The Emperor returned to the calash for the purpose of ordering it to be in readiness, and we resumed our walk, until it took us up. On our return, the Emperor visited the tent, and said a few words, expressive of his satisfaction to the officer and seamen who were employed in putting the last hand to it.
CAMPAIGNS OF ITALY, &C.—EPOCH OF 1815, &C.—GUSTAVUS III.—GUSTAVUS IV.—BERNADOTTE.—PAUL I.
7th.—After breakfasting in the tent, the Emperor took a fancy to review some chapters of the Campaigns in Italy: he sent for my son, whose foot was at length mending, and whose eyes were much better. He finished the chapters of Pavia and Leghorn. He afterwards walked towards the bottom of the wood, having ordered the carriage to follow. On the way, the Emperor said that he considered the Campaigns of Italy and Egypt as completely finished, and in a fit state to be given to the public, and it would, no doubt, he remarked, be a very agreeable present to the French and Italians; it was the record of their glory and their rights. He did not think, however, that he ought to put his name to it; and he repeated that the different epochs of his memoirs would perpetuate those of his faithful companions.
On the arrival of the calash, the conversation, continuing on the same subject, he was earnestly pressed to finish 1815; and its importance, interest, and results, were warmly canvassed. “Very well!” said he, with a smile, “I must give myself up to it entirely; it is a pleasure to be encouraged; but it is also requisite to go to work with a proper temper. We are surfeited here with disgust and trickery; we seem to be envied the air we breathe.”
He returned to his apartment, and I followed him, when a conversation peculiarly interesting and remarkable took place. It related to Gustavus III., to Sweden, to Russia, to Gustavus IV., to Bernadotte, to Paul I., &c.
I have said that, at Aix-la-Chapelle, Gustavus III. lived among us as a private individual under the name of Count de Haga. He constituted the charm of society, by the vivacity of his wit and the interest he imparted to his conversation. I had heard from his own mouth his famous Revolution of 1772, and I was in the happiest situation to obtain a thorough knowledge of that epoch of the history of Sweden. I was, at the same time, very well acquainted with a Baron de Sprengporten, who, after having displayed great zeal for Gustavus, had the misfortune to remove to Russia, and to return at the head of foreigners to fight against his country. The consequence was that sentence of death had been passed upon him in Sweden. He was also at Aix-la-Chapelle at the moment, and had banished himself from it, out of courtesy, he said, on the arrival of Gustavus. He had not, however, removed farther off than half a league, so that all I heard the King say in the evening was controverted, modified, or confirmed for me the next morning at breakfast by the Baron. He had enjoyed a very considerable share of that Prince’s confidence, and he communicated the most numerous and minute particulars, as positive facts, respecting the romance of the birth of Gustavus IV., who had been represented as altogether unconnected by blood with Gustavus III., according to his full knowledge and his own desire.
The Emperor observed that this same Sprengporten had been actually sent to him as envoy by Paul, at the time of his Consulate. With respect to Gustavus IV., he said that that Prince had, on his appearance in the world, announced himself as a hero, and had terminated his career merely as a madman, and that he had distinguished himself in his early days by some very remarkable traits. While yet a boy, he had insulted Catharine by the refusal of her grand-daughter, at the moment even when that great Empress[Empress] seated on her throne, and surrounded by her Court, waited only for him to celebrate the marriage ceremony.
At a later period, he had insulted Alexander, in no less marked a manner, by refusing, after Paul’s catastrophe, to suffer one of the new Emperor’s officers to enter his dominions, and by answering, to the official complaints addressed to him on this subject, that Alexander ought not to be displeased that he, Gustavus, who still mourned the assassination of his father, should shut the entrance of his States against one of those, accused by the public voice of having immolated his (Alexander’s).
“On my accession to the sovereignty,” said the Emperor, “he declared himself my great antagonist; it might have been supposed that nothing short of renewing the exploits of the great Gustavus Adolphus would have satisfied him. He ran over the whole of Germany, for the purpose of stirring up enemies against me. At the time of the catastrophe of the Duke d’Enghien, he swore to avenge it in person; and at a later period, he insolently sent back the black eagle to the King of Prussia, because the latter had accepted my legion of honour.
“His fatal moment at length arrived; a conspiracy, of no common kind, tore him from the throne and banished him from his country. The unanimity evinced against him is, no doubt, a proof of the blunders which he had committed. I am ready to admit that he was inexcusable and even mad, but it is, notwithstanding, extraordinary and unexampled that, in that crisis, not a single sword was drawn in his defence, whether from affection, from gratitude, from virtuous feeling, or even from stupidity, if you please; and truly, it is a circumstance which does little honour to the atmosphere of Kings.”