Camille du Bois de la Motte

She was the daughter of Louis Marc Pons, marquis de Pons, the ambassador of France in Sweden in 1783–1789.^[1] As she had done during his tenure in Madrid, she accompanied him to Stockholm, where she acted as his hostess and secretary, and assisted him by creating a net of valuable contacts within the aristocracy and diplomatic corps through her role as a hostess.

In 1784, she made herself the personal friend of Princess Hedvig Elisabeth Charlotte during the absence of Sophie von Fersen, and that summer, the three women made a pledge of friendship by uniting in the order La verite et constante amitie at the Rosersberg Palace.^[2]

France, which was the ally of both Sweden and Russia, opposed the Russo-Swedish War (1788–90), and her father wished to initiate peace negotiations between Sweden and Russia through France.^[3] Camille du Bois de la Motte was given the task to use her friendship with Charlotte to arrange a meeting with her father and the King Gustav III of Sweden.^[4]

During the meeting, in the park of Karlberg Palace, Camille du Bois de la Motte handled the negotiations alone with the King in the presence of her father and Charlotte. She convinced the king to agree to peace negotiations.^[5] They were to be handled by her father, who would keep in touch with Russia through the French ambassador in Russia, and the Swedish king through Charlotte.^[6] The negotiations, however, failed, and she told Charlotte that she believed Gustav III to have agreed to them to stall time and that it had been his intention to trick France all along.

During the war, her friendship with Charlotte was criticized, as it was believed that she used it to inform the foreign diplomats in Stockholm of war secrets given to her by Charlotte. Princess Charlotte denied this, but it was likely the truth.^[7]

During the Riksdag of 1789, Hedvig Elisabeth Charlotte prepared to depose Gustav III and place her husband Duke Charles upon the throne, and the war and the Union and Security Act had made her a leading part of the opposition from the nobility. She cooperated with Prince Frederick Adolf and Gustaf Adolf Reuterholm. The plan was to force Charles to act as a symbol of the opposition to the Union and Security Act when the time was right. When the time arrived to make Charles act, however, he refused, which effectively discontinued the coup. Camille du Bois de la Motte is known to have been involved in the attempted coup: she acted as a channel between the party of the princess and that of the von Fersen family, who represented the opposition of the nobility, as well as the diplomatic corps of Stockholm.^[8]