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6. GUSTAVUS III. : HIS DOUBLE CHARACTER. 349
himself as one of the old Vasas returned to lead his
people on a triumphant progress. Many valuable in
ternal reforms took place in his reign. Torture was
abolished. Laws affecting punishment, especially the
death penalty, were made milder. Freedom was given to
the press. An attempt, though a very blundering one,
was made to deal with the prevalent vice of drunkenness.
The stringency of the old rules of the trade-guilds
was relaxed. The currency was put on a better foot
ing and commerce prospered, particularly during the time
of the war between England and her North American
colonies. Finally, foreigners professing another faith were
allowed to exercise their religion, and Jews were permitted
to settle in three Swedish towns and enjoy certain civil
rights (Odhner :
pp. 342-3). On the other hand, the young
king was vain, frivolous, profligate and deceitful.
"
The
king with two faces,"
34
as he has been called, had a French
education, and brought much of the pleasure-loving,
pleasure-making, festive atmosphere of the French court
into Sweden, especially into society in Stockholm. Here
and in his numerous country seats amusement was made a
regular business. He was also an apt pupil of the infidel
and rationalistic school which had spread from England,
France and Germany over Northern Europe; and his
reign of twenty-one years (1771 1792) ushered in \vhat
has been justly called the "period of neology."
"
Two
things (he used to say), love and religion, are free in my
kingdom," and infidelity and libertinism were indeed
widely propagated by the bad example of the court,
especially among the higher classes. Yet superstition
also prevailed. The king, who mocked at his son s
confirmation, used to spend hours of the night in the
Riddarholm Church at Stockholm in the hope of obtain
ing omens from the graves of his ancestors, while his
34
This is the title of the late Miss M. E. Coleridge s remark
able novel (3rd. ed. 1897). The writer acknowledges her debt
"
to Mr. Nisbet Bain s most interesting wprkr Gustaf III. and
his contemporaries,"
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