The Queen's Lover

The Queen's Lover (#216) by Francine du Plessix Gray is the story of Axel von Fersen, the Swedish count rumored to be the lover of Marie Antoinette, told from his viewpoint and that of his sister, Sophie.  If you're aware of him at all, you probably remember that he was the mastermind behind the failed escape of the royal family.  This book gives a broader picture of the dashing Axel von Fersen from the time of his Grand Tour of Europe and his initial meeting with the nineteen year old Marie Antoinette to his friendship with King Gustavus III of Sweden, his campaign in America as aide-de-camp to Rochambeau's French regiment, his relationship with the French royal family and his death in 1810 at the hands of a Swedish mob.

From everything else I've ever read about him, I really expected that I would like and admire Count von Fersen, but after reading The Queen's Lover, I've come to the opposite conclusion, probably because I wasn't crazy about the book itself.  Ms. du Plessix Gray has certainly done her homework and uncovered any number of interesting and salacious tidbits about the French Court, and with Axel writing his memoirs, the first section of this novel is a bit like reading a celebrity tell-all; gossipy with a bite of malice.  But when he turns to the supposed affair he has with Marie Antoinette, he is curiously uncommunicative, despite his protestations of love and devotion.  I was never convinced that there was ever any emotional connection between these two as the narrative descends into yet another pedantic retelling of the events surrounding the escape of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette as far as Varennes, where they are recognized and brought back to Paris.  Von Fersen flees to Belgium as he was instructed as soon as he learns of this, but any history book will tell you the dry details of what happens to the family in Paris right up until the moment of Marie Antoinette's execution.  As soonsas he hears the news, Fersen promptly jumps in a couch to drive himself to the home of Eleanore Sullivan where he consoles himself in her arms.  He begs the reader not to misunderstand, but he does have his needs. Ugh.  The narrative becomes a little livelier at that point as he philanders his way back to Sweden and several high offices there, but his attitudes have become so reactionary and snobbish that by the time he is attacked during the funeral cortege of the Crown Prince of Sweden, whom he's accused of poisoning, I didn't have much sympathy for him.

If the author had stuck to the same tell-all style throughout the book, it would have made it much more interesting.   But as for the actual affair, I've read other sources on the subject, for example Antonia Frasier's excellent biography of Marie Antoinette, which doubt the affair was ever physically consummated.  Even the author admits in the Notes at the end of The Queen's Lover that the Dauphin's heart tissue was recently tested and the DNA conclusively proved that the boy was Louis's son, not Fersen's.  If you've ever read a supermarket tabloid while standing in line at the checkout counter, you know that these kind of stories sell newspapers, but there isn't a whole lot of truth behind them.  Color me unconvinced, and not even wishing that it could have been so...