Chapter 41
Stockholm
January 1818
“A TOAST TO HIS ROYAL Highness, the Prince Royal.” Queen Hedwig raised her champagne flute, tilting it in my husband’s direction as cordial murmurs of assent rose up throughout the large banquet hall. Outside the palace the night was frigid, with a steady curtain of snow falling over the city, but inside the hall, where hundreds of candles shimmered off the elaborate jewels and clothing of our guests, the space shone bright and warm. We were not yet in the somber period of Lent, and the court had gathered at a ball in order to celebrate my husband’s fifty-fifth birthday.
“May you live in good health, sir,” Hedwig added, as her husband the king nodded feebly beside her, giving his blessing to her toast, though of course we all knew that it was not necessary.
Now Hedwig turned her eyes on me, her taut smile no longer reaching her eyes as she said: “And to Her Royal Highness as well, who has finally returned to us, joining her husband and son, and her court, once more.”
I offered a subdued nod of appreciation, lifting the cold champagne to my lips as I guessed that Hedwig intended an insult rather than a compliment.
I did not owe Hedwig an explanation; it had been my doctors, after all, who had urged me against returning to this northern climate, cold and unpleasant as it was to me in so many ways. They’d written my husband on numerous occasions to tell him that the sea journey alone would worsen my cough and put my fragile health in peril. I’d been more than willing to follow their orders, remaining in my mansion on the Rue d’Anjou and taking up an inconspicuous but somewhat regular place at the Parisian court of Louis XVIII, the Bourbons having been restored once more to the French throne.
And yet my husband’s impatience had won out in the end. My prolonged absence was creating problems for him at the Swedish court: gossipers falsely accused me of having taken a French lover, and advisers openly urged my husband to petition me for divorce and remarry a fertile young Swedish noblewoman who would give him a brood of Stockholm-born princes.
Several women were openly vying for such a position. I would not have that; I would not have Oscar’s birthright and future put in peril. Not after everything my husband and I had endured and survived in the madness of our world.
So I returned to Sweden, leaving France and the hope of an eventual reunion with Julie in exchange for the reunion with my husband and son. And here I was once more, in the throes of a northern winter, with the cold nights and even colder looks from Hedwig, the most powerful figure at court.
We expected that Bernadotte’s ascendancy to the throne might come soon; King Charles hardly left his private rooms these days, and when he did, as on court occasions such as this, he appeared ever paler and weaker. And yet here was Hedwig, ensuring that he carry out his duties in public this evening of my husband’s birthday banquet. “Well, then, shall we dance?” Hedwig posed it as a question, but she turned to her husband with an expectant look, urging him to rise. King Charles obeyed, and several attendants hovered as he slowly pushed himself up from his chair, his breath rattling in and out through ragged wheezes. He had to dance at least one, and then he would quit the hall to return to his bed.
“Bravo,” my husband said beside me, nodding appreciatively toward the sickly king’s great effort. Courtiers filled in around us to watch as Hedwig and Charles crossed the hall toward the musicians to open the dancing.
The violinists lifted their bows, the two dancers took their places, and just as the music started, King Charles collapsed in the center of the hall, falling to the parquet floor in a heap before his stunned wife. Gasps popped up from among our two hundred guests. The music stopped as Queen Hedwig screamed, her gloved hand flying to her mouth. Within a moment, she had regained her composure, summoning a fleet of servants to her side to lift her husband. She trailed behind as they left the hall in a hurry, the stunned courtiers’ shouts of “Long live King Charles!” swirling in their wake.
Stroke. The next morning, the word spread like a contagion down the long, drafty halls of the palace. The enfeebled king had suffered a second stroke. The court waited for news as a team of physicians and priests remained huddled around the king, day and night. Stockholm was a city on edge as the gray, sunless month of January came to a close. My husband’s ministers briefed him twice a day on the king’s condition, once in the morning and once in the evening. Though not much changed in practice—my husband had already been acting in the role of regent—we sensed that a more official change would soon be taking place.
A week later, my husband and I sat in his private salon, playing bridge with Count Mörner and the Löwenhielm brothers. A small cluster of musicians gave us song, and with the day’s official duties completed, we were in a relaxed mood, laughing over my husband’s Gascon boastfulness. Suddenly, several royal advisers burst into the room, their faces flushed.
We looked up, startled. My husband lowered his cards, and I noted the tightening of his jaw, his slow, somber nod.
Next thing I knew, the newly arrived men were bowing before my husband, their eyes lowered to the carpet. Count Mörner appeared to understand their meaning, and he immediately rose from his chair to do the same, his face solemn.
The old king, I knew, was dead. The room filled with cheers of: “Long live King Carl Johan! Long live the House of Bernadotte!”
How many times had I participated in coronation events and other court ceremonies? Too many times to count. But never before had I been at their center; never had I imagined that I would be crowned a queen of one of Europe’s ancient and great powers.
It was early May, when the days were nearing their longest, and the sun rose early that morning, greeted by a thunder of ceremonial cannon fire as the city of Stockholm prepared for our coronation. Soon after dawn, church bells began to clamor across the city—for this was a day of importance not only for the State, but for the Church as well.
My husband and his government had declared it a national holiday, and the crowds turned out to enjoy the festivities. Heralds marched through the streets proclaiming the news: my husband was to be crowned King of Sweden, Norway, the Goths, and the Vandals. From my rooms, I saw the bright Swedish flags paraded across the courtyard and beyond the grand gates of the palace. This was new, not a part of the traditional Swedish coronation pageantry, but Bernadotte wished to conjure a festive feel, to lend the weight of ceremony since his was not a long or even Swedish heritage. We were to be a new dynasty, and so, my husband said, it was all the more important that our day be marked by majesty and significance, even if we had to borrow that significance from traditions other than our own.
Elise helped me dress, and we took the entire morning. I had ordered a new robe of spun silver to match my husband’s attire. Bernadotte would wear the ancient crown of Sweden’s beloved King Eric, to which he had added several large diamonds that he’d brought from France, and he carried a sapphire orb. I wore a tiara of diamonds in my upswept hair, a diamond choker around my neck, and matching jewels on my ears and wrists.
As I exited the palace beside my husband and son, I looked out over the scene. The crowds stretched farther than my eyes could take in; people cheering, children waving the Swedish flag, round-cheeked babies perched atop their fathers’ shoulders. The church bells clamored in a frenzied chorus to accompany our footsteps as we left the palace and processed along Slottsbacken Avenue. We arrived at Storkyrkan Cathedral, where my husband was to be made the official leader of the national Lutheran Church. A great canopy of gold cloth draped over our heads. Oscar, now my tall and handsome young man, watched with pride as his father was anointed by the Archbishop.
Back in the palace, we were whisked into the throne room, where my husband and I took our seats at the front of the hall while an endless stream of Swedish nobles, mayors, parliamentary members, government officials, diplomats, and clergymen bowed before us, congratulating us and swearing their loyalty to the House of Bernadotte.
The long, sunlit night outside our palace roiled with the lively sounds of feasting and fireworks. Inside, I sat, stiff and erect, doing my best to carry myself with a queenly bearing. Did I think of her—Josephine? Of course I thought of her, the entire day; she had been the most elegant queen I would ever know, and now we shared more than just the one-time love of the same man. Now we shared the knowledge of what it meant to wear a crown—one plucked from fortune rather than passed through blood. And to know that a crown was both a great gift and an onerous burden.