Author Topic: Marie Antoinette and Axel Fersen  (Read 66136 times)

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

elena_maria_vidal

  • Guest
Re: Marie Antoinette and Axel Fersen
« Reply #15 on: January 15, 2006, 12:58:10 PM »
Quote
This is only uncensored letter, it wrote Marie-Antoinette to Axel 4. july 1791, after failed escape from France:

"I only can say that I love you... I´m all right, don´t worry of me, but I´d love to know how are you. Please, write me in cipher, my address can write your lord in waiting... And write me, to how person I must address my letters to you, because I can´t live without it. Goodbye, my bonniest and most loving man from all people. I hug you from all of my heart."

(I hope this is right translation of letter, because my English is not very good...)



A good translation, another one being, "Adieu, to the most beloved and loving of men!" There is no extant version of this letter in the queen's handwriting, only copies that Count Fersen himself allegedly made, at least that is what Stanley Loomis said in "The Fatal Friendship." This is not to deny that she wrote something like that to him, words which he treasured. Also, keep in mind that Marie-Antoinette had a gushing and superlatively sentimental manner of expressing herself in an age famous for flowery letters, as one can see in similar things she said to her women friends and to her mother and siblings. She was unrestrained in expressing her affection for those of whom she was fond.

Count Fersen and Marie-Antoinette met at a Paris masked ball when they were both 17or 18, before she became queen. She was with her brothers and sisters-in-law and she raised her mask as they conversed. They did not meet again for several years. Count Fersen had just had a difficult experience in England in which some great lady snubbed him, so his heart was lifted when the Queen of France greeted him before the entire court saying, "And here is an old acquaintance!" Fersen never forgot her kindness and became her leige-man in life and limb. He was genuinely devoted to her in the most chivalrous and truly "romantic" manner. That he was in love with her, there can be no doubt, although he was also a friend of her husband the King, for whom he had great respect. According to his diaries there were many ladies in his life. Marie-Antoinette biographer Desmond Seward says there is even talk that he was bisexual and that the King of Sweden was jealous of Fersen's love for the Queen of France. Whatever his private lifestyle, he was in his exterior deportment a perfect gentleman, very affable and completely at the disposal of those to whom he had dedicated his service.

The pornographic drawings and slanderous stories that circulated about Marie-Antoinette before and during the Revolution hardly if ever included Count Fersen.( Her name was usually linked with that of her brother-in-law, Artois, in the public mind because they went dancing together so often when they were young.) There were, of course, the court gossip which had her lovers with Fersen and several other men as well as with ladies. Any man at whom she smiled was said to be her lover. She was such a beautiful woman and very flirtatious and her husband was rumored to be impotent (not true). Those who knew her well spoke of her purity of mind and lifestyle, she would not tolerate dirty jokes in her presence, and as one friend said, "Her soul was as white as her face."

After the Revolution, Fersen corresponded with Madame Royale and visited her at Hartwell House in England, and was welcomed by Louis XVIII and the entire family. They all remembered him fondly from Versailles. Fersen investigated on her behalf the fate of her brother LouisXVII, but Fersen's hideous death in 1810 on the exact anniversary of the capture of the royal family at Varennes (the aborted escape attempt arranged by Fersen) kept him from drawing any conclusions about the mysterious rumors then swirling around the boy.

elena_maria_vidal

  • Guest
Re: Marie Antoinette and Axel Fersen
« Reply #16 on: January 15, 2006, 01:02:36 PM »
Quote
I read that Axel Fersen was lathered to death. Is it true?


Honey, I do not know what you mean by "lathered."

Count Fersen was dragged through the streets of Stockholm, kicked, pummeled, thrown out a window, stripped and mutilated (after he died).  He had been unjustly accused of poisoning the Crown Prince.
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 06:00:00 PM by elena_maria_vidal »

Marie-Liesl

  • Guest
Re: Marie Antoinette and Axel Fersen
« Reply #17 on: January 15, 2006, 01:05:49 PM »
And do you know who is Eleanor Sullivan? Do you think that Axel really loved her?
And I want to ask you too: is archduke Karl this archduke Karl(who want to marry Marie-Therese, daughter of Marie-Antoinette), who beat the Napoleon in battle at Aspern (or something like that)? I know that Karl was adopted by Maria Christina "Mimi", one of the daughters of empress Maria Theresia.

Marie-Liesl

  • Guest
Re: Marie Antoinette and Axel Fersen
« Reply #18 on: January 15, 2006, 01:10:50 PM »
I mean that they beat, kick and lynch him (if you understand me). I am not very good in English, as you see... I´m from Slovakia, if you know where is this state...

elena_maria_vidal

  • Guest
Re: Marie Antoinette and Axel Fersen
« Reply #19 on: January 15, 2006, 01:13:39 PM »
Quote
And do you know who is Eleanor Sullivan? Do you think that Axel really loved her?
And I want to ask you too: is archduke Karl this archduke Karl(who want to marry Marie-Therese, daughter of Marie-Antoinette), who beat the Napoleon in battle at Aspern (or something like that)? I know that Karl was adopted by Maria Christina "Mimi", one of the daughters of empress Maria Theresia.


I think Fersen's family were trying to get him to marry Eleanor, but I am not certain of that. He never married, and they say that is because he only loved the Queen of France.

Yes, I believe Therese's Karl is the same Karl who defeated Napoleon. He was one of Leopold's sons but if Mimi raised him, that does not surprise me. At one point, however, Karl had the humiliation of standing as proxy for his enemy Napoleon when the latter married Karl's niece, Archduchess Marie-Louise.

elena_maria_vidal

  • Guest
Re: Marie Antoinette and Axel Fersen
« Reply #20 on: January 15, 2006, 01:14:59 PM »
Quote
I mean that they beat, kick and lynch him (if you understand me). I am not very good in English, as you see... I´m from Slovakia, if you know where is this state...



Thank you, I understand. Yes, that is just what they did to him. They indeed "lathered" him.

elena_maria_vidal

  • Guest
Re: Marie Antoinette and Axel Fersen
« Reply #21 on: January 15, 2006, 01:17:12 PM »
Quote
I´m from Slovakia, if you know where is this state...


Oh, yes, I know about Slovakia, absolutely! Your English is very, very good!!

Marie-Liesl

  • Guest
Re: Marie Antoinette and Axel Fersen
« Reply #22 on: January 15, 2006, 02:18:57 PM »
Oh, thank you! I´m really surprised that you know Slovakia!
And I want to thank everybody for the informations about Axel and Marie-Antoinette, especially Elena! Thank you very much again!
And there´s some information about Eleonora Sullivan that I found:
She was 5-yeard-older than Axel, and she was very attractive. She was a daughter of tuscan shoemaker, and she comes as 12-years-old as an actress to thaetre and she tramped with it around the Italy. In Venezia she met duke of Wurttemberg and he take her to Germany as his mistress. After some years, when she gave him two children, she left him and went to Vienna. Then in Vienna she was mistress of Joseph II. and after that she married English man Sullivan. After her marriage she met Scotch Quentin Craufurd and they come to Paris together(she was at this time his mistress), where she in 1789 met Axel Fersen and become his mistress.
I also read that Eleonora Sullivan supported Axel´s love to Maria Antoinetta.

elena_maria_vidal

  • Guest
Re: Marie Antoinette and Axel Fersen
« Reply #23 on: January 15, 2006, 02:58:02 PM »
Thanks, Marie-Leisl. Eleanor obviously was not the one his family wanted Fersen to marry, then! She was his  mistress, you are right!

I know that Slovakia was once part of the ancient Kingdom of Bohemia, part of the Holy Roman Empire and ruled by Marie-Antoinette's family.

Rebecca

  • Guest
Re: Marie Antoinette and Axel Fersen
« Reply #24 on: January 15, 2006, 03:19:53 PM »
Slovakia was not a part of Bohemia, actually. For a short time it was under Moravian rule, but after that it was ruled from and part of Hungary for 1000 years.

The murder of Axel von Fersen was rumoured to be arranged, by the way. There are several mysterious circumstances. For instance, policemen witnessed the lynching of him, but did nothing to stop it.

ilyala

  • Guest
Re: Marie Antoinette and Axel Fersen
« Reply #25 on: January 15, 2006, 03:47:50 PM »
about louis' impotence:

i am no expert, but i read in a book about marie antoinette that louis had a problem... that had to be resolved surgically... that he was very reluctant to solve it and that his brother in law, emperror joseph, when he came to france, was the one who convinced him to go through with it. that is why for quite a while the couple remained childless... the court apparently knew about louis' condition and they assumed that a young beautiful girl like marie antoinette could not stay without lover while having a husband that could not... take care of her... and that's why so many rumours were started...

Offline Prince_Lieven

  • Moderator
  • Velikye Knyaz
  • *****
  • Posts: 6570
  • To Be Useful In All That I Do
    • View Profile
    • Edward III's Descendants
Re: Marie Antoinette and Axel Fersen
« Reply #26 on: January 15, 2006, 03:50:52 PM »
It's called phimosis.  ;)
"How often have I said to you that when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth?"
-Sherlock Holmes

"Men forget, but never forgive; women forgive, but never forget."

ilyala

  • Guest
Re: Marie Antoinette and Axel Fersen
« Reply #27 on: January 15, 2006, 03:55:48 PM »
sorry, i'm no expert in men's... ahem... problems...  :-[

Offline Prince_Lieven

  • Moderator
  • Velikye Knyaz
  • *****
  • Posts: 6570
  • To Be Useful In All That I Do
    • View Profile
    • Edward III's Descendants
Re: Marie Antoinette and Axel Fersen
« Reply #28 on: January 15, 2006, 03:59:11 PM »
Haha, no need to apologise.  ;D ;D You can look it up - I don't want to get technical  :o - but basically it's not an erectile problem, more of an ejaculatory problem, which, I believe, sqaures with Josef's (somewhat candid) descriptions of MA and Louis's . . . encounters.  ::)
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 06:00:00 PM by Prince_Lieven »
"How often have I said to you that when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth?"
-Sherlock Holmes

"Men forget, but never forgive; women forgive, but never forget."

elena_maria_vidal

  • Guest
Re: Marie Antoinette and Axel Fersen
« Reply #29 on: January 15, 2006, 04:08:56 PM »
Oh, that does not surprise me that the murder was arranged! Thank you, Rebecca!

Another point I would like to make about the situation of the Queen and Fersen, is that between July 1789 and October 1789, Antoinette had opportunities in which she could have left France with her children. She could have escaped to Vienna and carried on a discreet affair with Axel. Catherine Hyde, the foster daughter of Princesse de Lamballe and editor of her memoirs,  emphasized the fact that Antoinette chose to stay with Louis, even though the situation had become dangerous especially for her, and that she had chances to leave.  Her husband begged her to go for her safety, but she adamantly refused, saying to him "I will die at your feet with the children in my arms." This was heroic on her part, especially if she had feelings of a romantic nature for the Count, but she chose to put her husband, children, honor, duty and faith before her personal happiness.

After Louis' death,  there were several plots for Antoinette's escape, but when she realized she would have to leave her children behind, she would not go even though everyone knew that she was going to be killed. Her children were more important to her than her life. Even before, as one can see from earlier accounts of courtiers at Versailles and the queen's letters, the children and Louis were the focus of her thoughts.