An eminent figure in the political struggles of those days was the poet Henrik Wergeland, who, as the leader of the students, persisted in celebrating the anniversary of the constitution (May 17th) contrary to the king's command, instead of the anniversary of the union with Sweden (November 4th). The king exaggerated the importance of this demonstration and in 1829 called out troops, which dispersed, by force of arms, the multitude celebrating the national holiday. Wergeland, though he personally professed reverence for the king, did not evince the same reverence for his policy, and by his indefatigable activity in prose and verse nourished the defiant and aggressive patriotism of his countrymen. In an intoxication of patriotic pride he sang the praise of liberty and celebrated the beauties of forest, mountain, and fjord; and a chorus of minor poets declaimed about Norway's Lion, and the rocks of Norway which "defied the tooth of time." There was a good deal that was boyish and irrational in this enthusiasm; but it was wholesome and genuine and politically useful. That Charles John did not only hold up the powers as a scarecrow, with which to frighten the Norsemen, but was himself restrained in his policy by a regard for their opinion, is obvious enough. The political ferment which, after the July Revolution (1830) in France, spread throughout Europe and also reached Norway, caused him much apprehension, and in order to intimidate the steadily progressing democracy, he suddenly dissolved the _Storthing_ of 1836. The _Storthing_, regarding this dissolution as contrary to law, indicted the Minister of State, Löwenskjold, before the high court of the realm (_Rigsret_), and sentenced him to pay a fine for not having dissuaded the king from violating the constitution. This boldness, instead of impelling the king to further measures of repression, induced him to make a concession. He conciliated the Norsemen by appointing their countryman, Count Wedel-Jarlsberg, as viceroy. This was a great step toward real independence and made the king justly popular. During the last years of his life, after he had given up the hope of stemming the tide of democracy, Charles John won the hearts of the Norsemen and he was sincerely mourned at his death (1844).