The French-born Jean Baptiste Bernadotte (1763-1844) ruled Sweden and Norway as King Charles XIV John from 1818 to 1844. The founder of the present Swedish dynasty, he served as a marshal of the Napoleonic army before his election as crown prince of Sweden in 1810.

The son of petit-bourgeois parents, Jean Baptiste Bernadotte was born on Jan. 26, 1763, at Pau, France. He joined the army in 1780 and was a sergeant when the French Revolution began in 1789. Embracing the Revolutionary ideals, he rose rapidly in the ranks of the republican army. By 1794 he was a brigadier general and had served with the armies of the Meuse and the Rhine.

In 1798 Bernadotte served briefly as French ambassador to Vienna. Returning to Paris in the summer of that year, he married Désirée Clary. Her relationship with Napoleon--he had courted her in 1794 and her sister had married his brother Joseph Bonaparte--was to...