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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

1. Von Fersen Met an Even More Violent End at the Hands of Revolutionaries Than Did His Lover

Fersen - Hans Axel von Fersen in Swedish court regalia — Hans Axel von Fersen in Swedish court regalia. Wikimedia

Count Hans Axel von Fersen supported the deposed king’s son, Gustav, Prince of Vasa, and opposed the popular Charles August, who was adopted by Charles XIII and became Crown Prince, or heir to the throne. However, Charles August fell off his horse in 1810, had a stroke, and died. Rumors spread that he was poisoned, and von Fersen was a prime suspect. On June 10^th, as Marshal of the Realm, he rode in a carriage at the head of the Crown Prince’s funeral procession, only to be attacked by a mob as soon as he reached Stockholm. The crowd dragged the count out of the carriage, and the funeral’s armed military escort did not intervene. Von fersen broke free and ran into a nearby house, but the mob followed and dragged him back out into the street, where it beat him to death.

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Where Did We Find This Stuff? Some Sources and Further Reading

Daily Beast – Marie Antoinette’s Adultery Unmasked by Modern Science

Encyclopedia Britannica – Hans Axel von Fersen

Fersen, Hans Axel – Diary and Correspondence of Count Axel Fersen, Grand Marshal of Sweden, Relating to the Court of France (1902)

Fraser, Antonia – Marie Antoinette: The Journey (2001)

Goldstone, Nancy – In the Shadow of the Empress: The Defiant Lives of Maria Theresa, Mother of Marie Antoinette, and Her Daughters (2021)

History Collection – 10 Things We Owe the French Revolution of 1789

Loomis, Stanley – The Fatal Friendship: Marie Antoinette, Count Fersen, and the Flight to Varennes (1972)

Tackett, Timothy – When the King Took Flight (2003)

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.