The Czar Nicholas was fond of frightening or fascinating people by his eyes, and it is said that one of his terrible glances once terrified a Swedish admiral into the Russian service. On another occasion, we are told how happening to encounter a poor fellow who had strolled into the private part of the Imperial Park, Nicholas gazed at him with so fierce a glance that the trespasser was stricken with brain-fever. This strange peculiarity of the Czar reminds us of Augustus, who, according to Suetonius, was always well pleased with those persons who, when addressing him, looked upon the ground, as though there were a divine splendour in his eyes, too dazzling for them to gaze upon.
Eric XIV. of Sweden in early life was stunned by a violent fall, a circumstance which, it is said, in after years accounted for his lack of judgment, and occasional eccentricity of conduct. His highly suspicious turn of mind made him at times morose, and almost maniacal, causing him to interpret “the most natural and insignificant of gestures as some dreadful telegraphing of hideous treason. At such seasons his violence was frantic, and, after a day marked by acts of frightful outrage, he would make record against himself in his journal that he had sinned, and would then start to commit further crime.” By a terrible irony of fate, when deposed by his brother John, he was thrown into a horrible dungeon, and “there were placed over him men whom he had offended, and who claimed to be avenged. The vengeance which they exacted was diabolical, for they aggravated as far as in them lay the horrors of his position—one of them fastening to his crippled limbs a mass of iron which may yet be seen in the museum at Abo.”[4] But can this be wondered at, when it is remembered how Eric when possessed of power had in his moments of frenzy and freaks of passion sent innocent men to the scaffold, and like a lunatic had, after the performance of some diabolical act, wandered about the fields likening himself to Nero, and heaping execration upon his own head. He was his own enemy, and as such incurred his own destruction.
Some of the characteristics of one of his successors on the throne—the celebrated Christina—were uncommon, for having been educated by men, and brought up under the guardianship of men, she gradually imbibed a dislike of all that was womanly. Her ambition seems to have been to be as much like a man as possible, and nothing seems to have pleased her more than to don male attire. For womanly refinements, too, she had the most profound contempt, and it only coincided with this trait of character that she expressed her conviction of the utter disability of woman to conduct the affairs of a nation. In short, it is said that there was nothing of the woman in her save her sex, and that her presence, voice, and manners, were altogether masculine. Many of her strange freaks of conduct were attributable to this peculiar whim, in accordance with which she not only swore like a dragoon, but encouraged conversation of a by no means refined character. Thus a writer states that one of his friends used to entertain her with stories of a very unseemly nature, with which she was abundantly delighted, and adds, “Yet because there were some of his narrations which did sometimes require more modest expressions than the genuine or natural, chiefly before a Royal Majesty and in a maid’s presence, as she saw him going about his circumlocutions and seeking civil terms, she would boldly speak out the words, though they were never so filthy, which modesty forbids me to write here.” Indeed, her own acknowledgment that she was never nice of speech more or less corresponded with her personal habits, inasmuch as Manneschied, the confessor of Pimentelli, the Spanish ambassador at the Swedish Court, and a great admirer of the Queen, thus wrote of her: “She never combs her hair but once a week, and sometimes lets it go untouched for a fortnight. On Sundays her toilet takes about half-an-hour, but on other days it is despatched in a quarter.” Manneschied then adds, “Her linen was ragged and much torn.” And occasionally, when a bold person would hint at the salubrity of cleanliness she would reply, “Wash! that’s all very well for people who have nothing else to do!”
Nothing, again, pleased Christina more than to indulge in some outrageous freak whereby she would astonish and horrify those around her. When visiting, for instance, the French Court, she startled the stately ladies there by her strange conduct; and according to Madame de Motteville, “In presence of the King, Queen, and the whole Court, she flung her legs up on a chair as high as that on which she was seated, and she altogether exhibited them a great deal too freely.” Then, again, her impatience and irreverence at church were not infrequently matter of public comment. She would use two chairs, one of purple velvet in which she was seated, and one in front of her, “over the back of which she would lean her head or arms, thinking of divers matters.” If the sermon was a trifle long and somewhat prosy, she would begin playing with the two spaniels which usually accompanied her, or she would chat with some gentleman-in-waiting; and, if the sermon did not come to a close, she would rattle her fan on the back of the chair before her, and distract the attention of the congregation, if she could not stop the preacher. But she was perfectly indifferent as to what the public thought of her conduct, and almost up to the end of her life she adhered to the same freedom and laxity of manners. It was towards the close of the year 1688 that she received an anonymous letter intimating that her death was not far off, and that she would do well to set her house in order, which she could commence by destroying the indecent paintings and statues with which her mansion was crowded.
But this note of warning had no effect on Christina, and with a smile she put it in the fire, little anticipating that the prediction would be fulfilled the following year. Despite her many foibles and follies, Christina was a great and remarkable woman, a riddle indeed to many who have read her history. She had a masterful character, and, however much her various eccentricities and habits of life may have created disgust, her intellectual powers, on the other hand, were of no mean order. But one reason, perhaps, which induced her to indulge in such extraordinary freaks of conduct was her supreme contempt for the parade and symbols of worldly power, and the conventionalities of society.
It was no matter of surprise that Gustavus IV. proved an incapable and unreliable monarch, developing eccentricity of character bordering on insanity. What could be expected of one who in his young life was so overdone with religious teaching that “he pored over the Book of Revelations till he became nearly insane, recognised himself as one mysteriously alluded to in Scripture, and hailed in his own person that ‘coming man’ who as prophet, priest, and king was to rule the world”? Thus on his wedding-day, at the completion of the marriage ceremony, he took his bride, Princess Frederica of Baden, to her apartment, and opening the Book of Esther, bade her read aloud the first chapter.
She obeyed, and then wonderingly asked for an explanation of his strange conduct. Gustavus at once expounded the passage, warning the Queen that should she ever disobey her lord and master she would be punished as Vashti had been, and her dignity would be given to another. This was not a happy inauguration of married life, and the young Queen soon found to her bitter disappointment what a miserable existence was enforced upon her. On one occasion, when Gustavus discovered his young wife having a romp with her German maids, he immediately dismissed her playful attendants, and introduced in their place cold and formal aged Swedish ladies, who would have scorned even the idea of such frivolities. But it was in his public as well as his private life that Gustavus indulged in these strange freaks, alienating by his conduct the sympathies of the aristocracy, many of whom, “to mark their indignation, threw up their patents of nobility,” while the people generally did not shrink from showing in an unmistakable manner their annoyance and disgust. The climax of his follies and freaks was reached when he absented himself from his kingdom—from 1803 to 1806—so that he was advertised for on the walls of Stockholm as a stray king, a suitable recompense being promised to any who should restore him to his “disconsolate subjects.” Ultimately, as is well known, he was deposed—his uncle, the Duke of Sudermania, ascending the throne as Charles XIII.—and imprisoned in the Castle of Gripsholm, where he amused himself by drawing “a portrait of himself seated on a white horse, trampling upon the Beast”![5]
The Duke d’Alençon, afterwards Duke of Anjou, and his brother Henry III. regarded each other with puerile hatred, a circumstance which led to the most absurd rivalry between themselves. Each bestowed his favour and time, and lavished his resources, on a band of young, handsome, swaggering gallants, to whom the King especially set the example of great extravagance, and, at the same time, effeminacy of dress. The freaks of folly they committed seem scarcely credible, for it is reported that they painted their cheeks, adorned their necks with the most outrageous frills of enormous dimensions, and curled their hair with a nicety and care which exceeded male pretensions. Indeed, Henry III. carried this absurdity so far as actually to appear accoutred in a female garb. “These acts of idiotcy,” writes Crowe,[6] “the people construed to be indicative not merely of perverted taste, but of degrading crime; and the King’s mignons were the object of such universal execration that when they perished by the hands of each other, or of more invidious foes, and when Henry III. consoled himself for their loss by the performance of splendid funeral rites, and the erection of superb mausoleums, the public applauded the acts of vengeance by which these base parasites were slain.” But, contemptible as such conduct was, it certainly lacked the brutality of his predecessor, Charles IX., who, when engaged in the chase, is said to have pursued wild beasts more with the fury of their species than the excitement of man. Thus it is recorded that he would cut off the heads of donkeys, embowel pigs, and would take a pleasure in arranging their entrails butcher-fashion.
Another of the freaks of Charles IX. consisted in his hiring ten young thieves, whom he brought to the Louvre, where he set them to rob the guests of their swords and jewellery, laughing heartily “as he witnessed their success, or saw the unconsciousness of the victims, or beheld their surprise and indignation after they had been despoiled.” These young thieves, says Dr. Doran, who were amply rewarded for the exercise of their ability, “rank among the most singular of hirelings paid to excite laughter in a gloomy king.”
The Comte d’Artois, a brother of Louis XVI., was noted for his frivolous pursuits and his unbecoming follies. One anecdote about him shows the levity of his conduct; and, as it has been observed, a royal duke “who had tried the same jest in England would have been summoned before the next Justice of the Peace”:—