Legends -- Pyrenees; Pyrenees -- Description and travel; Pyrenees -- History
The Directory appointed him ambassador at Vienna. The choice was
not happy; he had not the breeding of a gentleman, and behaved with
insolence in the most punctilious of courts. On the day upon which the
volunteers were enrolled for the defence of their country, Bernadotte
ostentatiously hoisted the tricolour, which the mob tore down. The
ambassador in vain demanded satisfaction. He quitted Vienna, but the
Directory disavowed him. Soon after his return to France he married
Eugènie, the daughter of the soap-boiler, Clary, of Marseilles, and
sister of the wife of Joseph Bonaparte. He lived for a while in
retirement, but was summoned by the Government to Paris and was given
the command of the army of observation in Germany.
After the revolution of the 30th Prairial, in the year VII (18 June,
1799), Bernadotte was appointed Minister of War; but the astute Siéyès
was meditating a _coup d’état_, and mistrusting Bernadotte, deprived
him of his portfolio. He accepted the title of Councillor of State from
the First Consul, and the command of the army of the West.
In 1804 Napoleon raised him to the dignity of Marshal of the Empire,
and gave him the command of the army in Hanover. In June, 1806, he
created him Prince of Pontecorvo, and employed him in the war that
broke out with Prussia. It is unnecessary here to follow his career in
the wars of Napoleon. The Emperor never liked him, and even thought of
depriving him of the title he had conferred upon him. He dispatched
him in disgrace to Rome; but before he reached it a deputation from
Sweden arrived (September, 1810) with the tidings that King Charles
XII had named him Crown Prince, and that the Estates of Sweden had
unanimously ratified the appointment, with the condition that he
should resign his French citizenship and adopt the Lutheran religion.
To this he consented, and landed at Helsingborg on 20 October, 1810,
and on 5 November was recognized as Crown Prince, and adopted the name
of Charles John. By arrangement with Russia Norway was detached from
Denmark and annexed to Sweden, much to the dislike of the Norwegians.
In 1813 Sweden declared war against France, and Bernadotte led 20,000
Swedes to join the allies; but his dilatoriness caused him to be too
late to take part in the Battle of the Nations at Liepzig. He was
naturally reluctant to cross swords with his old master.
In 1814 he marched in the same leisurely manner into France, and
arrived in Paris after it had been occupied by the allies. On 5
February, 1818, he succeeded his adoptive father, and was crowned King
of Sweden and Norway at both Stockholm and Drontheim. He was succeeded
by his only son, Oscar, in 1844.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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