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CHAPTER XXII
evil omens in petrograd
On arriving in Stockholm, I took care at once to solicit
an audience of King Gustaf V., in order to transmit
to His Majesty the words of the Emperor.
I was received in the King’s private study, a small
room, with walls covered with purple brocade, and filled
with a fine collection of old Swedish silver. The King
was in plain clothes (I had been ordered to wear the
same) in order the better to accentuate the purely
private character of my audience. I transmitted to His
Majesty the message entrusted to me by my august
Master. The King first asked me if I had informed his
Minister for Foreign Affairs of all that I had just told
him. My answer being in the affirmative, Gustaf V.
said that it was with sincere pleasure and gratitude that
he received the message of His Majesty the Emperor.
" I cannot hide from you," continued the King, " that
the question of the Aland Islands has been seriously
preoccupying the Swedish Government all this time.
Swedish public opinion has been excited about it
repeatedly. In a few weeks a new session of the
Riksdag will open and my Ministers think that they will have
questions—possibly very insistent ones—to answer on
that subject." The King then alluded to the alarm that
Sweden and he himself had felt in 1908 at our intention
to revise—in consequence of the separation of Sweden
and Norway—the additional treaty of 1856 which dealt
with the Aland Archipelago. The recent events of the
war had disclosed possibilities and dangers which did
did not exist before; so the Swedish Government had
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