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Marie-Antoinette only had two intense friendships in her life and neither came from the ranks of the high nobility crowded together at Versailles. One was Axel von Fersen, a Swedish nobleman attached to the French court; the other was Yolande de Polastron, comtesse and later duchesse de Polignac. A third, perhaps, was Antoine Barnave, the Revolutionary politician with whom she directed the government of France in the last months of 1791.
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