Bernadotte, whom Soult envied, has some affinities with M. Grévy. This president of the republic first won renown by a parliamentary motion to the effect that a republic did not want a president; so Bernadotte came to be a king, after a long and steadfast profession of republican principles. Born in 1764, he enlisted at eighteen, and was sergeant-major in 1789. He was very nearly court-martialed at that time for haranguing a crowd in revolutionary terms. Five years later he was a general, and in 1798 ambassador at Vienna. He was an able, thoughtful, hardy, handsome man, who, having received no education as a boy, made up for it by diligent study in after years; and no man ever so well corrected, in small or great things, the imperfections of early training. Tallyrand said of him, “He is a man who learns and _unlearns_ every day.” One thing he learned was to read the character of Napoleon and not to be afraid of him, for the act which led to his becoming king of Sweden was one of rare audacity. Commanding an army sent against the Swedes in 1808, he suspended operations on learning the overthrow by revolution of Gustavus IV., against whom war had been declared. The Swedes were profoundly grateful for this, and Napoleon dared not say much, because he was supposed to have no quarrel with the Swedes as a people; but Bernadotte was marked down in his bad books from that day, and he was in complete disgrace when in 1810 Charles XIII. adopted him as crown prince with the approval of the Swedish people. Bernadotte made an excellent king, but remembering his austere advocacy of republicanism, it is impossible not to smile and ask whether there is not some truth in Madame de Girardin’s definition of equality as _le privilége pour tous_.