The representatives at Eidsvold were not unaware that the step which they had taken involved war with Sweden. For Bernadotte would scarcely regard the resolutions of a deliberative assembly as an obstacle to the possession of the prize, which he had earned by assisting in the overthrow of Napoleon. In the meanwhile, it was a happy circumstance to the Norsemen, that this overthrow had not yet taken place, and that the emperor for several months kept the army of the allies busy, thereby preventing Bernadotte from turning his immediate attention to Norway. It was a surprise to him to find the Norsemen determined to defend their rights, as he imagined that their long dependence upon Denmark had accustomed them to obedience and subordination. A letter which Charles XIII. had sent them, previous to the diet at Eidsvold, offering them a constitution and a Swedish viceroy, had been received with indignation, but after the surrender of Paris (March 31st) and the abdication of the emperor, the Napoleonic drama seemed preliminarily at an end, and there were no more foreign complications to prevent the Swedes from enforcing the paragraph in the treaty of Kiel, relating to Norway. The intelligence now arrived that the great powers had promised Bernadotte to compel Norway to accept the treaty, and envoys were sent from the various courts, commanding the Norsemen forthwith to submit themselves unconditionally to the king of Sweden. This the Norsemen refused to do, and soon after a Swedish army under Bernadotte crossed the frontier. The newly elected king now began to waver, and, being destitute of warlike spirit, he ordered the surrender of the fortress Fredericksteen to the Swedish fleet, without having fired a shot in its defence. The Norwegian army, ill-provided though it was with food and ammunition, was eager for fight, but the faint-spirited king showed his generalship chiefly in retreating. A second division of the Swedish army under Gahn was beaten in Lier by the Norwegians, under Colonel Krebs, and after a second assault at Matrand was forced to retire across the frontier. It became obvious that, without bloodshed, the conquest of the country was not to be accomplished, and as the Swedes, after their German campaign, were no less desirous of peace than the Norsemen, an armistice was concluded at Moss (August 14, 1814), in accordance with the terms of which the king should summon an extraordinary _Storthing_ or Parliament, for the negotiation of a permanent peace. This _Storthing_, which met October 7th, accepted King Christian Frederick's renunciation of the Norwegian crown and elected Charles XIII. king, on condition of his recognizing the independence of Norway and governing it, in accordance with the constitution given at Eidsvold. These terms Bernadotte accepted, in behalf of the king of Sweden (November 4th), and swore allegiance to the constitution. The Swedish troops then evacuated the country, and