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    In the circumstances, Roger was not surprised that they should all resent Bernadotte a man they considered to have been a nobody being forced upon the King as his adopted son. Or that poor little Desiree the silk merchant's daughter should have been so ill-received by them.

    Apart from these Royalties, only ladies and gentlemen-in-waiting were present and, although Roger endeavoured to enliven the conversation by giving fictitious accounts of his doings in Spain and of how, as a prisoner of war in England, he had succeeded in escaping, dinner proved a gloomy meal.

    He soon settled down to his new role. Even the most haughty and hidebound among the Swedish aristocracy had by this time succumbed to the handsome Gascon who, in all but name, was their new ruler. The manner |n which he had sacrificed his great personal fortune to pay" Sweden's debts had greatly impressed them. The members of the Diet praised him for the sound reforms he proposed to them and for working from fifteen to eighteen hours a day on the nation's problems, and both officers and men admired him as a hero and General.

    In consequence, far from resenting a foreigner being sent to instruct them, the senior officers of the Army welcomed their Prince Royal’s friend, Colonel Count Breuc, and listened eagerly to his descriptions of the campaigns which had carried Napoleon on waves of victory from one end of Europe to the other.

    Stockholm, so aptly termed the 'Venice of the North', is one of the loveliest cities in the world, and in his off duty hours Roger greatly enjoyed parties that were made up to go on excursions to the islands, or to skate and toboggan. A few elderly people remarked that his face was vaguely familiar, and said they thought they had met him before, but it was over twenty years since he had been in Stockholm, so he had no difficulty in persuading them that they were mistaken.

    But he found the atmosphere of the huge Castle very depressing. At night it was so cold that he had to pile all his furs on top of his eiderdown to keep warm. Its long, uncarpeted corridors were tunnels of unceasing draughts, the narrow windows in the thick, stone walls barely lit them even at midday, and the furniture was mediaeval. In addition the winter days were so short that one seemed almost to be living in perpetual night. He did not wonder that little Desiree Clary had hated it.

    He saw Bernadotte every day and, at times, was even consulted by him on various problems and asked his opinion of the fitness of officers he was instructing to hold their commands. Every week or so he was invited to dine with the Royal Family, and became quite a favourite of the willful Queen.

    But, as time went on, he became more and more dubious of his chances of succeeding in his mission. The late war with Russia was still very much in everyone's mind. Many of his new acquaintances had lost husbands, sons or brothers in it, and the loss of Finland had struck at the very heart of the Swedish nation. Nearly everyone was hoping that a time would come when Russia was heavily engaged elsewhere, so that there would be a chance of winning back the Grand Duchy.

    Unlikely as it now seemed that he would be able to persuade Bernadotte to enter into an alliance with the hated Russians, Roger felt that he could not possibly abandon the task he had been given without at least attempting to carry it out. And time was creeping on. Toward the end of February he decided that he must risk disclosing his true identity; so, on the next occasion when he was invited to an intimate family dinner, he pinned on his chest the Star of the Swedish Order of Crossed Swords, which he had had made in London.

    Immediately he entered the salon, Bernadotte noticed it. Frowning, he marched up to Roger and demanded angrily, 'Colonel, what right have you to wear that Order?'

    Roger bowed and replied, 'I wear it because I am entitled to do so, Your Royal Highness. And if you will do me the honour to grant me a private audience later this evening, I shall be happy to inform you of the reason why I was decorated with it.'

18

Caught in the Toils Once More

    Conversation at the royal dinner table was always stilted. The palsied old King sat between the two Queens. Sometimes his food had to be cut up for him, he slobbered as he ate and occasionally mumbled something. The Queen Dowager never made a remark to anyone and, for most of the time, kept her sunken, black-rimmed eyes on her plate. Next to her, the half-witted Princess Sophia Albertina now and then gabbled out a few sentences or cackled with laughter. On the other side of Queen Charlotte, Bernadotte ate quickly, evidently anxious to get back to his work and thinking of it. The Queen alone kept the conversation going, as it was not etiquette for anyone to speak to the Royals unless spoken to.

    The five Royals sat at a raised table on a low dais. Each of them had a lord- or lady-in-waiting and these, with such guests as had been invited, sat at two tables at right angles to the royal board. They talked together in low voices, but there were rarely more than three or four guests and those mainly regular ones, so the subjects discussed tended to lack variety.

    Roger had always found these dinners boring and that night he wished more than ever that he had been in livelier company which would have distracted his thoughts with jokes and laughter. As he ploughed through his salmon, reindeer steak and portion of goose, he wondered if he had really been wise to make use of the Order of Crossed Swords when asking for this all-important private interview with Bernadotte.

    The idea had occurred to him when he had first thought over his mission; because, as was not surprising, after eighteen years of war the great majority of Frenchmen had a rooted dislike of the English and Roger had felt that his Swedish decoration would help to offset any prejudice against his nationality that Bernadotte might have. But now he was not so certain. By wearing a decoration to which it could be assumed he was not entitled, he had obviously put the Prince Royal in a bad temper. That would make for a far from propitious opening to a difficult interview, which might have most unpleasant consequences.

    His danger, as he had realised from the beginning, lay in the fact that, although Bernadotte had recently become a Swede and was doing everything possible to make his new compatriots regard him as one, he must at heart still be a Frenchman. The fact that, as a staunch Republican he had always distrusted Napoleon and was now refusing to aid in furthering his schemes, made no difference. The Emperor was only a person who symbolized a certain form of government; he was not France. And Roger must shortly confess that he had been constantly betraying the interests of France for many years. That might quite possibly lead to his being clapped in a dungeon for an indefinite period, so he was now contemplating the coming interview with some trepidation.

    At last the dinner was over. On the arm of the Queen, the old King tottered into the adjacent salon, followed in strict order of precedence by all the others. With the exception of Bernadotte and Roger, the company seated itself round a fire which, although large, warmed only a segment of the large, lofty room. Bernadotte then bowed to the King and Queen and said:

    'Your Majesties, I beg you to excuse me and Colonel Count Breuc from further attendance on you. There is a matter upon which I am anxious to speak to him without delay.'