The king's bosom friend, the Minister of the Interior, Gran, who is largely responsible for his liberalism, and whose whole policy it has been to rejuvenate and revitalize the monarchy, is challenged and shot by his old teacher, the Republican Flink; and the king himself, convinced of the futility of all his efforts to realize his idea of a democratic monarchy, commits suicide. As a piece of sanguinary satire on royalty as an institution "The King" is most interesting--that is, royalty logically and speculatively considered, without reference to its historical basis and development. To me the postulate that it had its origin in a kind of conspiracy (for mutual benefit) of the priest and the king seems shallow and unphilosophical. Bjoernson's fanatical partisanship has evidently carried him a little too far. For surely he would himself admit that every free nation is governed about as well as it deserves to be--that its political institutions are a reflection of its maturity and capacity for self-government. A certain allowance must, indeed, be made for the _vis inertiae_ of whatever exists, which makes it exert a stubborn and not unwholesome resistance to the reformer's zeal. This conservatism (which may, however, have more laudable motives than mere self-interest) Bjoernson has happily satirized in the scene before the Noblemen's Club in the third act. But, I fancy, it looks to him only as a sinister power, which for its own base purposes has smitten humanity with blindness to its own welfare. Though not intending to enter into a discussion, I am also tempted to put a respectful little interrogation mark after the statement that the republic is so very much cheaper than the monarchy. If the experience of the two largest republics in the world counts for anything, I should say that in point of economy there was not much to choose.