Description:The doubts which still remain about the exact nature of the relationship between Marie-Antoinette and Count Axel Fersen have largely been fostered by redacted editions of their correspondence in which only political letters have been included. In preparing the first complete and unexpurgated collection of these historically important letters, Evelyn Farr has tapped previously unpublished sources discovered in French, Swedish and English archives. She has undertaken rigorous and painstaking analysis of original documents to present the truth about this relationship through the words of the protagonists themselves. Farr recounts the fascinating story of a secret correspondence and an all-encompassing love which had to be kept hidden at all costs. This led to the letters being transmitted via intermediaries, sometimes in code or using invisible ink, with secret seals, double envelopes and code names, and meetings in clandestine lodgings. All of this is revealed at last in riveting detail.
Meticulous cross-referencing with other unpublished documents provides a vivid context for the letters of the revolutionary period, and Farr’s important discoveries leave no doubt at all about Fersen’s status as the love of Marie-Antoinette’s life.