; then he moved swiftly over to the tapestry-covered sofa on which she sat, took her hand, and lightly kissed her cheek.
She let her hand remain in his but drew her head away with a laugh. "You silly boy. What made you think I wanted you to do that?"
" 'Twas mere selfishness," he declared. "And for my own gratification. You are the most charming person in all Sweden and my thoughts have been full of you ever since we danced together."
"Then you had best find some other image to enshrine in your mind; for I warn you that you will derive little profit from thinking of me other than as a friend."
"I'll not believe it," he cried, pressing his attack; but she pushed him firmly from her and said seriously.
"I mean it, Monsieur. Your ardour is a charming compliment, but if you were older you would realise that appearances are often deceptive. I hope I do not look it, but I am near old enough to be your mother."
"Nay, 'tis impossible," Roger protested. "I'll vow you're not a day over twenty-six."
"I am thirty-one,""she told him with a little grimace.
"Well, what of it? 'Tis truly said that a woman is as old as she looks and a man is as old as he feels. I rate you as twenty-six and, if you'll let me, I'll show you that I have as much experience as most men of thirty."
"You delightful child," she rallied him. "If I were ten years younger I'd be tempted to make trial of you; but the question of age apart; I, like the Queen, feel that any woman who holds a public position owes it to France to set a standard; so I am faithful to my husband."
Roger felt certain from her tone and glance that she was not seeking to set a higher value on surrendering to him later, but really meant what she said; and as deliberate virtue was so rarely to be found in a woman of her class at that time, he admired her for it.
After a moment he said: "I would that you were ten years younger, then; or at least not the wife of France's representative. But from what you say Queen Sophia Magdalena must be a puritan indeed, for if any woman had good cause to take a lover, it seems, from wh
at I hear, that 'tis she."
"Nay, I was speaking of Queen Marie Antoinette," replied the Marquise quickly. "As for the other, her case is very different; and from my heart I pity any woman who is forced to take a lover against her will."
."What mean you, Madame!" exclaimed Roger in surprise.
Angelique de Pons' blue eyes were grave as she said: "Since you appear not to know her situation 'tis well that I should put you au faitwith it; for knowledge of it may prevent you from making some unfortunate faux paswhen in Swedish society. There is good reason to suppose that King Gustavus has never co-habited with his Queen."
"I had heard that he was no constant votary to the goddess Venus," Roger remarked, "but had supposed. . . . Surely you do not mean that the young Crown Prince, and the Queen's little daughter, born more recently. . . ?"
The Marquise shrugged her plump shoulders. "Alas, 'tis the fact. Quite soon after their marriage Gustavus endeavoured to persuade his wretched bride to take one of his friends as a lover, in order that she might provide him with an heir; but he met with a most indignant refusal. He ceased then from his vile proposals and for eleven years they lived apart. But it seems that a time came when he realised that if he allowed many more years to pass she might not be able to give him an heir at all, and he again attempted to persuade her to take a lover. She still resisted but, finding that her scruples were mainly of a religious nature, he finally gained her consent to an arrangement whereby he divorced her in secret and with equal secrecy she was remarried to his friend Major Muncke."
"Then the heir to the Swedish throne has no legal title to it."
"None; but there is every reason to suppose that he will succeed; since Gustavus disguised the whole affair from the common people with his usual cunning. Everyone knew that he and his Queen had been estranged for many years, so he stage-managed a grand reconciliation in '77, the year before the Crown Prince was born. But all the nobility saw through the imposture and the old Dowager-Queen, Louisa Ulrica, publicly refused to acknowledge the child as her grand-son.
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