himself before his succession to the throne, and still he did not find it easy to gain the love and admiration of the Swedish people, of which he was so eminently worthy.  He was the successor of one of the most popular rulers the country ever saw, and, though appreciation came slowly, he lived to see his own popularity almost outrival that of his predecessor.  During the last years of his life he was considered the most learned and popular of the monarchs of Europe.

He showed great discernment in his arrangement of dynastic matters.  Himself married to the fervently religious Princess Sophie of Nassau, the king brought about the marriage of his oldest son, Crown Prince Adolphus, the present king of Sweden, to Princess Victoria of Bade, a granddaughter of Emperor William of Germany, and a great-granddaughter of Gustavus IV of Sweden.  His third son, Prince Charles, Duke of West Gothland, is married to Princess Ingeborg of Denmark, a granddaughter of Charles XV of Sweden.  These unions are well calculated to accentuate the increasing political, commercial, and cultural intimacy with Germany, the Scandinavian policy of life predecessor, and the desire of King Oscar to see the descendants of the old royal line of Sweden as heirs to the crown.  In giving his consent to the marriage of his second son, Prince Oscar, to Lady Ebba Munck, of the Swedish nobility, King Oscar gave evidence of the fact that he was not a matchmaker regardless of the feelings of the parties involved.  Prince Oscar, formerly Duke of Gothland, upon renouncing his share of inheritance to the throne of Sweden, also the throne of Norway, for the two kingdoms were then united, was allowed to marry the choice of his heart.  King Oscar also tried to heal the wounds of the past by opening the vaults of the church of Riddarholm to the sarcophagi of Gustavus IV, the exiled king, and his son, and by giving Queen Carola of Saxony, the only living granddaughter of Gustavus, repeated proofs of esteem and considerate distinction.

King Oscar with his two crowns received as an inheritance two important problems to be solved—­the reorganization of the Swedish army and the settlement of the difficulties between Norway and Sweden.  How he handled the latter has been told about in the preceding chapter.  The reorganization of the Swedish army was not effected until after twenty years of parliamentary struggle, but is now, thanks to the energies and perseverance of King Oscar, on a solid basis.

During the nearly one hundred years of peace which Sweden has enjoyed under the rule of the Bernadotte dynasty, she has developed her constitutional liberty and her material prosperity in a high degree.  The dreams of glory by conquest belonged to the days gone by, but in the fields of peaceable industries she has attained a greatness which the world begins to realize.  At the expositions of Paris in 1867, 1878, and 1889, of Vienna in 1873, of Philadelphia in 1876, and of Chicago in 1893, Swedish industry and art have taken part with honor in the international competition.  The railways of Sweden have incessantly spun a more and more extended network of steel over the country, opening connections for enterprises in new districts, and furthering commerce and industrial art in a wide measure.