Hans Axel von Fersen

Background

He was born on September 4, 1755 in Stockholm. He was the eldest son of Count Frederik Axel von Fersen and Hedwig Catarina Delagardi.

Education

He was carefully educated at home, at the Carolinum at Brunswick and at Turin. In 1779 he entered the French military service (Royal-Bavitre).

Career

After traveling to several countries in Europe, he returned to Sweden in 1775, where he was promoted to captain of the Leib-Dragoon Regiment. In 1778, he went to France, where, as early as 1770, he entered a lieutenant to serve in the Royal-Bavier regiment, and was promoted to colonel. In 1780-1783, as an adjutant to Count Roshambo, he participated in the war of the American states for independence, having distinguished himself in 1781 at the siege of Yorktown. From 1788 to 1791, Fersen was almost continuously in France. Using the warm attitude of the royal family to Fersen, Gustav III often resorted to his mediation in negotiations, bypassing the official Swedish representative. After the French Revolution and the emigration of many members of the royal family abroad, Ferzen becomes one of the closest advisers to Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette. When the war with Russia broke out, in 1788, Fersen accompanied his regiment to Finland, but in the autumn of the same year was sent to France, where the political horizon was already darkening. It was necessary for Gustavus to "have an agent, thoroughly in the confidence of the French royal family, and, at the same time, sufficiently able and audacious to help them in their desperate straits, especially as he had lost all confidence in his accredited minister, the baron de Stael. With his usual acumen, he fixed upon Fersen, who was at his post early in 1790. Before the end of the year he was forced to admit that the cause of the French monarchy was hopeless so long as the king and queen of France were nothing but captives in their own capital, at the mercy of an irresponsible mob. He took a leading part in the flight to Varennes. He found most of the requisite funds at the last moment. He ordered the construction of the famous carriage for six, in the name of the baroness von Korff, and kept it in his hotel grounds, rue Matignon, that all Paris might get accustomed to the sight of it. He was the coachman of the fiacre which drove the royal family from the Carrousel to the Porte Saint-Martin. He accompanied them to Bondy, the first stage of their journey. In August 1791, Fersen was sent to Vienna to induce the emperor Leopold to accede to a new coalition against revolutionaryFrance, but he soon came to the conclusion that the Austrian court meant to do nothing at all. At his own request, therefore, he was transferred to Brussels, where he could be of more service to the queen of France. In February 1792, at his own mortal peril, he once more succeeded in reaching Paris with counterfeit credentials as minister plenipotentiary to Portugal. On the 13th he arrived, and the same evening contrived to steal an interview with the queen unobserved. On the following day he was with the royal family from six o'clock in the evening till six o'clock the next morning, and convinced himself that a second flight was physically impossible. On the afternoon of the 216t he succeeded in paying a third visit to the Tuileries, stayed there till midnight and succeeded, with great difficulty, in regaining Brussels on the 27th. This perilous expedition, a monumental instance of courage and loyalty, had no substantial result. In 1797 Fersen was sent to the congress of Rastatt as the Swedish delegate, but in consequence of a protest from the French government, was not permitted to take part in it. During the regency of the duke of Sudermania (1792 - 1796) Fersen, like all the other Gustavians, was in disgrace; but, on Gustavus IV attaining his majority in 1796, he was welcomed back to court with open arms, and reinstated in all his offices and dignities. On the outbreak of the war with Napoleon, Ferser accompanied Gustavus IV to Germany to assist him in gaining fresh allies. He prevented Gustavus from invading Prussia in revenge for the refusal of the king of Prussia to declare war against France, and during the rest of the reign was in semidisgrace, though generally a member of the government when the king was abroad. Fersen stood quite aloof from the revolution of 1809. When the Danish prince Frederick Christian August Augustinus, unexpectedly died in Skane, there were rumors that he was poisoned on the advice of Fersen by his own sister Countess Piper. When, then, on the 20th of June 1810, the prince's body was conveyed to Stockholm, and Fersen, in his official capacity as Riksmarskalk, received it at the barrier and led the funeral cortege into the city, his fine carriage and his splendid robes seemed to the people an open derision of the general grief. The crowd began to murmur and presently to fling stones and cry "murderer! " He sought refuge in a house in the Riddarhus Square, but the mob rushed after him, brutally maltreated him and tore his robes to pieces. To quiet the people and save the unhappy victim, two officers volunteered to conduct him to the senate house and there place him in arrest. But he had no sooner mounted the steps leading to the entrance than the crowd, which had followed him all the way beating him with sticks and umbrellas, made a rush at him, knocked him down, and kicked and trampled him to death. This horrible outrage, which lasted more than an hour, happened, too, in the presence of numerous troops, drawn up in the Riddarhus Square, who made not the slightest effort to rescue the Riksmarskalk from his tormentors.

Achievements

• In 1783, Fersen led the regiment Royal Svedua. At the same time, he was promoted in Sweden, becoming a colonel in 1782, Lieutenant-Colonel of the Leib-Dragoon Regiment in 1783, and Lieutenant Colonel Adelsfan, captain-lieutenant in 1787, who in 1788 took part in the Russo- Swedish war.
  
  In the future, Fersen's military career developed just as successfully: in 1792 he became a major general, in 1802 - lieutenant-general, and in 1809 - a general. In addition, in 1799 he was appointed Chancellor of Uppsala University, and in 1801 he was appointed Riksmarskalk.

Politics

Fersen enjoyed great respect from the new king, but he was too bad politician to exert any influence on his rule. He did not take part in the coup d'état of 1809 and, being a legitimist, highly disapproved of the removal from power of the son of the deposed king, the Crown Prince Gustav, in connection with which he was regarded as the adherent of Gustav IV Adolf.

Membership

He became a member of the Society of the Cincinnati in 1783

and a member of the Institution of Military Merit in 1786.

Connections

Fersen was not married and had no officially recognized children. It is known that he was close with the queen Marie Antoinette. The latter circumstance gave rise to rumors that the Swedish count was the lover of the queen. The Swedish ambassador to France, Creutz, in a letter to Gustav III even suggested that the royal lady was in love with Ferzen. The assumptions of a number of authors that Fersen was the father of Louis XVII, by some modern researchers are rejected for reasons of chronology.