It was Napoleon himself, who, by his insupportable pretensions, forced Sweden to take a part in opposition to him. From the period of the election of the Prince of Ponte Corvo, the only discussions the Prince had with the Emperor consisted in refusals, on the Prince's part, to enter into engagements hostile to the interests of the nation who had chosen him to be her ruler.
When the first overtures respecting his election in Sweden were made to him by a Swedish nobleman, and by General Count de Wrede, he went immediately to St. Cloud, to inform the Emperor, who said to him:—"I cannot be of any use to you—let things take their course," &c. The Prince went to Plombières. At his return, he paid his respects to the Emperor, who, addressing him in presence of a good many persons, asked if he had lately had any news from Sweden? "Yes, Sire."—"What do they say?" replied the Emperor.—"That your Majesty's chargé d'affaires at Stockholm opposes my election, and says publicly that your Majesty prefers the King of Denmark."—The Emperor answered with surprise, "It is not possible;" and changed the subject. It was, however, in consequence of secret instructions given to M. Désaguiers, that he had presented a note in favour of the King of Denmark; but Napoleon, in order not to commit himself in an affair of such delicacy, and in which a check would have been a proof of the decline of his political ascendency, disavowed the conduct of M. Désaguiers. When this agent was recalled a short time afterwards, the Duc de Cadore frankly confessed to M. de Lagerbjelke, the Swedish minister at Paris, "that they had sacrificed an innocent person."
The Emperor had expressed himself in the most friendly manner to King Charles XIII., as well as to the Prince of Ponte Corvo, consenting that the Prince should accept the succession to the throne of Sweden. The act of election had been published in the Moniteur, and ten days had elapsed without the Emperor's having said any thing about the Prince-Royal's departure. Having finished the preparations for his journey, and seeing that the Emperor still remained silent on the subject, the Prince determined to apply to him for letters-patent, emancipating him (the Prince) from his allegiance. To this formal application, the Emperor replied, that the expediting of these letters had been retarded only by the proposal made by a member of the privy-council, of a preliminary condition.—"What is it?" said the Prince.—"It is that you are to come under an engagement never to bear arms against me." The Prince-Royal, greatly surprised, answered, that his election by the Diet of Sweden, and the consent to it already given by the Emperor, both to himself and to King Charles XIII., had already made him a Swedish subject; and that, in that quality he could not subscribe this engagement.—Here the Emperor frowned, and appeared embarrassed. "Your Majesty tells me," added he, "that this is the proposal of a member of the council. I am very sure it never could have come from yourself, Sire; it must have come from the Arch-Chancellor, or the Grand Judge, who were not aware to what a height this proposal would raise me."—"What do you mean?"—"If you prevent me from accepting a crown, unless I come under an engagement never to fight against you, Sire—is not this, in fact, placing me in your line as a general?" The Emperor, after a moment's reflection, said to him, in a suppressed voice, and with a gesture which betrayed his agitation:—"Well, go;—our destinies are about to be accomplished."—"I beg your pardon, Sire, I did not hear you rightly."—"Go;—our destinies are about to be accomplished," repeated the Emperor, in a more distinct, but equally agitated voice.
When the report first became current that there was an intention in Sweden to elect the Prince of Ponte Corvo Prince-Royal, Mareschal Davoust, thinking to please his master, said, in the Emperor's chamber:—"The Prince of Ponte Corvo suspects nothing." This piece of irony made Napoleon smile. He answered in a low voice,—"He is not yet elected." The Prince, who till then had been very undecided, intimated, that if the King and the States of Sweden fixed their choice on him, he should accept.
During this interval, Napoleon, constantly wishing to prevent him from becoming heir to the throne of Sweden, said to him one day: "You will probably be called to Sweden. I had formed the design of giving you Arragon and Catalonia; for Spain is too great a country for my brother's strength of capacity." The Prince made no reply. For a considerable time back, not wishing to be an object of inquietude to government, he had been considering what means he should use to gain Napoleon's confidence. The greatness of France, the victories gained by her armies, and the eclat which they reflected upon the commander, imposed on the Prince the duty of not endeavouring to emulate the power of the Emperor. In his conversations with Napoleon, he endeavoured to do away the impressions which the Emperor entertained against him. For this purpose he took general views, spoke of the interests of great states—of the fortunes of men who had astonished the world by their successes, of the difficulties and obstacles which these men had had to surmount, and finally, of the public tranquillity and happiness which had been the result of these circumstances, from the moment that secondary interests had been satisfied. The Emperor listened attentively, and seemed almost always to applaud the principles of stability and preservation which the Prince enlarged upon. At times, when the latter reminded the Emperor of the immensity of the means of recompense which he had at his disposal, Napoleon, struck by what he said, held out his hand to him affectionately, when they separated, and seemed, by his manner, to say to him—"Reckon always upon my friendship and support." The Prince used to return from these conversations, thinking himself no longer an object of suspicion to the Emperor. He expressed this belief to the members of Napoleon's family, in order that they, in their turn, might assure the Emperor, that as the Prince went entirely into his system, both from duty and from interest, any mistrust of him should be laid aside.
There were individuals of Napoleon's family, on those occasions, who smiled at the Prince's simplicity, and told him what the Emperor had said the evening before, immediately after the conversation the Prince and he had had together; and all that the Emperor said bore marks of the greatest insincerity, and of an ill-will constantly founded on his ideas of the extravagant ambition of the Prince. This ill-will seemed to be mitigated, when the time came for the Prince's departure for Sweden. One of his friends was in high favour with Napoleon. On the very day the Prince departed, Napoleon, seeing his friend come in, went up to him, and said:—"Well! does not the Prince regret France?"—"Yes, undoubtedly."—"And I, for my part, should have been very glad if he had not accepted the invitation; but there is no help for it——" And then checking himself—"Besides, he does not love me." On its being answered, that Napoleon was mistaken, and that the Prince had chosen his party, and had been frankly and cordially attached to him for a long time past, the Emperor replied—"We have not understood each other: now it is too late: he has his own interests, his own policy, and I have mine." Napoleon had acquiesced in the reasons given him by the Prince, for his refusal to engage not to take arms against him. He saw very well that he ought to have expected such a refusal, and that he ought not to have exposed himself to it. He had even endeavoured to efface any painful impression which his proposal had made on the Prince, by making him the most friendly promises of an indemnity of two millions for the cession of his principality of Ponte Corvo, and his possessions in Poland, and leaving him all the others in property. [The Prince never received more than one million of the two which had been promised him.] He had, besides, permitted him to take with him all his aides-de-camp.
The Prince knew not what was at the bottom of the Emperor's thoughts, but when he left him he was full of confidence in him; and Napoleon had no just motive for imputing to him any designs hostile to his interest, and still less to the interest of France. This illusion, on the part of the Prince, was of short duration. The reception he met with in all the places he passed through, and particularly when he arrived in Sweden—the speeches addressed to him, and the answers he made—all contributed to displease the Emperor. It seemed to him as if the Prince attracted some share of that general attention which should have been fixed on him alone. The patriotic sentiments expressed by the speakers of the four orders, were no more to his taste than those of the Prince in his answers. He and the Swedes were equally the objects of the Emperor's sarcasms, and even of his insults; he treated them as Jacobins, as anarchists; and it was chiefly against the Prince that these attacks were levelled. To show the Prince his displeasure, he annulled all the promises he had made him; and took from him all the lands with which he had endowed him, and which he re-united to his own domains. He recalled all the Prince-Royal's French aides-de-camp. It was in vain that the Prince, in his correspondence, tried to appease him, by writing, among others, the following letter:—
"At the moment when I was going to address my thanks to your Majesty, for your goodness in extending for a year the leave granted to the French officers who have accompanied me to Sweden, I am informed that your Majesty has retracted that favour. This unexpected disappointment, and, indeed, every thing that reaches me from Paris, makes me sensible that your Majesty is not well disposed towards me. What have I done, Sire, to deserve this treatment? I suppose that calumny alone has been the cause of it. In the new situation in which Fortune has placed me, I should doubtless be more exposed to it than ever, were I not fortunate enough to find a defender in your Majesty's own heart. Whatever may be said to you, Sire, I beseech you to believe that I have nothing to reproach myself with, and that I am entirely devoted to your person, not merely through the strength of my old associations, but from a sentiment that is unalterable. If things are not conducted in Sweden entirely according to your Majesty's wish, this is solely owing to the Constitution. To infringe the Constitution is not in the power of the King, and still less in mine. There are still here many particular interests to be melted down in the great national crucible—four orders of the state to be tied up in one bundle—and it is only by means of very prudent and measured conduct that I can hope to sit one day on the throne of Sweden. As M. Gentil de St. Alphonse, my aide-de-camp, returns to France in conformity to your Majesty's orders, I make him the bearer of this letter. Your Majesty may question him; he has seen every thing; let him tell your Majesty the truth. You will see in what a situation I am placed, and how many measures I have to keep. He will tell your Majesty whether or not I am anxious to please you, and if I am not here in a state of continual torment between the pain of displeasing you, and my new duties. Sire, your Majesty has grieved me by withdrawing from me the officers whom you had granted me for a year. Since you command it, I send them back to France. Perhaps your Majesty will be inclined to alter your decision: in which case, I beg that you yourself will fix the number that you may think proper to send me. I shall receive them from you with gratitude. If, on the contrary, your Majesty retains them in France, I recommend them to your goodness. They have always served with distinction, and have had no share in the rewards which were distributed after the last campaign."
Napoleon's ill-humour against the Prince changed to positive resentment. He repented that he had agreed to his going, and he made no secret of it; for he went the length of saying, before his courtiers—"That he had a mind to make him finish his course of the Swedish language at Vincennes." While the Prince refused to believe the information which he had received from the Tuileries, of such a threat as this, Napoleon was actually thinking of putting it in execution, and of repeating, upon him, the capture of the Duc d'Enghien. The Prince at last was convinced of the truth of what he had heard, by the discovery of a plot formed by Napoleon's agents, for seizing him in the neighbourhood of Haga, and carrying him on board a vessel which they had in readiness. The attempt failed through a mere accident. The conspirators, all foreigners but one, thought themselves discovered; they instantly embarked, and sailed in the night.[369]
This conduct, odious as it was, made no change in the disposition of the Prince towards Napoleon. He looked upon it as the effect of intrigues formed by the personal enemies of both, and by enemies of France. He saw nothing in it, besides, but a degree of personal animosity, which might pass away, and which ought to have no influence on the political determinations of Sweden. But Napoleon, listening to nothing but his hatred, knowing that the Prince, being aware of his designs, would now be on his guard, and having no longer any hope of surprising him, desired to place the Prince in open hostility to him. He took the surest method to accomplish this object, by seizing Pomerania, because he thought that this insulting violation of public faith would force the Prince-Royal to revenge the affront put upon Sweden, but at bottom directed against the Prince personally. In order to leave no room for doubt on this subject, the Emperor had given orders that the invasion should take place on the 26th of January, the Prince-Royal's birth-day; but this refinement, so much in character, was thrown away; for the invasion could not be carried into effect till the morning of the 27th.[370]