Marie Antoinette Information

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Fersen And Marie Antoinette

Question: Were Marie Antoinette and Count Axel Fersen Lovers?

I have been asking like everyone I know and noone seems to have an answer for me. My history teacher told me that Count Fersen didnt even exsist. I want to know there history together! If you have any information please help me out.

Thanks :]

Answer: It is not known for certain if they were lovers, but they very likely were. They first met in 1774, at a masked ball. In 'Marie Antoinette', Joan Haslip writes:

'The eighteen-year-old count Fersen, on his first visit to Paris, was handsome enough to attract the attention of any woman. His tall, elegant figure, his perfect features and vivid blue eyes framed by long black lashes had already earned him the name of "La Beau Fersen" and an air of cool reserve gave him an added fascination. The Swedish ambassador, Count Creutz, reported to King Gustavus "Of all the Swedes who have passed through Paris since I have been here, no one has been so well received as young Count Fersen nor behaved with a greater modesty and discretion." '

Axel Fersen left Paris in the spring of 1774, and returned four years later. Joan Haslip writes:

'The Swedish uniform of the King's dragoons, with its blue cloak, white tunic, tight chamois breeches and dashing shako with its blue and yellow plumes and been specially designed by King Gustavus to show off the fmale figure to the greatest advantage. when worn by Count Fersen at the Queen's levee it attracted the attention of every woman in theroom, beginning with the Queen. Those who were close to her noted her sudden blush, the slight trembling of her hand, the look of suppressed excitement, which lasted no more than a moment before she had regained her self-control and the usual smiling mask with which she greet4ed distinguished foreigners. Perhaps she lingered too long and took too great an interest in the details, for by the end of the day every courtier at Versailles was aware that young Count Fersen was the Queen's new favourite.'

Fersen returned to the French court with the King of Sweden on several occasions, and each time it was clear that Marie Antoinette was very attracted to him. When he returned to FRance in 1787, he sepnt a lot of time at Versailles. Joan Haslip writes:

'That Fersen not only went to vERsailles but actually stayed there is evident from letters addressed to his sister. Behind the state apartments was a warren of small rooms and secret staircases. Besenval was the first to note the existence of these secret rooms when he was once summoned to a privat audience by the Queen and was sufficiently indiscreet to suggest that Marie Antoinette may have had an intimate life unsuspected by her court.

But in spite of all the evidence one is inclined to doubt that Fersen and Marie Antoinette were lovers in these crucial years of 1787-9, when the situation was deteriorating so rapidly that it needed all the Queen's energy and willpower to support a vacilating king and a supine archbishop.'

Joan Haslip believed that Fersen and the Queen became lovers in 1790. She writes:

'Fersen returned to Paris in January 1790 entrusted with a secret mission from King Gustiavus, who no longer trusted his official ambassador. Fersen remained in paris throughout the following year, a year that saw the full flowering of his amatory relations with the Queen. There can be little doubt that they became lovers. In the Tuileries Marie Antoinette looked upon herself as a prisoner who had the right to seize every opportunity for freedom. What as Queen of France she might have denied herself at Versailles would in her eyus have been permissible at the Tuileries. Fersen appears to have had no difficulty going in and out of the palace at all hours of the day and night. In April 1790 he wrote to his sister, Counterss Sophie Piper, "I am a little happier, for from time to time I am able to see her quite freely in her apartments, and this consoles us slightly for all the unpleasantness she has to put up with." Naturally there was gossip. The Comete de Saint Priest thought it his duty to tell the Queen that a guard had seen Count Fersen leaving the palace at three in the morning, and had been about to arrest him. The Count should be warned that his continual visits to the palace would end by getting him in trouble. But all that Marie Antoinette replied was "Tell him if you must. Persoanlly I could not care less." And the visits continued as before.'

Axel Fersen was involved in the bungled attempt by the royal family to escape from Paris, but the King refused to let him accompany the disguised royal party any further than the first relay station at Bondy. He may have thought that Fersen would be too conspicuous, being a foreigner, or he may even have been a little jealous of him, if he knew of Marie Antoinette's infatuation with him.

Fersen returned to France again in 1792 with another plan of escape, but was never able to carry it out. He seems to have continued to hope to the end that he would be able to rescue the Queen, but his plans came to nothing.

When You're Gone- Marie Antoinette & Count Fersen