Marie Antoinette’s affair with Axel von Fersen produced two love children, claims I Love You Madly — Marie-Antoinette: The Secret Letters, a new book from Evelyn Farr. Marie Antoinette wrote countless letters to von Fersen during their forbidden romance where she thanked him for giving her a reason to live and lamented about her empty marriage to King Louis XVI.
King Louis XVI était un cocu as the French would say, for it has been revealed that Marie Antoinette, his wife and one of France’s most scandalous political figures, was also a cheater.
Centuries after her death, Marie Antoinette, still has mysteries and scandals unraveling. In 1770, at the young age of 14 years, Marie Antoinette married Louis-Auguste, heir to the throne of France, and four years later when her husband ascended the throne as Louis XVI, upon the death of his grandfather, Louis XV, she became the queen of France.
While it was common knowledge that Louis XVI had countless mistresses, according to author and historian Evelyn Farr, Marie Antoinette had an affair with Axel von Fersen, a Swedish count that lasted over 20 years.
Farr believes that the pair met in 1774 when they were both in their late teens in Austria and fell in love, but they were not able to pursue their romance, for she was already married. In Farr’s upcoming book, I Love You Madly – Marie-Antoinette and Count Fersen: The Secret Letters, it is revealed that that the affair produced two love children. According to the author, letters have proven that the Swedish diplomat is the biological father of Marie Antoinette’s son, Louis Charles, and daughter, Princess Sophie.
Louis died at age ten after being imprisoned by the revolutionaries, who overthrew the monarchy, and Princess Sophie died of illness just weeks before her first birthday. A critical letter in Farr’s book was written in 1791 by Quintin Craufurd, a close friend of Marie Antoinette and Louis XV to British Prime Minister William Pitt and his Foreign Secretary Lord Grenville where he said that the father of France’s Dauphin – the eldest son of the King of France – was none other than Axel von Fersen. The letter said:
“I know him [Fersen] intimately, and think him a man of unquestionable honour and veracity.He is calm, resolute, and uncommonly discreet, without being reserved. This gentleman was Colonel of the Royal Suédois; was Her Most Christian Majesty’s prime favourite; and is generally supposed to be the father of the present Dauphin.”
According to the writer, the secret lovers used invisible ink, codenames like “Madame Brown” or “Mrs. B,” secret stamps, and elaborate codes to communicate. In one letter found, Fersen wrote:
“I love you and will love you madly all my life.”
In another letter, Marie Antoinette confessed:
“I am going to close, but not without telling you, my dear and very tender friend, that I love you madly and never, ever could I exist a moment without adoring you.”
In 1793, Marie Antoinette was declared guilty of treason, conspiracy against the internal and external security of the state, intelligence with the enemy, and was put to death by guillotine.
