"To our amazement we found him turned nearly completely round in his coffin! One ankle was dislocated, the leg being firmly locked between the sides, while that part of the bottom on which the head and shoulders lay was flooded with blood, which appeared to have come from the mouth. We lifted up our heads and looked at each other in horror. He had evidently been buried whilst animation was only suspended, and had recovered consciousness in the grave, and dreadful must have been his vain struggling against the walls and roof of his firm and narrow house. On turning his face up a new dread froze our veins. Never on any countenance, or in any painting, did I see such a ghastly picture of despair; every feature spoke sense of dreadful danger, agony of body and violent muscular straining, with sudden and total departure of all hope, whilst the mouth appeared to have poured forth gushes of blood.

"We were so struck that two of us were for burying him up again and having nothing to do with him, but the third, who now holds a high rank on the army medical staff, insisted on carrying him off.

"If he was buried alive,' said he, he is dead enough now for all practical purposes, there is no questioning that phenomenon, so let's precipitate him into the sack, bundle him up, and be off in a hurry. It will be long before we get such a precious chance again.'

"And so we did, filling up the grave, lowering the flagstones that covered it, and bending back to its place the stanchion, so as to leave things as like what they had been as possible.

"The body was dissected in different portions by different students, and each preserved and carried with him to whatever part of the world fortune and his profession took him from our town, the bones of some of his members, or some of the organs of his body preserved in spirits. The rest of the flesh as it was dissected away piecemeal we flung into the river that ran through the town, nor was it ever suspected that he did any thing but sleep undisturbed in his grave."

The end of Mrs. Vaspar was analogous in its misery. After the death of her husband, on whom she doated fondly to the last, it became evident her reason was impaired. She was put under restraint, and all the means that were then used or known in the treatment of mental disorders were put in requisition, but fruitlessly, and she ultimately died mad. Her mania was general,-on all subjects-but she had one particular hallucination that took the lead-one scene seemed to be continually passing before her mind, and she would constantly be enacting it, though the precise words and gesticulation might vary at times.

"Edmund, dearest Edmund," so would her ravings run, "how can you think of such a thing. Take him out!-let him perish-we shall be happy then. No, no; save his life, and you will make me a murderess either of him or myself. We shall never separate more, my love-he is sure to die. Save him, then you may stab yourself and me. Oh, Edmund, I love you-my heart doats on you. I have lost my soul for love of you. Take pity on me and love me; it is all the happiness I can ever have, and happiness indeed it is. Kiss me, Vaspar. We are happy, and hemy curse-is enduring the worst misery man can suffer-dying of hunger. While the kiss of our endearment falls soft upon the perfumed air of this chamber, his last groans sound hollow in the cold, murky pit. Whilst we are lost in blessed forgetfulness, he sleeps in the arms of death."

REMINISCENCES OF THE LATE KING OF SWEDEN.

BY A GERMAN OFFICER IN THE SWEDISH SERVICE.

WHEN I saw King Charles John for the first time, he was in his sixtyfourth year; but, from his glossy black hair, his fine figure, retaining all the vigour of his prime, and the vivacity and agility of his movements, he might have passed for a hale man of fifty. His angular, marked, but extremely pleasing features, his beautifully formed mouth, and his large, brilliant eyes, composed a whole, the highly intellectual and, at the same time, amiable expression of which was extremely fascinating. The gaze of his eagle eye, which fixed upon and penetrated any one who was conversing with him, had such a spell, that I think it would have been very difficult to tell the king to his face an untruth, without confusion or trepidation. I have seen courtiers and placemen, whose consciences might not be perfectly clear, stand abashed and confounded, as if thunderstruck, by that piercing look, which seemed to read the inmost recesses of the heart. Bernadotte appeared to be aware of this effect of his looks, and he is said to have formed beforehand an unfavourable opinion of those who could not bear their scrutiny.

The expression of that searching eye changed with inconceivable rapidity. On my return to Stockholm, after a long journey, which I had performed, as the bearer of despatches on matters of great importance, with such expedition that it was noticed as an extraordinary circumstance both in the German and French newspapers, I waited immediately upon the king, and, being admitted to his presence, had occasion to observe the expression of the kindliest benevolence in his face suddenly changed into the flashing look of indignation. He had laid upon the table the despatches which I had brought, and, while he carelessly sprinkled me from a bottle of eau de Cologne, as he frequently did, to take off the smell of tobacco, to which he had a strong aversion, he put various questions, to which I gave satisfactory answers. At last, he inquired in what time I had performed the journey. When I mentioned the precise number of days and hours, his eyes, till then all kindness, all at once darted at me an annihilating look. "Monsieur," he thundered forth, "souvenez vous que c'est à moi que vous parlez, et que je ne souffre pas les mauvaises plaisanteries." I assured him most respectfully that nothing was further from my intention than to take such a liberty; but it was not till he opened the letters, and found the truth of my statement confirmed by the date of them, that his good-humour returned.

For the rest, there was nothing whatever in his manner that tended to intimidate; on the contrary, he possessed in the highest degree the talent so useful to a sovereign, of saying to every one what was likely to be most agreeable to him, and of so prepossessing by his conversation all who approached him that they went away delighted. Of his extraordinary power of persuasion, and the great effect of his personal appearance, I will give a remarkable instance. When on one occasion (I forget in what year) the Norwegian Storthing, which, as every body knows, is always in opposition to the government, had again rejected all the propositions of the latter, and a formal breach was anticipated, the king, on receiving this intelligence, attended by a single aide-de-camp, hastened to Christiana, where he arrived quite unexpectedly. He spoke the same evening with some of the leading members, went on the following

day to the assembly, harangued it, and in a short time produced such a change of sentiments that the ferment subsided, order and tranquillity were restored, and the measures proposed by the government, which were in reality fit and moderate, were adopted.

This faculty of rendering himself beloved, not by words alone, but by real kindness and beneficence, contributed not a little to raise him to the throne of Sweden. Other French marshals had acquired as high military reputation as Bernadotte, but by his longer residence at Anspach, and subsequently in Hanover, he had gained the character of a good, just, and clement governor, and, by his humane treatment of the Swedes taken prisoners by him near Lübeck, in the campaign of 1806, that of a noble and generous enemy. In this Swedish corps were several officers belonging to the most influential families in Sweden, who, fascinated by the amiable disposition of the marshal, and by the lively interest with which he inquired concerning the state of their country, carried home with them a high idea of his acute, comprehensive mind, and profound gratitude for his favours. The influence of these officers and their families contributed not a little to the election of the marshal as CrownPrince of Sweden at the diet of Oerebro, in 1810.

The opinion which has prevailed that the object of the Swedes in electing a French marshal was to flatter Napoleon, who was then allpowerful, is erroneous. The Swedes knew, as well as every one who was at all acquainted with the state of things at the French court, that for a long time past the emperor could not endure Bernadotte, and that he was even in some respects afraid of him. Napoleon neither wished nor favoured the election of the Prince of Ponte Corvo as Crown-Prince of Sweden. He knew the character of this man, who had on several occasions openly and boldly opposed him, and was but too well aware that Bernadotte would never stoop to the subordinate and degrading part of a French prefect, to which the emperor doomed his brothers and relatives whom he invested with European sovereignties. Experience showed that he was not mistaken, for he soon received the strongest proofs that his former marshal had become in heart and soul a Swede, and that, as might be expected of such a man, he preferred the interest of the country which had adopted him to that of the country in which he happened to be born.

The continental system, that fixed idea of the emperor, to which he sacrificed so much, and by which he plunged into misery and estranged whole nations, who might otherwise have been and remained devoted to him-the continental system was the rock upon which the good understanding hitherto kept up, apparently at least, between these two extraordinary men, suffered shipwreck. The introduction of the continental system, required unconditionally by Napoleon, would have been a deathblow to the commerce of Sweden: the Crown-Prince wrote to this effect to the emperor, and when the latter persisted in his unreasonable demand, flatly refused to comply. I have myself had occasion to peruse great part of this correspondence, which is stamped on the part of Napoleon with the character of despotism and irritability; and on the part of the Crown-Prince with that of a firm, dignified resistance, of a bold, noble independence, and a perfect consciousness of the duties which he owed to his new country. The emperor, in his letters, calls the Crown-Prince a traitor, a rebel; and the latter replies that he should deserve those names, if, unmindful of his oath and his engagements, he should sacrifice the in

terests of Sweden to those of France.

The conduct of Bernadotte on this occasion was as prudent as that of Napoleon was impolitic.

I have frequently heard it alleged as a ground of reproach against the Crown-Prince of Sweden, by Prussian officers more especially, but also by Swedish, that his conduct during the campaign of 1813 was not frank and straightforward-that he was not to be trusted-that he let slip several opportunities of beating the French, and, on the other hand, seized every occasion to spare them, and that, on this account, he led his own troops, the Swedes, into action as little possible. This imputation is not quite just. The Crown-Prince of Sweden could not have a real interest in sparing the French, or, to speak more correctly, Napoleon: on the contrary, it was decidedly to his interest to annihilate him,-for he knew his former commander too well not to be thoroughly convinced that if he should come off conqueror from the conflict for life and death, he would never forgive the conduct of Bernadotte, nor forego his revenge. If he took the field against his countrymen without ardour, nay, with a certain lukewarmness, or even repugnance, this, in my opinion, rather redounds to his honour, and the more so as, from the very first, he communicated his views to his allies, the Emperor of Russia and the King of Prussia, and not only advised them to drive the French out of Germany, but insisted that there could be no question of peace with Napoleon while a single French soldier remained on German ground. It is true that he strove also to persuade the two sovereigns not to enter France, frankly declaring that, though he was ready to co-operate in the first-mentioned object with all his might, he would not contribute in any way to the occupation of France.

About this period, he wrote several times, with the knowledge of the monarchs of Russia and Prussia, to Napoleon, earnestly exhorting him to peace, strongly and clearly representing to him the impossibility of any long resistance in his situation, and accurately predicting what must befall him if he would not lend a hand to peace. As this advice proved fruitless, Bernadotte cheerfully and honestly assisted in clearing the German territory of the French. If, in so doing, he manifested no hatred, no personal enmity to them, this is as natural as the animosity of the Prussians, who had great outrages to revenge; and I will take leave to add that these latter, perhaps, conceived themselves authorised to censure with the more severity this coolness of the commander-in-chief, because they could not help recollecting that this was the same general who, in 1806, had proved to them near Halle that he was not deficient in energy.

The rather remarkable supineness of the Crown-Prince at Grossbeeren, where he placed his whole Swedish corps, with the exception of the artillery, which, under General Cardell, contributed materially to the victory, in the reserve, and would not suffer it to take part in the engagement, proceeded from the motive already touched upon-his reluctance, unseasonably indulged, it is true, to permit his own troops to act against the French.

"The point," said he, "was to save Berlin. It was but just that the Prussians should fight in first line for their capital, and that the Swedes should be there to afford assistance only in case of defeat. Thanks to my dispositions, to the ability with which they were executed by the Prussian generals, and to the enthusiasm and valour of their troops, that assistance was not necessary."

These sentiments I have heard Charles John himself express more than once, if not in the same words, yet in others of precisely the same signification. After the battle of Leipzig, the Crown-Prince separated from the allies, operated with his army against the Danes, and subsequently against the French in Belgium; and, adhering to his principle, halted his Swedish corps on the French frontier, which he would not allow it to

cross.

Bernadotte's way of living was extremely simple. To his established habit of temperance, he owed the astonishing conservation of his person and his robust health. Very often, indeed generally, he passed great part of the forenoon in bed, where, however, from eight o'clock, he gave audience and transacted business. About two, he generally rode out in fine weather, and frequently repaired to his favourite retreat, the elegant little palace of Rosendal, built by himself, in the park, and tastefully fitted up and furnished, where he sometimes dined. He rarely visited the table of the queen, who regularly dines with the gentlemen and ladies in attendance on her. In general, the king dined in company with only two or three men, courtiers of distinction, high officers of state, scholars, foreigners, or other interesting persons, with whom he wished to converse. He seldom went to the theatre, chiefly because he was not sufficiently conversant with the Swedish language. The last hours of the day he spent either in writing, or in the family circle.

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With pleasure and with just pride, the thoughts of Charles John dwelt upon his earlier career, and he frequently spoke with fondness of the time when he held the very lowest military ranks. Lorsque j'étais sergeant," or, "A cette époque je venais d'être nommé officier,"—were expressions which I have often heard him use. He had an astonishing memory for old comrades and acquaintance, and when I was first introduced to him, I had to give him all the information I could concerning a great number of his old companions in arms. On many of them, who fell into distress, he conferred substantial favours, but he adopted the prudent resolution not to permit any of them to come to Sweden. On this point he has been so consistent that he had about him but a single Frenchman, his foster-brother, General Camps, and that, as far as I know, none of his relations, who are people of good property, ever came to Sweden. Had not the king adhered so firmly to this principle, a great number of Frenchmen, dissatisfied with the government of the elder branch of the house of Bourbon, would gradually have found their way to Sweden to importune their former general with applications for appointments, the granting of which would have been mortifying to the Swedes.

Though the king, as I have already observed, generally lay long abed, he was attentive to his health, rarely rode on horseback, scarcely ever went a-hunting, and in general exposed himself to as little fatigue as possible, still he could upon occasion, in spite of his age, endure more than even the younger of his attendants liked to encounter. In great manœuvres, I have seen the king for several successive days, passing eight or ten hours on horseback, and distinguished by his noble military bearing, and the great simplicity of his dress, among the brilliant uniforms of his numerous staff. His frequent journeys to Norway were often performed with the utmost celerity, in winter, in the most intense cold, and on roads which in that season are not always the best.

I shall here introduce one trait from Bernadotte's life, which does him