e arms of France. Castlereagh, therefore, sought to
tempt him by the offer of our recent conquest of Guadeloupe. Or, if he
must have Norway, would not Denmark give her assent if she received
Swedish Pomerania and Luebeck? Bernadotte himself once suggested that
he would be satisfied with the Bishopric of Trondjem, the northern
part of Norway, if he could gain no compensation for Denmark in
Germany.[303]

This offer was tentatively made. It was all one. Denmark would not
hear of the cession of Norway or any part of it; and in the course of
the negotiations with England she even put in a claim to the Hanse
Towns, which was at once rejected. As Denmark was obdurate, Bernadotte
insisted that Sweden should gain the whole of Norway as the price of
her help to the allies. By the treaty of Stockholm (March 3rd, 1813)
we acceded to the Russo-Swedish compact of the previous year, which
assigned Norway to Sweden: we also promised to cede Guadeloupe to
Bernadotte, and to pay L1,000,000 towards the support of the Swedish
troops serving against Napoleon.[304] In the middle of May it was
known at Copenhagen that nothing was to be hoped for from Russia and
England. The Danes, therefore, ranged themselves on the French side,
with results that were to prove fatal to the welfare of their kingdom.

Thus the bargain which Bernadotte drove with the allies leagued
Denmark against them, and thereby hindered the liberation of North
Germany. But, such is the irony of fate, the transfer of Norway from
Denmark to Sweden has had a permanence in which Napoleon's territorial
arrangements have been signally lacking.

Bernadotte landed at Stralsund with 24,000 men, on May 18th. But the
organization of his troops for the campaign was so slow that he could
send no effective help to the Cossacks and patriots at Hamburg. His
seeming lethargy at once aroused the Czar's suspicions. This the
Swedish Prince Royal speedily detected; and, on hearing of the
armistice, he feared that another Tilsit would be the result. In a
passionate letter, of June 10th, he begged Alexander not to accept
peace: "To accept a peace dictated by Napoleon is to rear a sepulchre
for Europe: and if this misfortune happens, only England and Sweden
can remain intact."

This was the real Bernadotte. Those who called him a disguised friend
of Napoleon little knew the depth of his hatred for the Emperor, a
hatred which was even then compassing the earth for means of
overthrowing him, an