Note (Back) — Chapter XXXI

630. Sweden in the Napoleonic Period.—Sweden is one of the many European nations which in the course of the Napoleonic period acquired a new constitutional system, but one of the few in which the fundamentals of the system at that time established have been maintained continuously to the present day. Sweden was drawn into the Napoleonic wars at an early stage of their progress. December 3, 1804, Gustavus IV. cast in his fortunes on the side of the foes of France, and although in 1806-1807 Napoleon sought to detach him from the Allies, all effort in that direction failed. The position of Gustavus, however, was undermined in his own country by his failure to defend Finland on the occasion of the Russian invasion of 1808, and March 29, 1809, yielding to popular pressure, and hoping to save the crown for his son, he abdicated. By the Riksdag the royal title, withheld from the young Prince Gustavus, was bestowed upon the eldest brother of Gustavus III., who, under the name of Charles XIII., was proclaimed June 5. On the same day the Riksdag ratified formally an elaborate regerings-formen, or fundamental law, which, amended from time to time, has been preserved to the present day as the constitution of the kingdom.[805]