Editing Carl Michael Bellman (section)

=== Later life ===
[[File:Bellmanskällan 2012bb.jpg|thumb|upright|Bronze memorial medallion of Bellman by Sergel]]

After the [[Gustav III of Sweden#Assassination|assassination of the King]] at the [[Royal Swedish Opera#The Gustavian Opera|Stockholm opera]] in 1792, support for the liberal arts was withdrawn. Bellman, already in poor health from alcoholism, went into decline, drinking increasingly heavily. His drinking very likely contributed to his [[gout]], which troubled him badly in 1790. He also caught [[tuberculosis]]: the disease had already killed his mother, and by the winter of 1792, he was seriously ill.{{sfn|Britten Austin|1967|pp=164–166}}

As well as being ill, he was imprisoned—after struggling with debts and haunted by the threat of ruin and imprisonment all his life—"for a wretched[ly small] debt of 150 [[Swedish riksdaler|Rdr]]". The rumour was that a former Customs colleague, E. G. Nobelius, had had his advances to Louise Bellman rejected, and in revenge had sued Bellman for the debt, knowing he was penniless: he owed a total of almost 4,000 Riksdaler.{{sfn|Britten Austin|1967|pp=168–170}} On 11 February 1795, he died in his sleep in his house in Gamla Kungsholmsbrogatan. He was buried in Klara churchyard with no gravestone, its location now unknown. The Swedish Academy belatedly placed a memorial in the churchyard in 1851, complete with a bronze medallion by [[Johan Tobias Sergel]].{{sfn|Britten Austin|1967|pp=172–173}}