but would have been
horrified to have been accomplices in a crime. When the old Count de
Brahe, leader of the nobles of the opposition, presented himself,
Gustavus said, as he pressed him in his arms: "I bless my wound, since
it has brought back an old friend who had withdrawn from me. Embrace
me, my dear count, and let all be forgotten between us."

The fate of his son, who was about to ascend the throne at the age of
thirteen, was the chief preoccupation of the King. "Let them put me on
a litter," cried he; "I will go to the public square and speak to {43}
the people." And he said to Baron d'Armfelt: "Go, and like another
Antony, show the bloody vestments of Caesar." It was also to D'Armfelt
that he said as he was signing with his dying hand his commission as
Governor of Stockholm: "Give me your knightly word that you will serve
my son as faithfully as you have served me." He made his confession to
his grand-almoner: "I fear," he said to him, "that I have no great
merit before God, but at least I am sure that I have never done harm to
any one intentionally." He meant to receive the sacraments according
to the Lutheran form, and to have the Queen brought to him, as he had
not seen her since his illness. But while seeking sleep in order to
tranquillize his mind before this emotion, he found the slumber of
death, March 29, 1792, at eleven in the morning. He was forty-six
years old.

Thus terminated the brilliant and stormy career of the prince on whom
the Marquis de Bouille has pronounced the following judgment: "His
manners and his politeness rendered him the most amiable and attractive
man in his country, although the Swedes are naturally intelligent. He
had a vivid imagination, a mind enlightened and adorned by a taste for
letters, a masculine and persuasive eloquence, and an easy elocution
even when speaking French; useful and agreeable acquirements, a
prodigious memory, polite and affable manners, accompanied by a certain
oddity which did not displease. His strong and ardent soul was
enkindled with an inordinate love of glory; but a {44} chivalrous
spirit and loyalty dominated there. His sensitive heart rendered him
clement, when he ought, perhaps, to have been severe; he was even
susceptible of friendship, and this prince has had and has preserved
friends whom I have known, and who were worthy to be such. He had a
firm and decided character, and, above all, that resolution so
necessary to statesmen,