CHARLES \l\ 



CIIAKLEVOIX, PIERRE FRANCOIS XAVJER DB. MM 



advantage of Bonaparte'* 

 blow. fcsVs* date* and mi 

 fcoMled the tnawy of BL 1 



to give him an inglorious 



.ulannis] They have coo- 

 treaty of Bt Petersburg in March, with the treaty of Abo 

 Angoet 181*. Sweden had eboaan her part, foraed to it by Napo- 

 laon'a uutragaesjs mjosOos. long before UM breaking out of the Russian 

 war. After that war bad begun, and about the middle of August, the 

 prince royal repaired to Abo in Finland to have an interview with 

 UM Emperor Alexander, who was delighted with his manner and con- 

 taraatiua. It was then agreed that Sweden should take an active part 

 in UM war by boding an army in North Germany, which would be 

 joined by a corps of Russians. At the same time it was stipulated 

 that Norway should ha dataonsd from Denmark, a power closely and 

 uaiUnsuluuiiy allied with the common enemy, Napoleon, and be 

 ana an I to the crown of Sweden in compensation for the loss of 

 Finland. Tbe acessaioo of Great Britain to the treaty waa solicited, 

 and after a time obtained. This treaty was signed at Abo, 18th of 

 August. The prince royal having reviewed a body of 85,000 Roaskna, 

 who were to be placed immediately at his disposal, told Alexander, 

 They are very fine troops, and yon can ill spare them just now ; aend 

 thorn instead to Riga, to reinforce Wittgenstein, who has great diffi- 

 culty in defending himself against Maedonald and Victor. If the 

 French succeed there they will march on St. Petersburg." "That is 

 vary handsome of yon," aaid Alexander ; " but how will yon obtain 

 possession of Norway." "If yon succeed," said the prince, * yon will 

 keep your promise. If yon succumb, Europe is enslaved ; all crowns 

 will be withered by subjection to Napoleon. Bettor then go and till a 

 field than rain under that condition." The troops were sent across 

 the Golf of Finland to Wittgenstein, just in time to save Riga and 

 St. Petersburg. Tbe prince royal, after his return to Stockholm, kept 

 up a familiar correspondence with Alexander during the whole of the 

 OBIuiablu Rowan campaign, gave him the best advice, and supported 

 ha spirits. After the French retreat from Moscow, the Swedish 

 cabinet signified to the French ehargd d'affaires at Stockholm that all 

 diplomatic relations with France had ceased, and sent him his pass- 

 port*. This waa resented in a note by Maret, Napoleon's secretary for 

 foreign affairs, to which the prince royal replied by an eloquent letter 

 aild i eased to Napoleon, in March 1818, which waa afterwards printed 

 and t lit ulated throughout Germany. 



In May the prince royal landed at Stralsnnd with about 25,000 

 Swedes, and advanced towards the Elbe. Soon after, an armistice 

 having been concluded between the Russians and the French, the prince 

 royal had an interview with the Emperor Alexander and the King of 



at Tracheoberg in Silesia, He laid before them a plan of 

 operations for the various allied armies during the ensuing campaign, 

 pointing to Laipsig aa their ultimate place of meeting. When hostilities 

 bagsn again, the prince royal, at the brad of the army called ' of the 

 North,' which coniistod of Swedes, Russians, and Prussians, protected 

 Berlin against the advance of the French under Oudinot, whom he 

 raimlaad at Oroaa Beertn ; and he afterwards defeated Ney at Denne- 

 wita, 6th of September, which aaved Berlin a second time, and drove 

 the French upon the lr ft bank of the Elbe. Napoleon began his retreat 

 from Dresden upon Leipzig, whither the movements of the allies were 

 converging, and there be sustained his signal defeat, which decided 

 the evacuation of Germany by the French. The prince royal contri- 

 buted greatly to the success of that battle on the 18th of October, and 

 the following day ha forced his way into the town, where he met in 

 UM great square the Emperor Alexander and the King of Prussia, 

 according to the agreement of Trachenberg. 



Leaving to others the pursuit of the French to the Rhine, the prince 

 royal turned towards the north to attack Davonst and his allies the 

 Danes on the Lower Elbe, He defeated the Danes, who demanded 

 an armistice, and then blockaded Davoust in Hamburg. On the 14th 

 of January 1814 a treaty was concluded at Kiel between Denmark and 

 Sweden, by which the former power gave up Norway to the crown of 

 Sweden, and joined the coalition. The prince royal then hastened to 

 the Rhine, and fixed his head-quarters at Cologne and afterward* at 

 Liege, whence he urged the Emperor Alexander to make peace with 

 France, having the Rhine, the Alps, and the Pyrenees for its bonndarie*. 

 He wrote in the same strain to the Swedish minister at the Congress 

 of Chatillon. and be also advised Napoleon, through an indirect channel, 

 to make peace, or be would lose his crown. He himself would take 

 no part in the campaign in France in 181 4. He always strongly oppoeed 

 the idea of any dismemberment of France, or of forcing any particular 

 " Let Germany and Holland be free," he 

 I) cione their own government." And the 

 coincided with him ; but Napoleon, by rejecting 



dynasty upon the French. 



aaid, " ana let the French choose their own government." 



I ; 



Ala 



Ml 



all proposals, harried on bis own fall The prinoo royal's paramount 

 duties however ware towards his adopted country, Sweden, which 

 expected a compensation for all her part sufferings and her present 

 scftfoos for the common cause. He went to Paris, incognito, to confer 

 with Alexander on the subject of Norway, as Denmark seemed little 

 inclined to fulfil the treaty of Kiel The emperor, faithful to his 

 word, obtained the sanction of all the allies, and placed at the dispoaal 

 of UM prince royal his troops in North Germany. The prince then 

 sat off for Brussels, where he collected his Swedish troops, and marched 

 them back to the shores of the Baltic. 



Christian Frederic, prince of Denmark, had hoisted in Norway the 

 flag of independence. The Norwegians, he said, were freed from their 



allegiance to the crown of Denmark, but they were not bound by the 

 conditions of the treaty of Kiel Ha assembled a sort of diet at 

 Eiswold, which framed a liberal constitution, and elected Christian 

 for their king, who soon after dissolved the assembly. The King of 

 Denmark sent commissaries to summon Christian to fulfil the treaty 

 of Kiel, but little attention was paid to this formality. Four commis- 

 sioners of England, Russia, Prussia, and Austria, came to remonstrate 

 in favour of the same treaty, but obtained only evasive answers. A 

 Swedish army and fleet were then put in motion against Christian. 

 King Charles XIII. and the prince royal commanded in person. After 

 some trifling actions on the frontier the Swedes entered Norway ; an 

 armutice wsa concluded ; and the Storthing, or general assembly of 

 Norway, being convoked, required Christian to renounce the authority 

 with which he bad been intrusted by the nation. Christian abdicated, 

 and returned to Copenhagen. The Storthing then entered into com- 

 munication with the Swedinh commissioners, and after some deliberation 

 elected unanimously Charles XI I L of Sweden to be king of the kingdom 

 of Norway, and Carl Johan as prince royal. The king and prino-, on 

 their part, swore to the constitution of Norwsy as voted by the 

 Storthing. The prince royal entered Cbristiania in the midst of 

 acclamations, and received the oath of allegiance of the deputies to 

 Charles XIII. in November 1814. The Scandinavian peninsula was 

 now united under one sceptre, and ' No more Dovre' was the common 

 word of union, meaning that the natural boundary of the Dovrefeld, 

 or mountains between the, two countries, waa no longer a political 

 barrier. 



In July 1817 Prince Oscar, son of the prince royal, the present King 

 of Sweden and Norway, attained his majority, which was celebrated 

 by a public solemnity. This young prince, who had followed his 

 father to Sweden in 1810, had been educated as a Swede in every 

 respect At the end of that year Charles XIII. fell ill, and on the 5th 

 of the following February, 1818, he expired, happy in the chuice of 

 his adopted son. Carl XIV., Johan, was immediately proclaimed 

 both in Sweden and in Norway, and was in due time acknowledged 

 by all the princes of Europe, Even the deposed Gnstavus wrote him 

 a letter of congratulation from Switzerland. The new king was 

 crowned at Stockholm in May by the Archbishop of Upsal, and after- 

 wards at Drontheim in September by the Bishop of Aggerhns, with 

 unusual splendour. 



The twenty-six years of the reign of Charles XIV. were for Sweden 

 and Norway a period of peace and internal improvement. Every branch 

 of the administration, the finances, the navy, the army, the roads and 

 canals, public instruction, all were improved. The great canal of 

 Gothia, which joins the Baltic to the Northern Sea, was opened in 1832. 

 Agriculture in all its branches made great progress. Sweden, which 

 ws formerly obliged to import large supplies of corn, now produces 

 enough for itself, and even export* corn. The public debt was reduced 

 almost to nothing. Sweden had at the end of this reign more than 

 2500 merchant ships, exclusive of coasting vessels, which is double 

 what she had in 1810. It may be easily supposed that the military 

 service, in all its branches, received the especial attention of Charles 

 John. In his speech on the opening of the Swedish Diet in January 

 1840, he recapitulated with honest satisfaction all that had been done 

 for the country under his reign. 



Charles John bad completed his eightieth year when lie was seized 

 by an illness in January 1844, which brought him to the grave on the 

 8th of March following. His son, Oscar I., succeeded him. Upon the 

 whole, the life of Charles John Bernadotte is one of the moat instructive 

 biographies of our own times ; it affords subject for serious reflection, 

 and is a useful comment on the history of Napoleon. 



(Touchard-Lafosse, Hittoirc de Ckarlei XIV. Jean. Sot de Suide et de 

 Norvtgei F. Schmidt, La Suide so<u Charla XIV. Jean; Daumont, 

 Voyage en Suede; Laing, Tour in Sweden; Count Biornstjerna, On 

 the Moral State and Political Union of Sweden and Norvay, <tc.) 



CHARLEVOIX, PIERRE FRANCOIS XAVIER DE, born at 

 St. Quentin in 1682, waa educated by the Jesuits, and wan admitted 

 into their order in early life. In 1720 he was appointed to one of tho 

 Jesuit missions in Canada, and, embarking at Rochelle, he arrived at 

 Quebec in the autumn of that year. He explored a large part of 

 Canada, and examined several of the rivers and hikes, which were then 

 not much visited by Europeans. In going from North America to 

 St. Domingo, he suffered shipwreck ; but a second voyage was more 

 fortunate, and he reached that island in September, 1722. After two 

 or three weeks stay in St. Domingo, he sailed for France, and arrived 

 at HAvre in the month of December. He afterwards made a journey 

 into Italy on some business of his order, which frequently entrusted 

 him with important employment*. Besides producing the voluminous 

 works that bear his narae, he wrote during twenty-two yean in the 

 ' Mc'moires de Trevoux,' a literary journal conducted by the Jesuits. 

 He died at La Flecbe in 1 7<U. 



He was a laborious compiler, and the documents and accounts of 

 foreign countries (furnished by Jesuit missionaries, who were scattered 

 in almost every corner of the world) upon which ho principally 

 worked, wore numerous and occasionally valuable ; but both he and 

 his authorities were partial, prejudiced, credulous, and superstitious, 

 and too much given to tedious details of the proceedings and cere- 

 monies of their own order. His separate works are, 1, 'History and 

 Description of Japan,' 3 vols. l!imo, Rouen, 1715; and 2 vols. 4to, 



