Case XVIII

The following curious details may be found in the Biography of Charles John Bernadotte, published in a Pan journal, the town where the late King of Sweden was born.

". . . There exist singular mysteries in certain destinies. The surprising fortune of Bernadotte had, it is said, been predicted by a famous sorceress, who had also foretold that of Bonaparte, and who so entirely possessed the superstitious confidence of the Empress Josephine. Destiny seemed never to tire in protecting Bernadotte; he continued to rise without ever experiencing the almost inevitable reverses that attend those ambitious spirits who overleap the abyss that divides modest obscurity from the most brilliant greatness.

"Like all men, who feel a power in themselves that impels them on to fortune, or enables them to seise favorable circumstances, Bernadotte believed in a special destiny, in a sort of tutelar divinity, who selected from the crowd certain individuals and became their protector. Probably, the marvellous old traditions, that surrounded his cradle, were the groundwork of the semi-pagan superstition that he never mistrusted. In an ancient family chronicle, it was related that a fairy, who was the wife of one of his ancestors, had predicted that a king should make her posterity illustrious. Formerly, in our country-places, every family had its good genius, by which it was guarded. Bernadotte never forgot the legend that had cradled his early years, and it was probably not without its influence on the glorious destiny of this great man.

* Forbes Window, Anatomy of Suicide, 1 vol. 8vo. p. 242, London, 1840.

"We will relate a fact that proves what an ascendency the marvellous had on the mind of the King of Sweden. He was desirous to settle, by the sword, the difficulties that Norway opposed to him, and to send his son Oscar at the head of an army to reduce the rebels, and bring them under his sway; but he was violently opposed by the Council of State. One day, after a violent discussion on the subject, he mounted his horse and galloped away from the capital. After a long ride, he reached the borders of a deep forest. Suddenly an old woman, strangely dressed, and with disordered hair, stood before him. 'What do you want?' roughly asked the king. The apparent sorceress replied, without being disconcerted: 'If Oscar fights in the war you meditate, he will not give the first blows, but will receive them.' Bernadotte, struck with this apparition and these words, returned to his palace. On the following day, he entered the council, bearing on his countenance the traces of a long and agitating vigil. 'I have changed my mind,' said he; 'we will negotiate peace, but it must be on honorable terms.' Did those who knew the weak point in the mind of this great man work upon it to serve the cause of justice, reason, and humanity? or, rather, is it not probable that the thoughts which preoccupied him, and lighted up the brain (as constantly happens in dreams, and even in waking hours), appeared objectively before him, and that the mental operation was accepted as a real occurrence? This explanation appears to us more admissible than that an old cheat should be found exactly on the spot where the caprice of the king conducted him."*