fs 01 Well you never asked any colts out when we were in school . Or stallions afterwards , either . <| sep |> Thanks a bunch ! Might have to trust you on this one <| sep |> Ha . After rereading , it does sound a bit like me . I wouldn ' t want someone exactly like me , but the things I listed are some things that I would want to have in common . I guess I don ' t follow the opposites attract mantra . <| sep |> There were a number of reasons that it was a nonstarter . Firstly , Bernadotte had proved himself in the 1813 campaign to be a prickly individual , prone to following his own interests such as keeping Swedish troops out of the thickest fighting . His personality made a number of ministers in the Coalition leery of Bernadotte ' s motives , especially since he was closely associated with Jacobinism in his early career . Second , unlike the Bourbons or even the Bonapartes , Bernadotte had no real party in France itself . Taking the Swedish throne had removed Bernadotte from French elite social circles and while some toyed with the idea of him returning France as its new leader , these were largely just caprices . As Talleyrand ' s memoirs later recalled with a degree of tartness , if Bernadotte ' s main claim for leadership was his reputation as a soldier , it made no sense for France to switch when it had Napoleon , the foremost soldier of his age . Finally , and perhaps most critically , the only real partisan for Bernadotte among the Coalition was Emperor Alexander I . Both Metternich and Castlereagh feared that if Bernadotte assumed the French throne , it would mean that the Gascon would be indebted to Russia and serve as his lieutenant . This would have been too much power to cede to Russia and undermine the balance of power on the continent .