CHAPTER IX
Recollections of the Military Tournament of Stockholm in 1800—The Comte de Fersen—King Gustavus IV.—The Challenge of the Unknown Knight—The Games on the Bridge at Pisa.
During the next four days the whole of Vienna seemed engrossed with the accounts of the magnificence of the carrousel. Every particular was eagerly caught up, the names of the knights and their dames were on everybody’s lips. There were frequent allusions to the accident to Prince Lichtenstein, whose life had for some time been in danger. In short, the carrousel was the inevitable subject of every conversation.
At a reception at the Princesse Jean de Lichtenstein’s, the whole of the programme was minutely reviewed; some praised and others criticised the knights and their dames, the feats accomplished, the horses, the evolutions, etc. Nevertheless, the upshot of all the remarks was that, in respect of splendour, nothing like it had ever been seen in Europe, and that no fête of that kind had ever been attended by an equal number of spectators.[72]
‘It is perfectly natural that Germany, which is the birthplace of tournaments, should endeavour to revive their glory on such a solemn occasion,’ said Prince Philippe de Hesse-Hombourg. ‘I do not think that anything of the kind has ever been attempted since Louis XIV.‘s time,’ said the hostess. ‘If Colbert had seen our knights and their fair ones, he would probably have admitted being beaten.’
I reminded them that the first years of the nineteenth century had been marked by several of those tournaments; and that I myself had witnessed one in Stockholm given by Gustavus-Adolphus IV. At the commencement of his reign that prince endeavoured to preserve in Sweden the brilliant valour and the elegant and courtly manners of which the Court of Gustavus III. had afforded such perfect models. He was passionately fond of those warlike exercises, and they generally took place at his summer residence of Drotningholm. ‘Assuredly,’ I remarked, ‘the Vienna carrousel has been admirable throughout from a spectacular point of view. But that which I saw in 1800 could vie with it, not in respect of its pomp and splendour, or by reason of the eminent rank of its spectators, but through its faithful adherence to, and accurate reproduction of, ancient traditions. It was, moreover, marked by an incident which recalled the chivalric and often bloody encounters of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.’ As a matter of course, I was pressed to give further particulars, and this, as far as my memory serves me, is what I told them.
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The tournament was given in honour of the queen’s birthday, and for several months beforehand the northern Courts had been apprised of it. The young king was to figure among the champions, and the queen, one of the handsomest women of her time, was to crown the victor and present to him in the presence of the whole Court the reward of his skill, which consisted of a scarf wholly embroidered by her own hands. Nothing had been left undone to invest this fête with all the prestige that formerly marked those of Louis XIV., the accounts of which had fairly astonished the whole of Europe.