TL idea: a different Napoleonic Naples and Bernadotte-less Sweden

To avoid further derailing the Swedish political thread...

I was thinking about the Napoleonic Kingdom of Naples and thinking about alternatives to Joachim Murat ruling it, possibly with more success in surviving Napoleon's fall.

So, what if Murat died in spring 1808? Maybe he gets a particularly virulent strain of malaria in Spain or a relative of someone killed in the tres de mayo events manages to get close enough to him to give him a fatal lead indigestion...

Napoleon now needs to choose someone else to rule Naples and I thought that Jean Baptiste Jules Bernadotte, Prince of Pontecorvo, might be a good pick: Napoleon didn't like him, but he often gave him important positions, maybe also out of some sort of lingering guilt about Desirée Clary...

What would happen in Sweden? Someone floated the idea of them choosing another French Marshal, like Macdonald, but what if instead Christian/Karl August survived for longer? Whom could he marry? How would the rest of the Napoleonic Wars be affected?
 
Danish prince seems plausible if Bernadotte not be there. One another option is someone German prince who has lost his country.
 
Except that Christian August, even if he survived, was apparently, according to his Danish/Swedish wiki, "damaged" in some way. I wondered this very question a while back, so if he had died and Bernadotte hadn't been available, the house of Macdonald could be interesting (if only because having a house of MacDonald ruling somewhere other than Scotland would be fun).

As to Napoléon's relationship with Bernadotte, I don't know. Napoléon originally wanted them to offer the crown of Sweden to Eugène de Beauharnais, and IIRC, he actually didn't think Bernadotte was serious when it was mentioned (or something like that), but Eugène refused to abjure his Catholicism for Lutheranism/Calvinism (can never remember Sweden's state religion besides that it was the opposite of Denmark's). So a house of Beauharnais ruling Sweden could be equally fun.

Would Bernadotte be any better placed to keep his crown at Naples when the wind of Vienna starts blowing than Murat was? And wouldn't Napoléon just leave Joseph in Naples and rethink how to deal with the Spanish problem rather than appoint a maréchal (his maréchaux generally got dukedoms and lower, a kingdom would be a huge leap (not only in rank and size), and more likely to go to someone Napoléon both liked and trusted. as king there?
 
As to Napoléon's relationship with Bernadotte, I don't know. Napoléon originally wanted them to offer the crown of Sweden to Eugène de Beauharnais, and IIRC, he actually didn't think Bernadotte was serious when it was mentioned (or something like that), but Eugène refused to abjure his Catholicism for Lutheranism/Calvinism (can never remember Sweden's state religion besides that it was the opposite of Denmark's). So a house of Beauharnais ruling Sweden could be equally fun.
State religion in Sweden, IIRC, is Lutheranism.
 
Would Bernadotte be any better placed to keep his crown at Naples when the wind of Vienna starts blowing than Murat was? And wouldn't Napoléon just leave Joseph in Naples and rethink how to deal with the Spanish problem rather than appoint a maréchal (his maréchaux generally got dukedoms and lower, a kingdom would be a huge leap (not only in rank and size), and more likely to go to someone Napoléon both liked and trusted. as king there?

Bernadotte would be much more likely to break with Napoleon in 1812/1813 and give a decisive contribution to "liberating" Italy. At that point I think the Powers will let him stay on the theone and tell the Sicilian Borbone to stay calm on their island.
The second point is valid, but I think that at this point the bridges were too much burned in Spain not to overthrown the legitimate king there and who else but Joseph cpuld be given that throne?

Upgrading Beauharnais to King of Naples and appointing someone else as viceroy in Milan? I don't think uniting the Kingdom of Naples and the Kingdom of Italy seems rather out there for Napoleon, who didn't want to create too powerful satellites, especially not one that would be bound to look hungrily at the parts of Italy annexes by France.
 
What would be the consequences of Neapolifltan forces siding with the Coalition and attacking in Italy in 1813? Would Napoleon divert troops to reinforce Beauharnais?
 
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