THE BERNADOTTES.
THE interest expressed in England in the death of King Oscar II. of Sweden, and in the incidents of his death-bed scene, is not entirely conventional. There is a genuine kindliness for Sweden in this country, arising partly from history, which presents one Swedish King as the great Protestant champion of the seventeenth *century, and another as the typical Paladin ; partly from the fact that we have no selfish interests at Variance with those of Sweden—our main interest in the North consisting in the freedom of the Baltic, Which Sweden helps to protect—and partly from a feeling that the success of the Bernadotte dynasty indicates an alternative to "the Monarchical principle" which is not so violent as Republicanism. That success has beeh very remarkable, and, indeed, quite unique in modern history, the new families, like the Napoleonidae and the Obrenovitches and Karageorgevitches, having been, on the whole, failures' and it is worth while to consider for a moment why a family entirely without an historic pedigree, and not illustrated by remarkable genius, has done so exceedingly well.
Oscar IL was the grandson of a middle-class French- man, who when he was 'selected as Crown Prince had not risen to the front rank among statesmen, and who had certainly no especial claim upon Sweden. Nevertheless, the four members of his family who have reigned have all died in their beds amid the deep' regret of their subjects, the father. of the late King, in particular, having been the very ideal of a Constitutional Monarch. They owe their popularity, no doubt, in great part to the habit of modera- tion and the capacity for statesmanship which have dis- tinguished them all, but also in part to an accidental circumstance. They have had no rivals 'to provoke them either to self-defence or tyranny. There has been no alternative Royal line, no list of pretenders, no faction Whose raison d'être was resistance to the Bernadottes. They and their people could kiss or squabble as they were impelled with a feeling all the time that their relation was a household one to be arranged between themselves. When the great line of Vasa ended, the Swedes, who had for ages been members of a highly graded society, did not want a Republic ; and though the Norwegians did, they were not till a very recent period strong enough to go their own way, which from accidental circumstances was not, after all, towards Republicanism, but to a closely limited Monarchy presiding over an essentially Republican people. The examples are not numerous enough to support a law ; but this one, so far as it goes, would appear to suggest that when a nation has broken from its old moorings, but still wants an unchanging head, its best chance of tranquillity and good government is to forget pedigree and to choose any family which seems competent to preside over its destinies. It is probable that such a family will be content with its promotion, and will neither run the rash risks involved in adventures of ambition, nor reveal the thirst for absolute power which often grips the older dynasties like a disease. That thirst has for one of its causes a kind of personal vanity. The .Prince thinks that he can do things much better than his advisers or than any Parliament, and that if he is to be a distinguished figure in his dominions or in the world he had better begin to do them ; and being besides, as a rule, possessed with the notion that he is in some Way or other a special subject of divine favour, he resents opposition as unjustified. Then begins a contest 'in which, if lie is a very strong man, he wins, at the price of leaving his_ people untrained in the work of sell-goverument; and if he is not a very strong man, he loses, with the consequence of endless confusion and feebleness in his State.
It is well worth while to study Sueh eiamPles, for the Western world is often perplexed by the want of alternatives in methods of governing. A true Monarchy is understo'od, and Republicanism is understood ; but of any Government which shall be neither Europeans have little experience and no philosophic theory. Favoured by Providence and the encircling sea, we ourselves have stumbled into a compromise which works very well, and produces an efficient, though excessively tardy, system of progressive administration ; and in Italy, thanks to 'theability and good sense of the house of Savoy, a lenient Executive appears to be found compatible with a feeble and distrusted representation. But occasion- ally, when a people is tired of its ancient rulers, it seems to be mortally perplexed. Look at Portugal just now. The Crown and the people are not at war, but they are neither of them content, and both are to all appearance utterly puzzled how to discover a better scheme. The dynasty thinks the Parliamentary regime as worked is both inefficient and corrupt, and finding a strong agent in Senhor Franco, suspends the Constitution and tries to remedy evils on its own authority. The people do not like that, but they do not wish to break with the house of Braganza, and do not care to risk the disturbances and the sacrifices necessary to produce a strong Republic. The interim Government, however, is afraid of revolution, and therefore proceeds to try many of the expedients of tyranny,—the suppression of the Press, a censorship upon telegrams and foreign correspondence, numerous very oppressive arrests, and something very like bribery of the Army. It will all go right in the end, we dare say ; but it would go right much more rapidly, and with much less oppression of individuals, if Crown and people could together frame a new and more efficient Constitution. A quiet agreement between them would soon produce a remedy ; but they cannot ,get rid of the mutual suspicion which has for four generations been absent in Sweden. Dom Carlos thinks that if he releases his hold on the Executive his people may dismiss him; while the people think that if they adopt any scheme short of a Republic they may find them- selves subjected to a regal tyranny. The best plan would be a Commission to draw up a new Constitution ; but the European public has never thought of that kind of quiet arrangement, and in the absence of precedents, sees no escape from a sort of contest which may end, of course, in a comproinise, but may also end in a disastrous civil war. Every increase in the general experience is therefore of real value, and such an increase is provided in the curious history of the Bernadottes, who came to their throne, as' it were, by a kind of accident, and have glided silently, without cataclysms, into the list of the accepted dynasts of Europe. The new King is the son of a lady who repre- sents by descent the old dynasty of the Vasa.s, and his son has intermarried with our own Royal house, which among Royal houses is the oldest, and is certainly not devoid of pride of caste. The conduct of Oscar II. during the revolt of Norway showed that the Bernadottes are good and temperate people, and in this country at least, and also, we believe, in France, they have no ill-wisher.
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