Читать книгу Nightcap and Plume - Bowen Marjorie - Страница 15

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M. Osterman, who considered he had received good value for his Russian roubles, since he had bought the entire Senate of Sweden, enjoyed the pageantry of the Coronation of the King of the Swedes the Goths and the Vandals; he admitted to the British Minister, Sir John Goodrich, who had worked with him so well to deprive Gustaf of all power, that the puppet show was very well set out, as became a dabbler in the drama and the opera.

On the surface everything glittered, there was a new order of knighthood, the Vasa, a play on the word that meant Wheat-sheaf the rebus of the Vasa name, for this honour was for those who encouraged agriculture. But there had been two seasons of famine, not only because of wretched crops, but because the hundreds of thousands of tons of rye were used annually for spirit-distilling, and on the reform of this scandal though advocated by the King, the officials who ruled the Riksdag and the provinces would not agree. Secret Committees, the Estates, local officials, quarrelled and bickered, the man with money in his purse had his brandy and the man without money ate bark and bran, while disputes as to freightage left the grain rotting in the relief ships (sent too late) at Goteborg.

A splendid regalia was borne before the young King riding in a cloth of silver habit beneath a canopy upheld by magnificent nobles, the famous orders of knighthood, wore their ceremonial attire, the Seraphim in black and white, the Sword in White and Blue and the North Star in crimson, the Senators trod with dignity in ample robes of scarlet edged with ermine But the national debt amounted to fifty tons of gold and the national resources were bankrupt; panic economy had cut down the national defences to the danger point, and the enemies of Sweden knew this. All bowed before the elegant and handsome young monarch, whose mere presence roused a touching enthusiasm, but he had signed a revised Coronation oath that deprived him of his last prerogatives and M. Osterman really ruled Sweden as viceroy of Catherine II, who freed, by a series of rapid victories, from the menace of the Porte, was closing in on Sweden as she had on Poland. Silver shoes, lightly nailed, fell from the hooves of Gustaf's charger and were scrambled for by the mob, as they were replaced by others of equal value, but the plan for the reform of the currency had failed, jobbery, pilfering, nepotism, corrupted alike the Riksdag, the Church and the bureaucracy.

Fanfares of martial pride greeted the placing of the crown on the King's smooth brow, but the slothful peace party, the Caps, had the majority in the Riksdag and they would sooner sell their country than defend it, rather be comfortable hirelings than lean patriots. A sweet faced Queen, gentle and charming, fair as the first lily of May, stood beside the King, adorned with the crown jewels of Sweden, daughter and sister of Kings, good, pious and obedient, truly a delicious picture of earthly pomp and felicity; but the marriage was in name only; condemned to barrenness the maiden wife shrank from the mocking triumph of the Brandenberg Queen Dowager who loathed her, from the strained kindness of the husband, who saw in her the offspring of a tainted house, the sister of a dishonoured lunatic, the husband who dreaded her vacant look, her idle hands, her halting voice.

The religious rites were impressive, but few of the clergy had any thought of any God, or cared for anything save their own aggrandisement and their own private feuds; only Olaf Valquist, the brilliant churchman, grieved in his heart at the bitter distress of his country that was so universal, so little to be understood, the result of so many secret betrayals and so many petty clashes of vulgar interests already lost in the anarchy of yesterday's party politics.

The King felt the crown on his brow; not far from the church, was that other church with the silent corded drums and tasselled, motionless flags, and the silver and copper coffins that hid all that was mortal of the Vasa Kings, the armour on the wooden horsemen, the elk tunics stiff and tattered.

His smile gaily singled out the Russian minister, the suave ringmaster of this splendid circus, the King put his hand to his face as if he had felt the faint flick of the lash there; the Dalesmen had once saved Gustaf Vasa and Sweden, now hundreds of them lay dying beside the blighted corn patches, the rich ores, the jewels and sulphur, the precious stones and metals lay useless in the ground for men were too feeble to mine and dig for Sweden's wealth. He looked at his brothers; elegant, slight, frivolous, could he trust their brittle enthusiasm for noble ideals? Could he trust himself? From to-day he would be quite alone, always playing a part, the gracious King, crowned, apart. Jeanne d'Egmont's last letter lay over his heart, with her portrait; his inner ear could hear the written phrases in her delicate voice, the exquisite French tongue—"Sire, it will soon be in your power to rescue a noble nation, to put into practice reforms that even the most lofty of mankind, Voltaire, Hume, Rousseau can do nothing save preach from secret presses—for they are not Kings." He thought of Toll, two days journey now, in Scania; he thought—'that woman loves me—that man serves me', he singled out the British minister from the gorgeous corps of diplomats and smiled on him with such carefree candour that even the wary Sir John Goodrich almost doubted—the suspicions roused in him by his secret agents' reports—suspicions that the King meditated a coup d'état. "It is not, after all in his character—a scheme altogether too rash and wild—if he does try anything he will destroy himself."

And the British Minister smiled in his turn at M. de Vergennes whom he respected for his ability, but despised for his empty pockets; France could do little against the Russian gold and the English Fleet.