“He is a prince right down to the tips of his toes,” said the queen describing him. ‘He’ was Jean Baptiste Bernadotte and he came from France.
In May 1810 the unexpected death of the heir to the Swedish throne and the long series of intrigues that had preceded and followed this tragic event played havoc with the political life of the country. It was necessary to choose a new heir, and soon! The final choice caught everyone by surprise.
During a visit to Paris, the Swedish lieutenant, Karl Otto Mörner, had in fact met the man who was to represent the destiny of his people. He was one of Napoleon’s respected marshals, the forty-seven-year-old prince of Ponte Corvo: Jean Baptiste Bernadotte. Mörner was so struck by him that he put forward his candidacy as heir to the throne back in Sweden to king Charles XIII and to the Riksdag. Son of a lawyer, a former general of the revolution, main rival to Napoleon at the coup d’état of Brumaire and, after that, one of the most able and independent collaborators of the same, Bernadotte then left his native country for Sweden.
In October 1810, he landed on Swedish soil and was officially ‘adopted’ by the old king Charles XIII, taking the name of Charles John.
In a very short time the new hereditary prince won everyone over with his intelligence and charm even though his repeated mood swings and extreme diffidence were also well known, the reason why he set up a secret police and spy system. With the name of Charles XIV Johan he laid the foundations of modern Sweden and founded the new Bernadotte dynasty whose roots were to be found in far-off France.