The Writings of Prosper Mérimée/Volume 3/The Vision of Charles XI
THE VISION OF CHARLES XI
"There are more things in heav'n and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy."
Shakspeare: Hamlet.
THOUGH people laugh at visions and supernatural apparitions, several have been too well authenticated to be discredited, for, should one be consistent, it would be necessary to ignore the whole witness of historic evidence.
A correctly drawn-up report, signed by four reliable witnesses, is the guarantee of the truth of the incident about to be related. I should add that the prediction set forth in this report was so set forth and cited a very long time before the events occurred in our days which seemed to fulfil it.
Charles XI, father of the famous Charles XII, was a most despotic king, but at the same time the wisest of the monarchs who have reigned over Sweden. He restricted the overbearing privileges of the nobility, abolished the power of the Senate, and created laws by his own authority; in fact, he changed the constitution of the country, which before was an oligarchy, and compelled the states to vest the absolute control in him. He was, besides, an enlightened man, steadfastly attached to the Lutheran religion, brave, of an inflexible, self-contained, decided character, and entirely devoid of imagination.
He had just lost his wife, Ulrique Eléonore. Although it is said that his severity had hastened her end, he held her in esteem, and appeared more affected by her death than would have been expected of a man so hard of heart. After that event he grew still more taciturn and gloomy than before, and gave himself up to work with an application that showed an urgent desire to dispel sad thoughts.
At the close of one autumn evening he was sitting in his private apartment in the Stockholm Palace, in his dressing-gown and slippers, before a great fire. With him was his chamberlain, Count Brahé, who was one of his most favoured courtiers, and his physician, Baumgarten, who, it may be remarked in passing, set up for a sceptic, and who would have liked people to disbelieve in everything but in medicine. This night he had been summoned to advise on some slight ailment.
The evening lengthened, but contrary to his habit the King made no sign of dismissal to his companions. He sat in deep silence, his head lowered, and his eyes fixed upon the burning logs, wearied of their company, but afraid, without knowing why, of being left alone. Count Brahé had shrewdly observed that his presence was distasteful to the King, and had several times hinted that he feared His Majesty was in need of repose; but the King had signified by a gesture that he wished him to remain. The physician, in his turn, spoke of the ill-effects to health of keeping late hours. Charles only muttered, "Stay where you are; I have no desire to sleep yet."
At this stage the courtiers tried several different topics of conversation, but all fell flat at the end of the second or third sentence. It was evident that His Majesty was in one of his black moods, and in such circumstance the position of a courtier is decidedly delicate. Count Brahé, suspecting that the King was brooding over the loss of his wife, gazed for some time at the portrait of the Queen which hung on the wall of the room, and remarked with a deep sigh—"What an excellent likeness! Just the expression she wore, so majestic and yet so gentle."
"Bah!" the King broke in rudely. "That portrait is too flattering. The Queen was ugly."
He was always suspicious of there being underlying reproaches whenever anyone mentioned her name in his presence. Then, vexed at his harsliness, he rose and paced the room to hide a blush of shame. He stopped in front of the window which looked on to the courtyard.
It was a dark night and the moon was in its first quarter. The palace in which the Kings of Sweden now reside was not then finished, so that Charles XI, who had begun it, lived then in the old palace on the promontory of Ritterholm overlooking the Lake Moeler. It was a vast building in the form of a horse-shoe. The King's cabinet was at one of the extremities, and nearly, opposite it was the large audience hall where Parliament assembled to receive communications from the Crown.
The windows of this chamber appeared to be illuminated with a bright light. This struck the King as strange, but at first he thought the light might be produced by the torch of some valet. Still, what could anybody be doing there at such an hour, and in a room which had not been opened for some time? Besides, the light was too bright to proceed from a single torch. It might be the work of an incendiary, but there was no smoke, and the windows were not broken.
Charles watched the windows some time in silence. No sound could be heard; everything betokened simply an illumination. Meanwhile Count Brahe extended his hand toward the bell-rope to summon a page in order to send him to find out the cause of this singular light, but the King stopped him. " I will go to the hall myself," he said.
Whilst he spoke they saw his face grow pale with superstitious fear; but he went out with a firm tread, followed by the chamberlain and physician, each holding a lighted candle.
Baumgarten went to rouse the sleeping porter who had charge of the keys with an order from the King to open immediately the doors of the assembly hall. The man was greatly surprised at this unexpected order. He dressed himself quickly, and joined the King with his bunch of keys. At first he opened the door of a gallery which was used as an antechamber or private entrance to the assembly hall. The King entered. Imagine his surprise at finding the walls completely draped in black.
"Who gave the order for hanging this room thus?" he demanded angrily.
" No one, Sire, to my knowledge," replied the uneasy porter. " The last time I swept out the gallery it was panelled, as it always has been, ... I am certain this hanging never came out of Your Majesty's depository."
The King, walking at a rapid pace, had already traversed more than two-thirds of the gallery. The Count and porter followed closely; the physician Baumgarten was a little behind, divided between his fears of being left alone and of being exposed to the consequences of what promised to be such a strange adventure.
"Go no further, Sire," exclaimed the porter. "Upon my soul, there is sorcery behind this. At such an hour . . . and since the death of the Queen, your gracious wife . . , they say she walks in this gallery. . . . May God protect us! "
" Stop, Sire," entreated the Count in turn. " Do you not hear the noise that comes from the assembly hall? Who knows to what dangers Your Majesty may be exposed? "
"Sire," broke in Baumgarten, whose candle had just been blown out by a gust of wind, " at least allow me to go and fetch a score of your hal- berdiers."
" Let us go in," said the King sternly, stop ping before the door of the great apartment. " Porter, open the door immediately."
He kicked it with his feet, and the noise, echoing from the roof, resounded along the gal- lery like the report of a cannon.
The porter trembled so much that he could not find the keyhole.
"An old soldier trembling!" said Charles, shrugging his shoulders, " Come, Count, you open the door."
" Sire," replied the Count, recoiling a step, " if Your Majesty commanded me to walk up to the mouth of a German or a Danish cannon I would obey unhesitatingly, but you wish me to defy the powers of hell."
The King snatched the key from the hands of the porter.
" I quite see," he observed contemptuously, " that I must attend this matter myself," and before his suite could stay him he had opened the heavy oaken door and entered the great hall, pronouncing the words " By the power of God! " His three acolytes, urged by a curiosity stronger than their fear — and perhaps ashamed to de- sert their King — went in after him. The great hall was lighted up by innumerable torches, and the old figured tapestry had been replaced by black hangings. Along the walls hung, as usual, the German, Danish, and Russian flags—trophies taken by the soldiers of Gustavus Adolphus. In their midst were the Swedish banners, covered with crape as for a funeral.
An immense assembly filled the seats. The four orders of the State (the nobility, clergy, citizens and peasants) were arranged in their proper order. All were clothed in black, and this array of human faces, lit up against a dark background, so dazzled the eyes of the four witnesses of this extraordinary scene that not one figure was recognisable in the crowd. Thus an actor who stands before a large audience is not able to distinguish a single individual; he sees but a confused mass of faces.
Seated on the raised throne from which the King usually addressed his Parliament, they saw a bleeding corpse clothed in the royal insignia. At his right stood a child with a crown on his head and a sceptre in his hand; at his left an old man, or rather another spectre, leant against the throne. He wore the State cloak as used by the former adminstrators of Sweden before Vasa had made it a kingdom. In front of the throne, seated before a table covered with large books and rolls of documents, were several grave and austere-looking personages, clothed in long black robes, who looked like judges. Between the throne and the seats of the assembly a block was raised covered with black crape; against it lay an axe.
No one in that supernatural assembly seemed to notice the presence of Charles and the three people with him. At their entry they could only hear at first a confused murmur of inarticulate words; then the oldest of the black-robed judges arose—the one who seemed to be the president—and struck the book which lay open in front of him three times with his hand. Deep silence immediately followed. Then there came into the hall by a door opposite to that by which Charles had entered several young men of noble bearing and richly clad. Their hands were tied behind their backs, but they walked with heads erect and confident looks. Behind them a stalwart man in a jerkin of brown leather held the ends of the cords which bound their hands. The most important of the prisoners—he who walked first—stopped in the middle of the hall before the block and looked at it with supreme disdain. While this was going on the corpse seemed to shake convulsively, and a fresh stream of crimson blood flowed out of its wound. The youth kneeled down and laid his head on the block, the axe flashed in the air and the sound of its descent followed immediately. A stream of blood gushed over the dais and mingled with that from the corpse ; the head bounded several times on the crimsoned pavement, and then rolled at the feet of Charles. It dyed him with its blood.
Up to this moment surprise had held the King dumb, but this frightful spectacle unloosed his tongue. He stepped forward toward the dais, and, addressing himself to the figure who was clothed in the administrator's robes, he pronounced boldly the well-known form of words — " If thou art of God, speak; if thou art from the Other, leave us in peace."
The phantom spoke to him slowly in solemn tones —
"King Chahles! this blood will not be shed during your reign . . . " (here the voice grew less distinct) "but five reigns later. Woe, woe, woe to the House of Vasa!"
Then the spectres of the countless personages who formed this extraordinary assembly gradually became fainter, until they soon looked like coloured shadows, and then they completely disappeared. All the fantastic lights were extinguished, and those of Charles and his suite revealed only the old tapestries, slightly waving in the draught. They heard for some time after ward a melodious sound, which one of the witnesses described as like the sighing of wind amongst leaves, and another to the rasping sound given by the strings of a harp that is being tuned. All agreed as to the duration of the apparition, which they judged to have lasted about ten minutes.
The black draperies, the dissevered head, the drops of blood which had stained the dais — aU had vanished with the phantoms; only upon Charles's slipper was there a bloodstain. This was the sole witness left by which to recall the scene of that night, had it not been sufficiently engraved upon his memory.
When the King returned to his chamber he had an account written of what he had seen, signed it himself, and caused it to be signed by his fellow-witnesses. In spite of the precautions taken to keep the contents of this document secret it was soon known, even during the lifetime of Charles XI. It still exists, and up to the pres- ent time no one has thought fit to throw doubts upon its authenticity. In it the King concludes with these remarkable words:—
"And if that which I herein relate is not the simple truth, I renounce all my hope in the life to come, the which I may have merited for some good deeds done, and, above all, for my zeal in working for the welfare of my people, and in preserving the faith of my forefathers."
Now, when the reader recollects the death of Gustavus III, and the doom of Ankarstroem, his assassin, they wiU find more than a mere coincidence between that event and the circimi- stances of this extraordinary prophecy.
The young man beheaded before the States Assembly should be called Ankarstroem. The crowned corpse should be Gustavus III. The child, his son and successor, Gustavus Adolphus IV.
Finally, the old man was the Duke of Sudermania, uncle of Gustavus IV, regent of the Crown, and, in the end, King, after the deposition of his nephew.