let’s talk the fersen affair and cherry picking authors
Copied from my twitter (@invitinghistory) with some additional words here and there because I can go past the character limits now.
Let's talk about the cherry-picking that pops up frequently in books which promote the Axel von Fersen/Marie Antoinette affair. It involves quoting contemporaries who believed Fersen was the queen's lover, and using these quotes as indicative of the affair's factual basis.
But very often--almost always, in the case of the books being quoted that were published in the 19th century--these contemporaries didn't just write that Fersen was the queen's lover. They believed she had multiple lovers, and sometimes they even name them specifically. Yet the authors who use the 'Fersen was her lover' quotes from these contemporary authors dismiss or ignore this other information entirely.
For instance: In 'I Love You Madly,' Evelyn Farr quotes G. Morris when he says that he ran into Fersen and calls him 'the Queen's lover.'
Farr includes these types of quotes throughout her book as evidence that the affair was acknowledged by others, and therefore factual. Farr ignores that Morris also specifically named the duc de Coigny as the queen's lover and more distinctly, Morris believed Marie Antoinette was a lusty sex-fiend who had multiple lovers and could be controlled like a puppet by throwing men at her.
Morris says Fersen is the queen's lover: "Aha!! Proof of their love!"
Morris says Coigny and multiple unnamed men are also the queen's lovers: "Huh? What?"
In 'The Untold Love Story,' Farr dismisses the idea that Coigny and Marie Antoinette were lovers, even though he is named in the libelles both as her love and sometimes as the potential father of her children, he stayed overnight with her when she had measles and is one of the 4 confirmed men who stayed overnight at the Trianon, he was part of her close circle, and he shows up in multiple contemporary accounts as "the queen's lover."
Farr, however, simply dismisses it. Nope. Didn’t happen. Doesn’t matter that the same logic she uses as evidence for Fersen (contemporaries calling him the queen’s lover, Fersen’s closeness with the queen, Fersen being at Versailles, Fersen being rumored to be Louis Charles father, etc) extends to Coigny.
She even, without reason or evidence, randomly claims that the reason Marie Antoinette excitedly repeated a story to the comte de Mercy, about having to take a cab to a masquerade when the regular carriage broke down, was not--as the libelles claimed--a cover up for having a rendezvous with Coigny, but must have been covering up a meeting with Fersen. Why? Just... because. Farr offers no evidence for it. It just must have been Fersen. I wonder, does she think Marie Antoinette was with Fersen in the bushes when she stayed up for New Year’s and the libelles turned it into a lustful orgy, too?
When Fersen's name is on people's lips as the queen's lover, it is--to Farr and other authors--indisputable proof that it was true. But when it's not Fersen but another man or unnamed men on their lips? It is entirely ignored or dismissed out of hand, just because.
All the way back in 2016, Farr even made the bold claim that accusing Marie Antoinette's children of being fathered by someone other than Louis XVI was "not something you would write lightly," therefore the fact that someone spreading the rumor that Fersen was the father = fact.
Yet these accusations were made against Marie Antoinette from the moment her first child was born. Countless men were named as the potential father. Poems were written about how Louis couldn’t be the father. Yet to Farr, these accusations do not exist or apparently do not matter, because they were not Fersen.
Fersen is "rumored" to be the father of the dauphin? "This is proof that it was true because you wouldn't say this lightly!"
Anyone else is "rumored" to be the father of her children? "Means nothing!"
Additionally, the idea that people did not accuse women--especially royal women--of having children out of wedlock unless it was actually true (as Farr implies you wouldn't say it without evidence--not lightly) is just astoundingly bad history. Open a book. Open a book about contentious royal women and you are almost certain to find rumors that the child wasn’t her husband’s. Was Elizabeth I not Henry VIII”s daughter? The Spanish ambassador wrote questioningly about the paternity of the child, and Farr claims you would never write this lightly, so I guess not!
Farr also claimed the phrase "I love you a la folie (madly/to madness)" was exclusive to lovers. Marie Antoinette wrote in January 1792 to Fersen: "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 moment without adoring you."
But Marie Antoinette used the phrase towards her son, saying she loved him "a la folie." M. Elisabeth wrote that the pious sister of Mirabeau loved him 'a la folie.' So is this phrase exclusive to lovers, and does it always imply a physical relationship? No, of course not.
Tangent, but Farr ignores the important context of this letter and phrase. Fersen had just written a "scolding" letter to MA in which he doubted her trust and need for him. He even specifically brought up that she knew how to win people over to her side with sweet words, with compliments, but she didn’t do it for so-and-so that he sent to meet with her. So what does she do in her next letter? Hmm. But context never matters in these arguments. Context does not exist when it comes to Fersen. [Quick aside: Definitely recommend the new Archives nationales book on the correspondence, because it does talk about the political context of the language used in these letters, and how often the most dramatic of phrases coincides with intense, stressful or necessary political happenings.]
To add to the context discussion: These authors always loudly demand context for when someone says there was no affair. They demand that Campan saying there was no affair be dismissed because context, she would have had a reason to protect the queen's reputation and therefore only denied it for that reason.
But context for those who said there was an affair? Doesn't matter, doesn’t exist. The context that the comte Saint-Priest's wife was in love with Fersen and emotionally cuckolded her husband by writing Fersen love letters, apparently this would have no bearing on Saint-Priest whatsoever.
And mind you, Saint-Priest is another who implied that the queen had multiple lovers. He wrote that Fersen was the "most discrete" of the queen's "friends." He repeats the same opinion as Lord Holland, as G. Morris--that Marie Antoinette had numerous lovers, with Fersen being one of them and perhaps the “favorite” of them.
But here again, it’s a cherry pick: only the part where Fersen is the lover matters and nothing else.
And on and on.
An author cannot logically say that someone writing 'Fersen was the queen's lover' is undeniable evidence that they were lovers while simultaneously ignoring when people (sometimes the SAME people) say another man/men were her lovers. An author cannot logically write that you wouldn’t accuse someone of being the father of a queen’s child lightly, meaning there is strength behind the words, but then ignore that other men close to the queen were given the same exact accusation. Either it's proof--or it's not. Either it’s your logic--or it’s not.
This doesn't mean that you have to believe everything someone says.
But there's no reason, for instance, to bolster Morris saying Fersen was the queen's lover while ignoring that he said with the same conviction that Coigny and others were her lover. There’s no reason to say Madame Campan’s opinion on the affair can’t be trusted but the Saint-Priest’s opinion is absolute fact.
Context. Logic. It matters.
