The Queen's Lover (37 page)

So this is the threatening atmosphere of suspicion and intrigue that pervades Stockholm on June 19, even as I write. Tomorrow I shall have to take my place as grand marshal in the ritual cortege that will solemnize the arrival of the dead prince’s body in the capital. Warnings of impending trouble have already reached me in Löfstad. I was made all the more aware of Emelie De Geer’s affection for me yesterday, when she urged me not to leave for Stockholm for the crown prince’s observance. Emphasizing reports of impending violence, she begged me to plead illness, and wept bitterly when I replied that as grand marshal it would be unthinkable for me not to take my place in the cortege. How she clung to me when I left for the city!

Earlier this afternoon, once arrived in Stockholm, I received a visit from my predecessor in the post of grand marshal, Count J. Oxenstierna, a fine poet and splendid man, who also implored me to stay home
the following morning, and even offered to go in my place. To him I replied that I could not afford to confirm the suspicions held against me, and that proper measures were surely being taken to protect all officials. Yet a desire to reassure myself on that score incited me to go to the Haga Palace earlier tonight to see the king. Upon arriving and asking a courtier to announce my visit to the monarch I was told that King Karl did not have time to receive me. I asked the courtier to try again, explaining that I needed some more detailed instructions concerning the procedure of the crown prince’s funeral cortege. The courtier returned and in an uneasy tone said, “His Majesty has so much to do that it is impossible for him to see Your Excellency.” I was shocked—for the king not to have time for his grand marshal! But I bowed to the ladies gathered in the antechamber and conversed pleasantly with them to allay the embarrassment this incident might bring me. I bore in mind a rather offensive statement, repeated to me by a courtier, that the king had made about me in recent days: “It would not hurt if that haughty lord were taught a lesson.”

Earlier tonight, after my return from the palace, Sophie and I gave a superb supper at Blasieholmen—“worthy of a king,” as one guest told me. In the midst of the meal it occurred to me that the occasion might be ill-chosen: the sight of our brightly lit palace, on the eve of an event dedicated to the dead crown prince, could offend some Stockholmers. Seeing the frugality of the court, and our nation’s piteous financial straits, Sophie and I have been as frequently criticized for our lavish ways as for our meticulous avoidance of the ascending bourgeoisie. But do I really care? Entertaining friends is one of my favorite pleasures; it is the surest remedy for my depressions, which in the past few years have become greatly aggravated.

How heavy are my thoughts as I prepare for bed tonight! The following morning, June 20, will be the nineteenth anniversary, to the day, of the flight to Varennes, that ill-fated venture through which I had
hoped to save the life of my one great love. I have no fears whatever concerning the alarming predictions for the following day’s events. I am only sorrowing for the failure of Varennes, and remembering with longing the only true happiness life has brought me—the love Toinette and I had for each other. Had she not been the one who designated me as
“Le Chevalier Sans Peur et Sans Reproche
”?

Sophie:

JUNE 20, 1810

O
H, IF ONLY
I’d been at his side that day, if only I’d taken more seriously the threats of violence spreading throughout the city, if only, if only—my beloved Axel might have been safe.

On the morning of the twentieth, as Axel was about to depart from our home, Blasieholmen, to attend the crown prince’s cortege, our old coachman—a man who had been with us since our childhood, who like all our domestics adored Axel—implored him to not leave home.

“It’s predicted that there’s going to be much violence, Your Excellency,” I heard the old man say. “Please, please don’t leave the palace.”

“If you’re afraid of driving me, dear Johan, I’ll find another coachman,” Axel replied. “But I must go.”

We parted at 9 a.m. Axel went on to breakfast with General Suremain, an officer of French descent and one of our highest-ranking military leaders. Suremain would relate that Axel was as composed as ever on that occasion, “showing the calm of a man whose conscience is pure and who is disturbed by no fears.” Yet I later learned that my brother was carrying, in his jacket, one of those threatening anonymous letters that had been circulating in Stockholm since the crown prince’s death.

“To Axel Fersen. Wretch. Read this letter and tremble. Do you and your clique believe that 2 million people will permit some aristocrats to
let the horrors they commit go unpunished, that they will allow themselves to be trampled by conspiring traitors; shall this unhappy land eternally remain under the oppression of audacious violent men?…The hour of retribution will come! Even though your abominable father the proud aristocrat succeeded in his game…even though your long neck…escaped the guillotine in France…will this ancient realm gradually lose its independent existence among the nations of Europe through the faithlessness, infamy, and treason of its nobles?…Despicable creature, when you come into the city in all your presumed greatness and pomp, know that the lowest peasant spits on you and feels himself to be a greater man than you, arrogant wretch!…Know that this letter is the voice of the public…. Karl August will be avenged.”

R
IDING OUT INTO
the city early that morning to do some errands, I noticed unusual situations: taverns were giving away free beer and schnapps; brewers’ carts stood all around the city, supplementing the already large amount of ready liquor; officials were distributing money to some of the poorer and rougher-looking citizens.

The crown prince’s hearse had entered the city through its southwestern district, and that is where the cortege began, among hundreds of glum, mournful citizens. The procession set forth at half past noon. Ringing of church bells, firing of many cannons. At the head of the cortege rode General Silfversparre, surrounded by horse guards, followed by the carriages of various officials, among them my brother, Fabian’s. Then came Axel’s coach, followed by the crown prince’s hearse. No member of the royal family was present, the king being at Haga attending a council meeting. The Stockholm civil guard was nowhere to be seen, and police troops were equally absent. General Skjöldebrand, another eminent career officer, wrote the following description of my brother’s carriage:

“It
was a magnificent old-fashioned state coach drawn by six white horses with morocco harnesses, richly ornamented with gilded bronze. On either side of the coach walked lackeys in opulently trimmed liveries. Fersen himself sat in the coach dressed in mourning clothes, with the grand marshal’s staff in his hand, and after him came the hearse covered with a simple black canopy, dusty after the journey and without ornament…. The splendor in which the grand marshal rode made an unpleasant contrast to the simplicity of the hearse…. He looked like a triumphant conqueror dragging behind him a defeated foe.”

Well, yes, sure, how many times have I heard of our taste for luxury and ostentation, our love for pomp and pageantry. Axel was grand marshal; his finery was following prescribed court ritual. But on this particular occasion he may have overdone it, may have been tragically out of touch with the mind-set of Stockholm’s people. In the southern area of Stockholm, the crowd is said to have remained sullen, inimical in its silence as his cortege passed by. But as it crossed the bridge into the Old City, on its way to the Royal Palace, the populace grew increasingly menacing and aggressive toward my brother. And at the entrance to Stora Nygatan, a narrow street lined with centuries-old buildings that is the heart of ancient Stockholm, the large, vile mob that had assembled there was armed with rocks and logs. They began to attack Axel’s coach as soon as it entered the street. Stora Nygatan is less than a dozen yards wide, so the troops at either end of the cortege had no way of seeing what was happening to my brother. Within a few minutes the coachman and Axel were grievously wounded by the attacks. One witness, a visiting professor from Copenhagen, saw my poor brother in his carriage “pale as death, in the most frightful state of fear and distress.” He had knelt down on the floor of his coach, according to this witness, attempting to protect himself from the assaults by covering himself with his cloak. From a narrow side alley a group of men surged toward Axel’s horses and unharnessed them.

A Danish officer was standing in front of 1 Stora Nygatan, at the street corner that faces Riddarhus, the House of the Nobility. Axel opened the door of his carriage and cried out to him, “For the love of Christ, save me!” The Dane put his arm around Axel and hurriedly accompanied him to the second floor of the building, which was a popular tavern, thinking he would find safety there. But the customers, more than a hundred of them, mostly of the middle class, instantly recognized Axel; and, urged on by a French-born actor called Lambert, they greeted him with jeers and insults. He was not only accused of being the crown prince’s murderer; others denounced him for “conspiring against liberty in Sweden as he had in France”; yet others, absurdly, for being responsible for Gustavus III’s death. Axel replied that he was innocent and demanded to be judged in a courtroom. In the street below the tavern the mob had tripled in size and grown equally abusive, shouting, “Death to the grand marquis! Fersen to hell!” Axel attempted to seek refuge in a back room of the tavern but that also was instantly filled with crowds of wretchedly belligerent men. As the tavern’s customers grew increasingly hostile Axel was stripped of his coat and his sword, and most of his decorations were thrown out of the window to the populace below.

At this moment General Skjöldebrand was riding toward the Royal Palace to wait for the cortege’s arrival. He saw the grand marshal’s coach pass by, empty, all its windows broken, its walls and roof in shambles. Having heard that Count von Fersen was being held in a house on Stora Nygatan, he rushed toward that street. In front of the tavern’s entrance he saw General Silfversparre surrounded by a group of citizens vociferating attacks against “that bastard Fersen.” “Calm yourselves,” Silfversparre was saying, “calm yourselves. Criminals must be judged legally.” General Suremain urged Silfversparre to summon troops to quell the increasingly hostile mob; but that villainous Silfversparre—I hold him accountable—dismissed Suremain’s fears, said all would be
safe, and entered the tavern. Suremain jumped on his horse and galloped toward Haga to report the events to the king.

General Skjöldebrand tried to get a nearby battalion to restore order, but its commander replied that he had been given no orders to deal with the crowd, and those troops soon disappeared.

As for the despicable Silfversparre, once in the tavern, he asked the customers what their intentions were toward Fersen. They replied that he should be arrested. Silfversparre offered to take him to the palace. “Oh no, no, he’d be released,” the drinkers cried out, led by a Finnish-born seaman, Otto Tandefelt. “Take him to the city hall,” Tandefelt and the others shouted, “or a criminal prison.” The customers roared their approval of this last suggestion. The general agreed to bring Axel to the city hall if the citizens in the tavern promised not to attack him. Going to the tavern window, Silfversparre then announced that decision to the crowd below, but many of the rabble protested that Axel would never be brought to justice, and requested that he be instantly thrown out of the window.

Silfversparre then accompanied Axel to the back room of the tavern. With what foul riffraff is our city filled! Drinkers in that space also insulted him and our entire family, and, breaking their promise, began to strike him with their canes and umbrellas. “You will die before midnight tonight,” several yelled at him. “The Piper woman and two others will die!” “I see that it will soon be my final hour,” my brother is heard to have moaned as he followed Silfversparre down the stairs. Oh my darling Axel, why, why were we so hated? The canes and umbrellas were significant—the attacks on Axel had not been initiated by the poor of the city, but by citizens of the burgher class, which so detested us. One witness would later describe the marauders assaulting Axel as “part of that middle class, which, more than the lower class, envies aristocrats and sees them as criminals.”

As Silfversparre and my weak, stumbling brother descended the stairs, part of the tavern crowd followed them, tearing out Axel’s earrings and tufts of his hair. My poor Axel staggered under the assaults, fell on the stairs, was picked up again, and finally reached the door sill of the tavern, where he was met by a clamorous mob, which had grown far rougher. He who had so loved uniforms and ceremonial dress was now barefoot, his trousers torn, his shirts stripped from him. But the Order of the Seraphim was still suspended, on a ribbon, around his neck. As he reached the ground floor, members of the crowd demanded that he take it off. “The king gave it to me; only the king can take it away,” Axel whispered, barely able to speak. The riffraff violently pulled off the decoration and tore it to shreds. Silfversparre was also attacked, struck on his cheek. It was at this crucial moment that Silfversparre went off to the palace to find his horse. In this melee, my cherished Axel found himself alone, covered with blood, wounds all over his head and trunk, still being struck by powerful blows.

A major general, von Vegesad, tried to protect him from the mob by placing him against a wall, behind his horse. “Save me,” Axel beseeched him. But the terrified animal, rearing and bucking, pried loose. Two other officers courageously came to his aid, and lifted him up. “Help me, boys,” Axel pleaded. The young men led him toward Riddarhus, across the street from the tavern. The square in front of it being filled with a mob, they managed to take my brother to the city hall next door, and placed him in the guardhouse, which they barricaded. Axel fell into a chair and asked for a drink of water, promising large rewards to whoever could bring him to safety. But he barely had time to finish the water, for the door of the guardhouse gave way and a band of men assaulted him. So this is the way my beloved brother met his end: he was dragged out unto the courtyard of city hall, next to Riddarhus, the building where my family had met for generations to discuss the destiny of our country, and there he was kicked and stampeded to death by the
barbarous crowd. The final blow was given by the villain Tandefelt, who jumped on his chest and crushed his rib cage.