annatravelstheworld:The sun is coming back to Paris! Did you know that the Swedish Royal family desc
annatravelstheworld: The sun is coming back to Paris! Did you know that the Swedish Royal family descends from the French general Jean-Baptiste Bernadotte, who has given the position as King by the people of Sweden in 1818 but had served as regent of Sweden since 1810? Or that Bernadotte was a general of Napoleon, chosen to appease Napoleon who already controlled most of Europe? Napoleon actually tried to make him promise to not to ever fight a war with France, which Bernadotte refused, and it was a good thing too since in 1813 Sweden joined the anti-Napoleon alliance. Bernadotte later also took over Norway, becoming joint king of Norway and Sweden, something that continued until Norway’s independence in 1905. What I find most interesting about all of this is the connection between Bernadotte’s wife, Desiree Clary, and Napoleon. Not only was Desiree’s sister married to Joseph, the brother of Napoleon, but Desiree was a former lover of Napoleon (in other words, he fell head over heels in love with her and then forgot about her to fight). It must have stung that her husband ended up fighting against Napoleon. Then again, Desiree hated Sweden and refused to leave France for my cold country. This is all mildly relevant to what I learnt yesterday. -- source link