SWEDISH DYNASTY

Evening Post, Volume CVII, Issue 100, 2 May 1929, Page 17

SWEDISH DYNASTY

ROMANTIC HISTORY

LAWYER'S SON WHO BECAME

A KING

HOW HE WON HIS

CROWN

When the Duko and Duchess of York attended the wedding of Prince Olaf of Norway and Princess Martha of Sweden they saw a bride whose family has the most romantic history of all the reigning houses of Europe, says the "Daily Express." The Swedish dynasty is firmly established on the royal plane. It has connections with numerous royal families. Princess Martha is now married to the nephew cf our own King. She is, however, directly descended from an obscure- French lawyer, who, not long before the French was the King's procurator at Pau.

This lawyer's name was Henri Bcrnadottc, and it was his son Jean Baptiste Bernadotte who became King of Sweden, in tho days of the great Napoleon—when nothing seemed impossible and when glory and crowns were to be picked up on the point of a 1 sword. Jean Baptiste Bernadotte was born at Pau in. 17(53. He entered the French Army when he was seventeen, and saw his first service in Corsica. H© showed himself early to be a born soldier. He gained rapid promotion, and, at the outbreak of the French Revolution, he had a high reputation as a fearless officer and a skilled tactician. There was also at this time another young officer who was marked for great things—Captain Bonaparte, of the Artillery—and his destiny swept up Bernadotte in its flood. We find" Bernadotte a brigadier in 1794, and he further distinguished himself when all Europe was at the throat of the First Republic by his masterly conduct of the French retreat "over the Rhine before the Archduke Charles of Austria. He brought reinforcements to Napoleon, now, indeed, the Man of Destiny, who was winning fresh glory for France in Italy., and, after climbing higher in the estimation oi! that extraordinary genius, he was appointed Ambassador at Vienna in 1798. COMBATIVE SPIRIT. It is in Vienna that we get the first hint of Bernadotte's combative spirit, ■which later brought him in conflict ■with Napoleon himself, and which stamped him as beiug possibly the only member of tho Imperial entourage who did not blindly worship his master. The Viennese quito naturally loathed the French, but Bernadotte seemingHe did. a far from tactful thing. He had the tricolour hoisted over his Embassy, and left it there flaunting in the wind, a symbol of all that was de- ■ testable to the ration in whose midst he was. The popular clamour against him became so strong, however, that lie was forced to give up his position and return to France. In the same year he married Desiree Clary, the daughter of a Marseilles banker, and sister of Joseph Bonaparte's wife. Napoleon's preparations for seizing the supreme power left him unmoved, but, later, he took service under the Consulate, and, when the Empire was proclaimed, Napoleon created him a Marshal of France. He held high positions, including the governorship of Hanover, and he progressed in the dazzling train of the Emperor until he was created Prince of Ponte Corvo as a reward for his conduct at Austerlitz, that battle which set Napoleon on the pinnacle of his . career, and resulted in the defeat of the Emperors of Austria and Russia. Tho same year, however, he clashed definitely with Napoleon over his absence, though close at hand with an army corps, from the battle of Jena, and the nest year, 1808, the hostility between the two men was marked again by Napoleon's action in immediately disowning an Army Order issued by Bernadotte, in which he attributed the victory of Wagram to the Saxon contingent under his command. Bernadotto thereupon returned to Paris in a white rage with the Emperor, and was sent by tho Council of Ministers to cool his temper as commander of the defences o£ the Netherlands against England. Two years passed with an apparent resumption of friendly relations on both sides, but, in 1810, when Bernadotto was about to take up the Governorship of Rome, he received an offer which altered his whole life and which incidentally placed tho present King of Sweden on his throne. He nad shown great kindness to the Swedish prisoners captured in Napoleon's war with Denmark, and he was approached suddenly by the Baron Karl Morner, who, entirely on his own initiative, offered him the succession to the Swedish Crown. NAPOLEON'S CONTEMPT. Bernadotte passed this suggestion to Napoleon, whose contemptuous reception of j£ decided the fiery marshal on - his course of action, lie told Morner that, he accepted his offer, if it was confirmed by the Swedish nation. He was determined at last to carve out a fortune for himself almost as great as that of the little Corsican. The Swedish Government was flabbergasted at Morner's audacity, and placed him under arrest when he returned to Stockholm with his glad news; but the idea became increasingly popular with the Swedes themselves. They -wanted a strong man; above all, they .wanted a strong soldier, and Bernadotte's reputation as such was European. Neither had they forgotten his kindness to the Swedish prisoners. Events moved with all the rapidity of an army under Napoleon's command, and, on 21st August, Jeau Baptiste Bernadotte, sou of a French lawyer, Marshal of France and Princo of Ponto .Corvo, was duly elected Crown Prince of Sweden. He made a solemn entry into Stockholm in November; the authorities paid him homage, and he was formally adopted as a son and successor by the King, Charles XIII. He soon developed into the most popular and powerful person in the kingdom. His adopted father was weak, and every circumstance combined to confirm him in a generally beneficial autocracy. His main ambition was to weaken Denmark by the acquisition of Norway, and this he eventually attained—Norway proclaiming itself a separate kingdom, with the King of- Swollen as its sovereign. This political union was dissolved in 1905, but the recent wedding will doubtless finally cement both nations in genuine friendship. Bernadotte devoted himself to the ■ material progress of the two kingdoms after a brief interlude of war with the Allies against Napoleon. During this episode he successfully defended Berlin against, Oudinot and Ney, the most distinguished of his former brother-mar-shals. He succeeded to the throne as Charles A TV., King of Sweden and Norway, in ISIB, when Napoleon was eating out his heart in St. Helena; and he died, stiil holding the affections of his subjects, in 1844, seven years after Queen Victoria rame to the throne of England. Gustave V., the present King of Sweden,

and tho uncle of Princess Martha, is his great-grandson. Bernadotto sought no ancient royal alliance, as did Napoleon, to establish more firmly his family on the throne. His wife, the daughter of the banker of Marseilles, joined him in Sweden as his Queen. Bernadotte's descendant is still a King. Prince Louis Napoleon, a boy of fifteen, outcast from France, now represents^ the long-dead Emperor who once despised the royal pretensions of his unruly -marshal.