Evelyn Farr - I Love You Madly: Marie-Antoinette and Count Fersen: The Secret Letters

A vivid and poignant portrait of the last desperate days of the Bourbons. Sunday Times

Thoroughly enjoyable and required reading for anyone fascinated by the most tragic of queens. Amanda Foreman, author of Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire

I LOVE YOU MADLY

He was the love of her life. Her husband was Louis XVI of France, but the Swedish Count Axel von Fersen was Marie-Antoinettes lover, the loyal counsellor who gave her political advice from 1785 to the fall of the French monarchy and the devoted friend who organized the Royal Familys attempted escape from Paris in 1791. He may also have been the biological father of her two younger children.

To date there have only been incomplete editions of their correspondence. Here Evelyn Farr brings together for the first time all the known surviving letters in French and Swedish archives exchanged by the Queen and Fersen, including six never before published. More intriguing still, she has succeeded in reading deleted passages in the letters and discovered hitherto unexamined documents which confirm the nature of their relationship. She is the first historian to explain the use of code and invisible ink, essential for such a secret correspondence, and reveals the role of intermediaries, secret seals, double envelopes, codenames and the location of Fersens clandestine lodgings at Versailles. This meticulously researched study of the secret letters traces in detail the history of a forbidden love. It shows us a rebellious and independent queen who risked everything and broke all the rules to love the man who conquered her heart.

EVELYN FARR, a Londoner by birth, studied English, French and Italian at University College London. Her thesis on the eighteenth-century novel resulted in her first book, The World of Fanny Burney, in 1993. This was followed by Before the Deluge, a portrait of pre-revolutionary Parisian high society, before she turned her attention to a subject that has always fascinated her, with Marie-Antoinette and Count Fersen: The Untold Love Story, which was first published in 1995 and revised and expanded with new material in 2013.

I love you madly and never, ever can I be
a moment without adoring you.
Marie-Antoinette to Axel von Fersen, 4 January 1792

I love you and will love you madly all my life.
Axel von Fersen to Marie-Antoinette, 29 October 1791

For my friends

Without the constant encouragement and interest of two dear friends, this book would never have been written, and in consequence the discoveries made during my research would not have seen the light of day. I want to express my deepest gratitude to Jrme Barbet for his friendship and kindness, his encyclopaedic knowledge of eighteenth-century French history and his boundless enthusiasm for the story of Marie-Antoinette and Fersen. His scientific approach to analysing Fersens handwriting guided me towards my discoveries in the letters. I am also very grateful for his generous help in verifying the words and passages discovered, for correcting the French manuscript and for his moral support over many months of work during difficult times. Sincere thanks are also due to the charming Nathalie Colas des Francs, author of a key biography of Marie-Antoinettes friend the Duchesse de Polignac, for correcting the French manuscript and for her valued friendship.

I should like to thank the many kind friends at home and across the globe who have helped me in so many ways by debating ideas, visiting me in hospital and providing online encouragement and support. This book is dedicated to them all.

I am very grateful to Mme Valerie Nachef of the University of Cergy-Pontoise for her interest in my work and for discussing her discoveries in Marie-Antoinettes coded letters to Fersen.

Warmest thanks go to Marie Ohlsn, Annika Karlsson and Morgan Brlin of Lfstad Slott in Sweden, as well as to Olof Hermelin, director of the stergtland Museum, and the museum team. They thoroughly spoilt me on my visit to Lfstad, where I spent an unforgettable day getting to know Axel von Fersen on his home turf.

The Archives Nationales in Paris and the Swedish Archives in Stockholm and Vadstena were helpful and prompt in providing documents. Thanks are also due to the Kent History and Library Centre in Maidstone for the Duke of Dorsets archive. I am very grateful to His Grace the Duke of Devonshire and the Chatsworth House Trust for a letter from Lafayette to Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire, mentioned by Fersen and Marie-Antoinette in their correspondence during the French Revolution, as well as for permission to quote the marvellously gossipy letters of the Duke of Dorset and Lady Elizabeth Foster to Georgiana. The assistance of Aidan Haley of the Chatsworth archives was much appreciated.

I enjoyed two delightful meetings in Stockholm with Mme Margareta Reuterskild, a descendant of Axel von Fersens sister Hedda and great-granddaughter of the first editor of Fersens papers, Baron Rudolf Klinckowstrm. In explaining the complicated history of the family archives, she gave me some very interesting insights into the conclusions of Swedish historian Alma Sderhjelm on Fersens relationship with Marie-Antoinette. I am very grateful for her interest in this book, which I hope meets her expectations.

It is hard to find the words to express all that I feel for the dedicated haematology doctors and nurses who saved my life at University College Hospital London without their superb care and expertise I would have been unable to continue my research. They have my profound respect, admiration and gratitude.

Evelyn Farr
London

Almost all the documentary sources in this book are in French. It was the language Axel von Fersen and his family used at home and in their correspondence. All translations in this book are mine. I am very grateful to Lisa Almond and Anna-Lena Berg for help with Swedish.

English sources are transcribed from the original, with spelling and punctuation corrected where necessary.

All photographs are from the authors collection except where marked.

I.

II.

1755

4 September: Birth of Count Hans Axel von Fersen, eldest son of Count Fredrik Axel von Fersen and his wife Hedwig (ne de La Gardie), at the Fersen Palace in Stockholm.

2 November: Birth in Vienna of Archduchess Marie-Antoinette (Maria-Antonia), daughter of Holy Roman Emperor Franz I and Empress Maria-Theresa.

1770

16 May: Marriage of Marie-Antoinette to Louis-Auguste, Dauphin of France, celebrated at Versailles.

3 June: Fersen leaves Sweden for his Grand Tour of the Continent.

1773

15 November: Fersen arrives in Paris after completing his studies in Germany and Italy.

19 November: Fersen meets the Dauphine Marie-Antoinette for the first time during his presentation to the Royal Family at Versailles.

NovemberDecember: Fersen regularly attends the Dauphines balls. He visits Versailles on November 18, 19, 24 (ball) and 27, then on December 4, 6 (ball), 10 (ball), 11, 21 (ball) and 28.

1774

January: Fersen visits Versailles on 1 January and again on 10, 17 and 31 to attend the Dauphines balls.