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The changes which occurred about this period in the North of Europe are sufficiently memorable. In Sweden two princes died Haken and Canute, half-brothers of King Magnus; and in Westgothland alone four hundred and sixty-six priests.
Count Guiscard, who as envoy from the King of France accompanied him on his first campaign, describes him thus: "The King of Sweden is of tall stature; taller than myself by almost a head; he is very handsome, he has fine eyes and a good complexion, his face is long, his speech a little thick.
The sources of Swedish history during the first two centuries of the Middle Ages are very meager. This is a deplorable fact, for during that period Sweden passed through a great and thorough development, the various stages of which consequently are not easily traced.
My heart does not deceive me I am sure!" "No, your heart does not deceive you," said Gneisenau, smiling. "This gentleman is an envoy of the crown prince of Sweden, who promises us his friendship and assistance." "No," said the stranger, slowly and solemnly. "At this hour there must be truth between us. I am not an envoy of the crown prince of Sweden, I am he himself, I am Bernadotte!"
Ibsen repented, for a time almost exclusively, "serious" aims in literature, and with those of Herbert Spencer, and in less measure of Zola, and a little later of Nietzsche, his books were the spiritual food of all youthful minds of any vigor or elasticity. In Sweden, at this time, the admiration for Ibsen took forms of almost preposterous violence.
All the conquests which, in the course of the war, had been made by the German states, or by the League and the Emperor, were to be mutually restored; all which had been appropriated by the foreign powers of France and Sweden, was to be forcibly wrested from them by the united powers.
In this epoch of chemical discoveries England had produced such mental giants and pioneers in science as Black, Priestley, and Cavendish; Sweden had given the world Scheele and Bergman, whose work, added to that of their English confreres, had laid the broad base of chemistry as a science; but it was for France to produce a man who gave the final touches to the broad but rough workmanship of its foundation, and establish it as the science of modern chemistry.
But with the death of Haakon the male line of King Harold's descendants was finally broken, and only a woman remained to represent that great royal stock, Princess Ingeborg, the daughter of King Haakon. This fair maiden was promised in marriage while still a child to Duke Erik, son of the late king of Sweden.
Of the three foreign countries which in the eighteenth century blocked the western expansion of Russia, Sweden had been humbled by Peter in the Great Northern War and the treaty of Nystad. Poland and Turkey remained to be dealt with by Catherine the Great. Let us see what had lately transpired to render this task comparatively easy for the tsarina.
Far below stood two tall black chimneys against the sea as background, and still farther south lay the Town! Away from it ran the paths of the sea to Sweden and Copenhagen! This was the world the great wide world itself!
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