Popular historian Herman Lindqvist at his chronicle in Svensk Damtidning about queen Desideria
Some people are distinctive evening people, others are early risers. The same goes for royal families. King Carl XVI Gustaf is rarely really awake before ten o'clock in the morning, but all the better after ten o'clock in the evening.
The very first in the House of Bernadotte, Karl XIV Johan and Queen Désirée, were not good morning persons. Over the years, the king and queen met more and less frequently. They did not eat meals together. The Queen's morning rises became ever later in the day and gradually approached the time of the afternoon tea.
Her whole day was postponed so that she used to go on her morning ride with horse and carriage at the dinner time in the evening. She ate the supper after midnight and then she could sit up all night and have a good time with her ladies-in-waiting. The ladies, however, didn't always have a nice time.
They tried to stay awake in different ways, sometimes simply by knitting each other with the needles in the needlework. No one could retire for the night until the Queen had done so. Queen Désirée wanted to walk in the garden in the summer night, but was afraid of the bats, so she let her ladies-in-waiting walk first wearing white dresses to attract the animals.
The Queen spent many summers at Rosersberg Palace in Uppland. There she sat with her ladies-in-waiting on the veranda and had a nice time the whole night. When the first peasants came at five to deal with today's chores, they could see the Queen of Sweden on the balcony and admire her for being such an early bird. They didn't know that she would only soon go to bed.
Herman Lindqvist_ _Désirée var en morgontrött drottning_ _ Svensk Damtidning