PARIS, September, 1805.
MY LORD:--No Sovereign Prince has more incurred the hatred of Bonaparte
than the present King of Sweden; and I have heard from good authority
that our Government spares neither bribes nor intrigues to move the tails
of those factions which were dissolved, but not crushed, after the murder
of Gustavus III. The Swedes are generally brave and loyal, but their
history bears witness that they are easily misled; all their grand
achievements are their own, and the consequence of their national spirit
and national valour, while all their disasters have been effected by the
influence of foreign gold and of foreign machinations. Had they not been
the dupes of the plots and views of the Cabinets of Versailles and St.
Petersburg, their country might have been as powerful in the nineteenth
century as it was in the seventeenth.
That Gustavus IV. both knew the danger of Europe, and indicated the
remedy, His Majesty’s notes, as soon as he came of age, presented by the
able and loyal Minister Bildt to the Diet of Ratisbon, evince. Had they
been more attended to during 1798 and 1799, Bonaparte would not, perhaps,
have now been so great, but the Continent would have remained more free
and more independent. They were the first causes of our Emperor’s
official anger against the Cabinet of Stockholm.
When, however, His Swedish Majesty entered into the Northern league, his
Ambassador, Baron Ehrensward, was for some time treated with no insults
distinct or different from those to which all foreign diplomatic agents
have been accustomed during the present reign; but when he demanded
reparation for the piracies committed during the last war by our
privateers on the commerce of his nation, the tone was changed; and when
his Sovereign, in 1803, was on a visit to his father-in-law, the Elector
of Baden, and there preferred the agreeable company of the unfortunate
Duc d’Enghien to the society of our Minister, Baron Ehrensward never
entered Napoleon’s diplomatic circle or Madame Napoleon’s drawing-room
without hearing rebukes and experiencing disgusts. One day, when more
than usually attacked, he said, on leaving the apartment, to another
Ambassador, and in the hearing of Duroc, “that it required more real
courage to encounter with dignity and self-command unbecoming
provocations, which the person who gave them knew could not be resented,
than to brave a death which the mouths of cannon vomit or the points of
bayonets inflict.” Duroc reported to his master what he heard, and but
for Talleyrand’s interference, the Swedish Ambassador would, on the same
night, have been lodged in the Temple. Orders were already given to that
purpose, but were revoked.
This Baron Ehrensward, who is also a general in the service of his
country, has almost from his youth passed his time at Courts; first in
his own country, and afterwards in Spain, where he resided twelve years
as our Ambassador. Frank as a soldier, but also polite as a courtier, he
was not a little surprised at the new etiquette of our new court, and at
the endurance of all the members of the diplomatic corps, of whom hardly
one had spirit enough to remember that he was the representative of one,
at least nominally, independent Prince or State. It must be added that
he was the only foreign diplomatist, with Count Markof, who was not the
choice of our Cabinet, and, therefore, was not in our secrets.
As soon as His Swedish Majesty heard of the unexpected and unlawful
seizure of the Duc d’Enghien, he wrote a letter with his own hand to
Bonaparte, which he sent by his adjutant-general, Tawast; but this
officer arrived too late, and only in time to hear of the execution of
the Prince he intended to save, and the indecent expressions of Napoleon
when acquainted with the object of his mission. Baron Ehrensward was
then recalled, and a Court mourning was proclaimed by Gustavus IV., as
well as by Alexander the First, for the lamented victim of the violated
laws of nations and humanity. This so, enraged our ruler that General
Caulincourt (the same who commanded the expedition which crossed the
Rhine and captured the Duc d’ Enghien) was engaged to head and lead fifty
other banditti, who were destined to pass in disguise into Baden, and to
bring the King of Sweden a prisoner to this capital. Fortunately, His
Majesty had some suspicion of the attempt, and removed to a greater
distance from our frontiers than Carlsruhe. So certain was our
Government of the success of this shameful enterprise, that our charge
d’affaires in Sweden was preparing to engage the discontented and
disaffected there for the convocation of a diet and the establishment of
a regency.
According to the report in our diplomatic circle. Bonaparte and
Talleyrand intended nevermore to, release their royal captive when once
in their power; but, after forcing him to resign the throne to his son,
keep him a prisoner for the remainder of his days, which they would have
taken care should not have been long. The Duke of Sudermania was to have
been nominated a regent until the majority of the young King, not yet six
years of age. The Swedish diets were to recover that influence, or,
rather, that licentiousness, to which Gustavus III., by the revolution of
the 19th of August, 1772, put an end. All exiled regicides, or traitors,
were to be recalled, and a revolutionary focus organized in the North,
equally threatening Russia and Denmark. The dreadful consequences of
such an event are incalculable. Thanks to the prudence of His Swedish
Majesty, all these schemes evaporated in air.
Not being able to dethrone a Swedish Monarch, our Cabinet resolved to
partition the Swedish territory, to which effect I am assured that
proposals were last summer made to the Cabinets of St. Petersburg,
Berlin, and Copenhagen. Swedish Finland was stated to have been offered
to Russia, Swedish Pomerania to Prussia, and Scania and Blekinge to
Denmark; but the overture was rejected.
The King of Sweden possesses both talents and information superior to
most of his contemporaries, and he has surrounded himself with
counsellors who, with their experience, make wisdom more firm, more
useful, and more valuable. His chancellor, D’Ehrenheim, unites modesty
with sagacity; he is a most able statesman, an accomplished gentleman,
and the most agreeable of men. He knows the languages, as well as the
constitutions, of every country in Europe, with equal perfection as his
native tongue and national code. Had his Sovereign the same ascendency
over the European politics as Christina had during the negotiation of the
Treaty of Munster, other States would admire, and Sweden be proud of,
another Axel Oxenstiern.
Count Fersen, who also has, and is worthy of, the confidence of his
Prince, is a nobleman, the honour and pride of his rank. A colonel
before the Revolution of the regiment Royal Suedois, in the service of my
country, his principles were so well appreciated that he was entrusted by
Louis XVI. and Marie Antoinette, when so many were so justly suspected,
and served royalty in distress, at the risk of his own existence. This
was so much the more generous in him as he was a foreigner, of one of the
most ancient families, and one of the richest noblemen in his own
country. To him Louis XVIII. is indebted for his life; and he brought
consolation to the deserted Marie Antoinette even in the dungeon of the
Conciergerie, when a discovery would have been a sentence of death. In
1797, he was appointed by his King plenipotentiary to the Congress of
Rastadt, and arrived there just at the time when Bonaparte, after the
destruction of happiness in Italy, had resolved on the ruin of liberty in
Switzerland, and came there proud of past exploits and big with future
schemes of mischief. His reception from the conquerer of Italy was such
as might have been expected by distinguished loyalty from successful
rebellion. He was told that the Congress of Rastadt was not his place!
and this was true; for what can be common between honour and infamy,
between virtue and vice? On his return to Sweden, Count Fersen was
rewarded with the dignity of a Grand Officer of State.
Of another faithful and trusty counsellor of His Swedish Majesty, Baron
d’Armfeldt, a panegyric would be pronounced in saying that he was the
friend of Gustavus III. From a page to that chevalier of royalty he was
advanced to the rank of general; and during the war with Russia, in 1789
and 1790, he fought and bled by the side of his Prince and benefactor. It
was to him that his King said, when wounded mortally, by the hand of a
regicide, at a masquerade in March, 1792, “Don’t be alarmed, my friend.
You know as well as myself that all wounds are not dangerous.”
Unfortunately, his were not of that description.
In the will of this great Monarch, Baron d’Armfeldt was nominated one of
the guardians of his present Sovereign, and a governor of the capital;
but the Duke Regent, who was a weak Prince, guided by philosophical
adventurers, by Illuminati and Freemasons, most of whom had imbibed the
French revolutionary maxims, sent him, in a kind of honourable exile, as
an Ambassador to Italy. Shortly afterwards, under pretence of having
discovered a conspiracy, in which the Baron was implicated, he was
outlawed. He then took refuge in Russia, where he was made a general,
and as such distinguished him self under Suwarow during the campaign of
1799. He was then recalled to his country, and restored to all his
former places and dignities, and has never since ceased to merit and
obtain the favour, friendship, and approbation of his King. He is said
to be one of the Swedish general officers intended to serve in union with
the Russian troops expected in Pomerania. Wherever he is employed, I am
convinced that he will fight, vanquish, or perish like a hero. Last
spring he was offered the place of a lieutenant-general in the Austrian
service, which, with regard to salary and emoluments, is greatly superior
to what he enjoys in Sweden; he declined it, however, because, with a
warrior of his stamp, interest is the last consideration.