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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

2. Von Fersen’s Attempts to Thwart Revolution in His Native Sweden

King Charles XIII of Sweden. Media Storehouse

Napoleon recalled von Fersen’s efforts against the Revolution and on behalf of the executed French king and queen. As the Swedish count recounted, Napoleon: “remarked that the Court of Sweden seemed to take a pleasure in sending agents and ambassadors who were personally disagreeable to every French citizen“. When he returned to Sweden, von Fersen was alarmed by a rise in popular sympathy for revolutionary France. In 1801, he became Marshal of the Realm, Sweden’s highest court official, and did all he could from that position to thwart the spread of revolution to his country. In 1809, a coup deposed Sweden’s King Gustav IV Adolf, and replaced him with his uncle, Charles XIII. A dispute then erupted about who should succeed Charles.

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.