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Axel von Fersen, the Tragic Romance of a Count Who Loved a Queen but Couldn’t Save Her

Khalid Elhassan April 16, 2025 16 min

Fersen - Hans Axel von Fersen — Hans Axel von Fersen. Wikimedia

5. The Last Time the Swedish Count and French Queen Saw Each Other

Fersen - Marie Antoinette and her children — Marie Antoinette and her children. Wikimedia

Von Fersen assisted in efforts to try and get other European powers to declare war on revolutionary France. In August, 1791, he traveled to Vienna, where he met Holy Roman Emperor Leopold II, the brother of von Fersen’s love, Marie Antoinette. He snuck back into Paris, disguised with a big wig and fake moustache, and claimed to be an envoy from Portugal’s queen. That got him into the Tuileries Palace in December, 1791. There, the king and queen were held captive under tight guard. He proposed another escape plan: since the roads were now closely watched, the king would flee through the woods, and then by sea. In the meantime, Marie Antoinette’s love would spirit her and the children away via another route. Louis rejected that plan because he did not believe it would work. That night, von Fersen saw Marie Antoinette for the last time.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.