In this embarrassment they were thought to start a happy idea, who proposed to conciliate Napoleon by bestowing the ancient crown of the Goths upon one of his own field-marshals, and a high noble of his empire, namely, John Baptiste Julian Bernadotte, Prince of Ponte Corvo. This distinguished officer was married to a sister of Joseph Buonaparte's wife (daughter of a wealthy and respectable individual, named Cléry,) through whom he had the advantage of an alliance with the Imperial family of Napoleon, and he had acquired a high reputation in the north of Europe, both when governor of Hanover, and administrator of Swedish Pomerania. On the latter occasion, Bernadotte was said to have shown himself in a particular manner the friend and protector of the Swedish nation; and it was even insinuated, that he would not be averse to exchange the errors of Popery for the reformed tenets of Luther. The Swedish nation fell very generally into the line of policy which prompted this choice. Humiliating as it might, at another period, have been to a people proud of their ancient renown, to choose for their master a foreign soldier, differing from them in birth and religious faith, such an election yet promised to place at the head of the nation a person admirably qualified to comprehend and encounter the difficulties of the time; and it was a choice, sure, as they thought, to be agreeable to him upon whose nod the world seemed to depend. Yet, there is the best reason to doubt, whether, in preferring Bernadotte to their vacant throne, the Swedes did a thing which was gratifying to Napoleon. The name of the Crown Prince of Sweden elect, had been known in the wars of the Revolution, before that of Buonaparte had been heard of. Bernadotte had been the older, though certainly not therefore the better soldier. On the 18th Brumaire, he was so far from joining Buonaparte in his enterprise against the Council of Five Hundred, notwithstanding all advances made to him, that he was on the spot at St. Cloud armed and prepared, had circumstances permitted, to place himself at the head of any part of the military, who might be brought to declare for the Directory. And although, like every one else, Bernadotte submitted to the Consular system, and held the government of Holland under Buonaparte, yet then, as well as under the empire, he was always understood to belong to a class of officers, whom Napoleon employed indeed, and rewarded, but without loving them, or perhaps relying on them, more than he was compelled to do, although their character was in most instances a warrant for their fidelity.