Sweden, under Bernadotte, was manifestly anxious to find a cause of offense, being defiant in temper, and ready to do anything for the purpose of strengthening the hands of Alexander and escaping from French protection. So feeble was the titular King of Sweden that the adoptive crown prince speedily became the real ruler, and his personal desires were soon the public policy. It was a strange transformation which took place in the man. He had been generous and kindly in the difficult positions he held as a French general. Avowedly a revolutionary democrat of the most radical stripe, he was nevertheless a true Gascon and failed to display his great abilities wherever his heart was not engaged. He had, moreover, basked in the sunshine of imperial favor, and in an age of atheism had remained in the fold of the Roman Church. Having himself schemed against Napoleon under the promptings of personal ambition, he often gave aid and comfort to the Emperor's enemies. When adopted into the royal family of Sweden it cost him little effort to profess Lutheranism; his republican sympathies were quenched, and he developed into a beneficent despot anxious to put Sweden in line with Russia. He never was able to win the affections of his people, and when before the close of his life they demanded a liberal constitution, this democratic sovereign, brought up under the illumination of French revolutionary doctrines, held back until the paper had to be wrung from him. The phases of Napoleon's life are scarcely more startling than those of this rather commonplace actor on a stage which was provincial when compared with the cosmopolitan scene of the Emperor's life-drama.