#20th of june

On the 20th of June 1791, Count Axel von Fersen assisted the French royal family in their flight to escape their fate from the hands of the revolutionaries. After the king sent him away, the family was captured and eventually brought back to Paris. For the remainder of his life, Fersen would regret leaving them, wishing over and over that he had stayed to protect them, and his queen, even if it meant his death.

On the 20th of June 1810, 19 years later, Fersen was attacked and beaten to death by a mob on the streets of Stockholm, clear in view of the royal guard. The context was the suspicion of his involvement in the death of crown prince Charles August - an accusation based on nothing but rumours and conspiracies.

In his letter to his sister Sophie a couple of years earlier, after learning of the death of Marie Antoinette, Fersen unknowingly makes a chilling prediction of his own fate, by wishing that he had died by on the 20th of June.