The ‘Austrian whore’, accused of every imaginable sexual and political crime - or saint, pure and unsullied? Neither was true, but the life and tragic death of Marie Antoinette have, over the centuries, assumed almost mythical proportions. She was fourteen, married to an obese, uncouth husband who could not consummate the marriage. In her loneliness she turned to the young, sympathetic and attractive Axel Fersen, who soon became for her that ‘most loved and loving of men’. Their devotion to each other was known only to a few at Court and lasted for their entire lives. In this moving study, using contemporary and other documents, Evelyn Farr peels back layers of libels and misinformation which continue to obscure the fateful story of the love between the French Queen and the Swedish Count.