In an early autumn day in the year of 1844 François Rouel and his companion enter Stockholm in order to participate in the coronation of king Oscar I. After an eventful, but not that pleasant first day as a Frenchman in Stockholm, he later writes: “On the first day of my stay in the capital, I could not imagine that I would stay for half a year that turned out to be the case”.
After the coronation of king Oscar I, Rouel begins an insightful exploration of the city’s social life, high and low, added with imaginative comparisons with his home country. The outcome becomes an uncensored story about Stockholm and its surroundings. As he is breaking the last remaining borders of the new won freedom of expression (freedom of the press in Sweden 1809 in theory, the 1840s fully in practice). The only restriction is that he published this book under a pseudonym. This is probably also the reason why the book never was published in France (freedom of press 1881), even though the author wrote it in French.
But who was François Rouel that so successfully described the soul and life of Stockholm in the middle of the 1840s? He probably was a Parisian author that the Swedish author Karl Kullberg, that translated the book, met on his European journey 1842.
Title: A Frenchman in Stockholm 1844-45
Author François Rouel
Publisher: B-InteraQtive Publishing