The current king of Sweden, Carl XVI Gustaf, is a direct descendant of Charles XIV John.

Following the conclusion of the Finnish War in 1809, Sweden lost possession of Finland, which had constituted roughly the eastern half of the Swedish realm for centuries.

At this time, Emperor Napoleon I of France controlled much of continental Europe, and some of his client states were headed by his siblings.

On 21 August 1810, the Riksdag elected Jean Baptiste Jules Bernadotte, a Marshal of France, as heir presumptive to the Swedish throne.

When elected to be Swedish royalty the new heir had been called Prince Bernadotte according to the promotions he received from Emperor Napoleon I, culminating in sovereignty over the Principality of Pontecorvo.

Bernadotte, born in the town of Pau, in the province of Béarn, France, had risen to the rank of general during the French Revolution.

Instead of being merely a Swedish province, Norway remained an independent kingdom, though sharing a common monarch and foreign policy.

Through her the couple owned a building there called de Bernadotte,[4] the surname theoretically meaning Young woman of Béarn in local dialect.

[9][10] This was a modest family which occupied only one floor of the house in a cross street in a popular and peripheral district of Pau.