In the autumn of that year, Gustav IV Adolf was concerned about the level of sympathy for the French Revolution in the city of Uppsala. After students at Uppsala University celebrated Bonaparte's return to France from his Italian campaigns, Gustav IV Adolf appointed von Fersen as Chancellor of Uppsala. According to Adlerbeth, this amounted to "a declared French royalist being made the Swedish Jacobins' schoolmaster". That winter a wave of rioting occurred in Stockholm, Gothenburg, Norrköping, Linköping, Malmö, and other Swedish towns following the onset of a severe winter and famine. Von Fersen wrote: "Who, given the spirit that now prevails, can guarantee that there will not be a general upheaval."