Censored letters that reveal hidden details of a love story between Marie-Antoinette and a Swedish count

Analysis of censored parts of correspondence between Marie-Antoinette and a man presumed to be her lover could reveal some of her secretsaccording to a study published in an American scientific journal.

Letters from the Queen of France were written during the revolutionary upheaval of the early 1790s, a little over a year before executed on the guillotine at the height of Republican fervor in Paris.

The royal family was kept at the Tuileries Palace after an unsuccessful attempt to escape France but the wife of Louis XVI was able to smuggle letters to his friend Axel von Fersen, a Swedish count.

Fersen, a staunch ally of the Queen of France who had helped organize the frustrated escape, kept copies of correspondence but parts of the text have been crossed out, and their content has so far been a mystery.

“Whether it’s state secrets, escape plans, or evidence of a real case, this presumably sensitive content has puzzled historians for nearly 150 years. “, indicated a report on the project published in the American magazine Scientists progress.

French researchers used a new method of X-ray images that made it possible to differentiate the different types of inks used in the original text and in the erasures.

According to the team, their method offers a new way to discover written content and could find a variety of historical and forensic applications in the future.

In total, they were able to reveal hidden passages in eight of the 15 letters studied, and concluded that the censor was Fersen himself.

“He decided to keep the letters instead of destroying them but crossed out some sections, indicating that he wanted to protect the honor of the Queen (or perhaps his own interests)”, says the study.

In eight of the notes, the researchers found constant chemical differences between the inks used to write the original texts and those used to cross out the content later apparently sensitive.

By tracing these variations – which appeared in the copper-iron and zinc-iron ratios of the inks – the team were able to reveal the original underlying text.

They then used multivariate statistical analysis to clarify difficult to decipher sections, which made it possible to read the text written in eight letters.

The project was born last year when the French National Archives reported that the hidden parts show the couple speaking “using the terminology of love”..

But although the letters were written in intimate language, the researchers said that could not determine if the discovered coins supported old rumors of a romance between Marie Antoinette and the Swedish nobleman.

“Reading Beyond Censorship Doesn’t Know The Truth About The Nature Of Your Feelings since the interpretation of the texts is always questionable ”, underlines the study.

“However, the choice of vocabulary (beloved friend, tender, adore, madly) reflects a special relationship between (Marie Antoinette) and Fersen even if there is the influence of revolutionary torment, which favors a certain emotional intensity ”, add the authors.

“It’s always exciting to find out that you can learn more about the past than you thought”says the historian Rebecca L. Spang, who is studying the French Revolution at Indiana University and was not involved in the study.

(With information from AFP and AP)

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