Karl XIII being childless and ailing, the next order of business, inevitably, was to decide on his successor. The choice of a crown prince was made all the more difficult by the fact that the Riksdag had voted, to my great dismay, to permanently ban Gustav Adolf’s descendants from the throne. (As head of the “Gustavian” party, the faction that wished for a continuation of Gustavus’s lineage, I was incensed by that ruling, being in favor of Gustav Adolf’s young son, Gustav, being chosen as crown prince.) Shortly after the coronation, Adlersparre proposed that Prince Christian August of Augustenberg, viceroy and governor of Norway, a distant descendant of Swedish royalty, be named crown prince, and the Riksdag acceded to that suggestion. It was hoped that Christian August would enjoin Norway to unite with Sweden, an ambition of Gustavus’s that had never been realized. The new crown prince—he would be renamed Karl August to make his name sound less foreign—arrived in Sweden in January of 1809. He was officially welcomed at Göteborg by my brother, Fabian, chairman of the State Banking Commission; I welcomed him to Drottningholm Palace, upon which occasion I addressed him in French, as was habitual in the aristocracy. The prince replied that he knew Swedish and would prefer to speak it, which led to a bad start in our relations.
Crown Prince Karl August would not be popular with the nobility. Small and fat, very ugly, with a short, thick neck and a face heavily marked with smallpox, he habitually locked himself up in his study instead of frequenting salons or theaters. Always modestly, if not frugally, dressed, whenever he went out he visited welfare institutions, homes for the aged, orphanages. Nervous and melancholy, he never gave or attended court dinners, and spent most of his time doing good works. And although he was a heavy drinker—an addiction that would perhaps contribute to his early death—he had a pronounced aversion, much like Gustav Adolf, to most kinds of luxury. However unpopular with aristocrats, many of whom referred to him as “Prince of the Mob,” he grew to be greatly beloved by the citizenry, and by King Karl himself: his simple, affable manners led the public to look on him as their protector against the privileged few. It was soon clear to me that Karl August, with his distaste for aristocrats, would have little tolerance for our family, the foremost representatives of the Gustavian nobility; and that like the public at large he would look on our formality and reserve as arrogance and cynicism. In fact Sophie and I would soon hear that Karl August described us, the Fersens, as “a survival from a bygone era, refined on the surface although fundamentally barbaric and unchristian.” Gode Gud, what a judgment! We indeed came from “a bygone era”, but in what sense, my sister and I wondered, could we be considered “barbaric”? It was clear that we were now looked on as outcasts.
Less than eighteen months after his arrival, on May 28, 1810, as he was reviewing troops in the southern province of Scania, Crown Prince Karl August suddenly grew unsteady on his saddle, and fell off his horse, unconscious. Notwithstanding the care offered by his physician, Dr. Rossi, who had been traveling with him, he died a half hour later. Rossi called in professors from the nearest city, Lund, who performed an autopsy, and diagnosed that the prince had died of apoplexy.
Stockholm’s citizens were grief-stricken by news of the popular prince’s death, and rumors instantly arose that he had been poisoned. “A bleak cloud hung over the capital,” as one witness put it; “all faces were desolate and somber…. It is as if everyone had lost a close relative, a dear friend.”
I was then at Löfstad, and upon hearing the news, I decided to stay there. According to the daily reports I received from friends, the doctors’ diagnosis of apoplexy did not appease the crowds, who seemed determined to believe that the crown prince had been poisoned. Mind you, accusations of poisoning all too frequently arose when eminent persons died premature deaths. Whenever a distinguished member of the Riksdag died, an autopsy was habitually ordered to decide whether there had been foul play. Karl XIII himself had feared that Danish officials had intended to poison him. Shortly before the crown prince arrived in Sweden, a member of the Riksdag had suggested that there was a Gustavian plot to poison him before he reached Stockholm. Moreover, Crown Prince Karl August had been in frail health long before he arrived in Sweden, and suffered from vertigo. As soon as he settled in Stockholm his frequent illnesses incited many rumors of attempted poisonings. Such accusations focused on such Gustavian families as the de la Gardies, and on my old friend Armfelt. And upon the crown prince’s death they centered all the more onerously on us, the Fersens, because the de la Gardies and Armfelt had not been in Stockholm at the time of Karl August’s death.
I WRITE THESE reflections three weeks after the crown prince’s demise, on the evening of June 19, the eve of the ritual that will commemorate the reception of the prince’s body in Stockholm. In view of the hostility borne to the Fersens by the capital’s bourgeoisie, who control the Swedish press, it is inevitable that our own family would be suspected of having poisoned Karl August. My sister Sophie has been particularly singled out as a culprit. As a powerful, highly intelligent woman who is the closest lifelong friend of Queen Charlotte, Karl XIII’s wife, and is said to wield great influence over her, she is very unpopular among Stockholm’s citizens. As one prominent member of the Riksdag put it, Sophie stands “high on the lists of intrigue,” and the king himself recently described her as “a big devil.” Moreover, she had earlier been suspected of having plotted the murder of her husband, Count Piper, and of poisoning her lover, Evert Taube (I’ve already mentioned that absurd charge), because he was leaving her his considerable fortune.
It should also be noted that several of the king’s councilors are convinced of the Fersens’ guilt. King Karl XIII himself believes that the murderer of his “beloved son” came from the high nobility. Instead of letting Dr. Rossi’s diagnosis stand, he has sent two other eminent professors to Scania to inquire further into the cause of the crown prince’s death. These doctors, while confirming Rossi’s diagnosis of apoplexy, have criticized some of the methods employed by their colleague. The rumors of foul play that are currently spreading through Stockholm have been amplified by the fact that Italians have always been looked on as specialists in poisons. And suspicions of the Fersens are all the more widespread because Dr. Rossi is a protégé of our family, who had procured him his position as court doctor.
Pamphlets, broadside, leaflets, have begun to circulate in the past weeks. “Papers scattered every night in the streets of the city are calling the Swedes to vengeance,” the French ambassador recently related; “accusations are being made against the Fersens and their friend the queen; the police are on constant guard.” One particular leaflet, addressed to “The People, Karl August’s Avengers,” calls for a general uprising in which “blood must flow.” Referring to our family palace, another pamphlet calls for revenge against “the highly distinguished monstrosities in Blasieholmen.” Yet another warns that “certain high and distinguished persons” intended to poison the crown prince, the first among whom was “the haughty Count Fersen” and his “unscrupulous” sister.
So this is the threatening atmosphere of suspicion and intrigue that pervades Stockholm on June 19, even as I write. Tomorrow I shall have to take my place as grand marshal in the ritual cortege that will solemnize the arrival of the dead prince’s body in the capital. Warnings of impending trouble have already reached me in Löfstad. I was made all the more aware of Emelie De Geer’s affection for me yesterday, when she urged me not to leave for Stockholm for the crown prince’s observance. Emphasizing reports of impending violence, she begged me to plead illness, and wept bitterly when I replied that as grand marshal it would be unthinkable for me not to take my place in the cortege. How she clung to me when I left for the city!
Earlier this afternoon, once arrived in Stockholm, I received a visit from my predecessor in the post of grand marshal, Count J. Oxenstierna, a fine poet and splendid man, who also implored me to stay home the following morning, and even offered to go in my place. To him I replied that I could not afford to confi
rm the suspicions held against me, and that proper measures were surely being taken to protect all officials. Yet a desire to reassure myself on that score incited me to go to the Haga Palace earlier tonight to see the king. Upon arriving and asking a courtier to announce my visit to the monarch I was told that King Karl did not have time to receive me. I asked the courtier to try again, explaining that I needed some more detailed instructions concerning the procedure of the crown prince’s funeral cortege. The courtier returned and in an uneasy tone said, “His Majesty has so much to do that it is impossible for him to see Your Excellency.” I was shocked—for the king not to have time for his grand marshal! But I bowed to the ladies gathered in the antechamber and conversed pleasantly with them to allay the embarrassment this incident might bring me. I bore in mind a rather offensive statement, repeated to me by a courtier, that the king had made about me in recent days: “It would not hurt if that haughty lord were taught a lesson.”
Earlier tonight, after my return from the palace, Sophie and I gave a superb supper at Blasieholmen—“worthy of a king,” as one guest told me. In the midst of the meal it occurred to me that the occasion might be ill-chosen: the sight of our brightly lit palace, on the eve of an event dedicated to the dead crown prince, could offend some Stockholmers. Seeing the frugality of the court, and our nation’s piteous financial straits, Sophie and I have been as frequently criticized for our lavish ways as for our meticulous avoidance of the ascending bourgeoisie. But do I really care? Entertaining friends is one of my favorite pleasures; it is the surest remedy for my depressions, which in the past few years have become greatly aggravated.
How heavy are my thoughts as I prepare for bed tonight! The following morning, June 20, will be the nineteenth anniversary, to the day, of the flight to Varennes, that ill-fated venture through which I had hoped to save the life of my one great love. I have no fears whatever concerning the alarming predictions for the following day’s events. I am only sorrowing for the failure of Varennes, and remembering with longing the only true happiness life has brought me—the love Toinette and I had for each other. Had she not been the one who designated me as “Le Chevalier Sans Peur et Sans Reproche”?
CHAPTER 15
Sophie:
JUNE 20, 1810
OH, IF ONLY I’d been at his side that day, if only I’d taken more seriously the threats of violence spreading throughout the city, if only, if only—my beloved Axel might have been safe.
On the morning of the twentieth, as Axel was about to depart from our home, Blasieholmen, to attend the crown prince’s cortege, our old coachman—a man who had been with us since our childhood, who like all our domestics adored Axel—implored him to not leave home.
“It’s predicted that there’s going to be much violence, Your Excellency,” I heard the old man say. “Please, please don’t leave the palace.”
“If you’re afraid of driving me, dear Johan, I’ll find another coachman,” Axel replied. “But I must go.”
We parted at 9 a.m. Axel went on to breakfast with General Suremain, an officer of French descent and one of our highest-ranking military leaders. Suremain would relate that Axel was as composed as ever on that occasion, “showing the calm of a man whose conscience is pure and who is disturbed by no fears.” Yet I later learned that my brother was carrying, in his jacket, one of those threatening anonymous letters that had been circulating in Stockholm since the crown prince’s death.
“To Axel Fersen. Wretch. Read this letter and tremble. Do you and your clique believe that 2 million people will permit some aristocrats to let the horrors they commit go unpunished, that they will allow themselves to be trampled by conspiring traitors; shall this unhappy land eternally remain under the oppression of audacious violent men?…The hour of retribution will come! Even though your abominable father the proud aristocrat succeeded in his game…even though your long neck…escaped the guillotine in France…will this ancient realm gradually lose its independent existence among the nations of Europe through the faithlessness, infamy, and treason of its nobles?…Despicable creature, when you come into the city in all your presumed greatness and pomp, know that the lowest peasant spits on you and feels himself to be a greater man than you, arrogant wretch!…Know that this letter is the voice of the public…. Karl August will be avenged.”
RIDING OUT INTO the city early that morning to do some errands, I noticed unusual situations: taverns were giving away free beer and schnapps; brewers’ carts stood all around the city, supplementing the already large amount of ready liquor; officials were distributing money to some of the poorer and rougher-looking citizens.
The crown prince’s hearse had entered the city through its southwestern district, and that is where the cortege began, among hundreds of glum, mournful citizens. The procession set forth at half past noon. Ringing of church bells, firing of many cannons. At the head of the cortege rode General Silfversparre, surrounded by horse guards, followed by the carriages of various officials, among them my brother, Fabian’s. Then came Axel’s coach, followed by the crown prince’s hearse. No member of the royal family was present, the king being at Haga attending a council meeting. The Stockholm civil guard was nowhere to be seen, and police troops were equally absent. General Skjöldebrand, another eminent career officer, wrote the following description of my brother’s carriage:
“It was a magnificent old-fashioned state coach drawn by six white horses with morocco harnesses, richly ornamented with gilded bronze. On either side of the coach walked lackeys in opulently trimmed liveries. Fersen himself sat in the coach dressed in mourning clothes, with the grand marshal’s staff in his hand, and after him came the hearse covered with a simple black canopy, dusty after the journey and without ornament…. The splendor in which the grand marshal rode made an unpleasant contrast to the simplicity of the hearse…. He looked like a triumphant conqueror dragging behind him a defeated foe.”
Well, yes, sure, how many times have I heard of our taste for luxury and ostentation, our love for pomp and pageantry. Axel was grand marshal; his finery was following prescribed court ritual. But on this particular occasion he may have overdone it, may have been tragically out of touch with the mind-set of Stockholm’s people. In the southern area of Stockholm, the crowd is said to have remained sullen, inimical in its silence as his cortege passed by. But as it crossed the bridge into the Old City, on its way to the Royal Palace, the populace grew increasingly menacing and aggressive toward my brother. And at the entrance to Stora Nygatan, a narrow street lined with centuries-old buildings that is the heart of ancient Stockholm, the large, vile mob that had assembled there was armed with rocks and logs. They began to attack Axel’s coach as soon as it entered the street. Stora Nygatan is less than a dozen yards wide, so the troops at either end of the cortege had no way of seeing what was happening to my brother. Within a few minutes the coachman and Axel were grievously wounded by the attacks. One witness, a visiting professor from Copenhagen, saw my poor brother in his carriage “pale as death, in the most frightful state of fear and distress.” He had knelt down on the floor of his coach, according to this witness, attempting to protect himself from the assaults by covering himself with his cloak. From a narrow side alley a group of men surged toward Axel’s horses and unharnessed them.
A Danish officer was standing in front of 1 Stora Nygatan, at the street corner that faces Riddarhus, the House of the Nobility. Axel opened the door of his carriage and cried out to him, “For the love of Christ, save me!” The Dane put his arm around Axel and hurriedly accompanied him to the second floor of the building, which was a popular tavern, thinking he would find safety there. But the customers, more than a hundred of them, mostly of the middle class, instantly recognized Axel; and, urged on by a French-born actor called Lambert, they greeted him with jeers and insults. He was not only accused of being the crown prince’s murderer; others denounced him for “conspiring against liberty in Sweden as he had in France”; yet others, absurdly, for being responsible for Gusta
vus III’s death. Axel replied that he was innocent and demanded to be judged in a courtroom. In the street below the tavern the mob had tripled in size and grown equally abusive, shouting, “Death to the grand marquis! Fersen to hell!” Axel attempted to seek refuge in a back room of the tavern but that also was instantly filled with crowds of wretchedly belligerent men. As the tavern’s customers grew increasingly hostile Axel was stripped of his coat and his sword, and most of his decorations were thrown out of the window to the populace below.
At this moment General Skjöldebrand was riding toward the Royal Palace to wait for the cortege’s arrival. He saw the grand marshal’s coach pass by, empty, all its windows broken, its walls and roof in shambles. Having heard that Count von Fersen was being held in a house on Stora Nygatan, he rushed toward that street. In front of the tavern’s entrance he saw General Silfversparre surrounded by a group of citizens vociferating attacks against “that bastard Fersen.” “Calm yourselves,” Silfversparre was saying, “calm yourselves. Criminals must be judged legally.” General Suremain urged Silfversparre to summon troops to quell the increasingly hostile mob; but that villainous Silfversparre—I hold him accountable—dismissed Suremain’s fears, said all would be safe, and entered the tavern. Suremain jumped on his horse and galloped toward Haga to report the events to the king.
General Skjöldebrand tried to get a nearby battalion to restore order, but its commander replied that he had been given no orders to deal with the crowd, and those troops soon disappeared.
As for the despicable Silfversparre, once in the tavern, he asked the customers what their intentions were toward Fersen. They replied that he should be arrested. Silfversparre offered to take him to the palace. “Oh no, no, he’d be released,” the drinkers cried out, led by a Finnish-born seaman, Otto Tandefelt. “Take him to the city hall,” Tandefelt and the others shouted, “or a criminal prison.” The customers roared their approval of this last suggestion. The general agreed to bring Axel to the city hall if the citizens in the tavern promised not to attack him. Going to the tavern window, Silfversparre then announced that decision to the crowd below, but many of the rabble protested that Axel would never be brought to justice, and requested that he be instantly thrown out of the window.
The Queen’s Lover Page 28
