FERSEN, FREDRIK AXEL, COUNT VON , Swedish politician, entered the Swedish Life Guards in and from to 1748 was in the French service (Royal-Suedois), where he rose to the rank of brigadier. At the diet of 1755-56 he was elected landtmarskalk, or marshal of the diet, and from henceforth, till the revolution of 1772, led the Hat party (see SWEDEN : History). In 1756 he defeated the projects of the court for increasing the royal power; but, after the disasters of the Seven Years' War, gravitated towards the court again and con tributed, by his energy and eloquence, to uphold the tottering Hats for several years. On the accession of the Caps to power in 1766, Fersen assisted the court in its struggle with them by refusing to employ the Guards to keep order in the capital when King Adolphus Frederick, driven to desperation by the demands of the Caps, publicly abdicated, and a seven days' interregnum ensued. At the ensuing diet of 1769, when the Hats returned to power, Fersen was again elected marshal of the diet ; but he made no attempt to redeem his pledges to the crown prince Gustavus, as to a very necessary reform of the constitution, which he had made before the elections, and thus involuntarily contributed to the subsequent establishment of absolutism.
When Gustavus III. ascended the throne in r 772, and attempted to reconcile the two factions by a composition which aimed at dividing all political power between them, Fersen consented to open negotiations with the Caps, and was the principal Hat repre sentative on the abortive composition committee. During the revolution of Aug. 1772, Fersen remained a passive spectator of the overthrow of the constitution, and was one of the first whom Gustavus summoned to his side after his triumph. Yet his rela tions with the king were never cordial. There was a slight col lision between them as early as the diet of 1778; but at the diet of 1786 Fersen boldly led the opposition against the king's financial measures (see GUSTAVUS III.) which were consequently rejected. At the diet of 1789 Fersen marshalled the nobility around him for a combat a outrance against the throne and that, too, at a time when Sweden was involved in two dangerous foreign wars, and national unity was absolutely indispensable. This tactical blunder materially assisted the secret operations of the king. He and 20 of his friends of the nobility were arrested (Feb. 17, and the opposition collapsed. Fersen was speedily released, but henceforth kept aloof from politics, surviving the king two years. His Historiska Skrifter, a record of Swedish history, mainly autobiographical, during the greater part of the r 8th century, is excellent as literature, but somewhat unreliable as an historical document.
See C. G. Malmstrom, Sveriges politiska Historia (Stockholm, 1855 65) ; R. N. Bain, Gustavus III. (1895) ; C. T. Odhner, Sveriges politiska Ilistoria under Gustaf III.'s Regering (Stockholm, 1885, etc.) ; F. A. Fersen, Historiska Skrifter (Stockholm, 1867-72) .