Baron Jacques d'Adelswärd-Fersen (20 February 1880 – 5 November 1923) was a French novelist and poet. His life forms the basis of a fictionalised 1959 novel by Roger Peyrefitte entitled The Exile of Capri (L'exilé de Capri).
In 1903, a scandal involving school pupils made d'Adelswärd persona non grata in the salons of Paris and dashed his marriage plans. For much of the rest of his life, he took up residence on Capri in self-imposed exile with his long-time lover, Nino Cesarini. He became a "character" on the island in the inter-war years, featuring in novels by Compton MacKenzie and others. His house, Villa Lysis, remains one of Capri's tourist attractions.
He was born in Paris, France as Jacques d'Adelswärd on 20 February 1880, son of Axel d'Adelswärd and Louise-Emilie Alexandrine d'Adelswärd (née Vührer; 1855–1935), who came from a Catholic Alsatian family. As he was related on his paternal side to Axel von Fersen, a Swedish count who had had a supposed relationship with Marie Antoinette, d'Adelswärd took on the name Fersen later in his life to advertise his link with his distant relative. On his father's side his family can be traced back to Baron Göran Axel Adelswärd, a Swedish officer and courtier who was captured by the French in 1806 and imprisoned in Longwy. There, he married Anne Catherine Honorine Bernard, daughter of a French notary. D'Adelswärd's grandfather, Renauld-Oscar (1811–1898), became a naturalized French citizen in 1832 and married Amélie Steiner in 1843. After serving in the army, he founded the steel industry in Longwy-Briey. D'Adelswärd's maternal grandfather, Thomas Michel Alexandre Vührer (1817–1886), was a referendary at the French Ministry of State, director of Le Paris-Journal as well as founder of the Parisian newspaper Le Soir. D'Adelswärd's father, Axel d'Adelswärd, died from fever in Panama when Jacques was seven years old. He was assigned a guardian, Viscount Elie Marie Audoin de Dampierre (1846–1909), who was a friend of the family. During d'Adelswärd's teenage years, the family spent long summer vacations at his grandfather's estate on Jersey, where d'Adelswärd reportedly had an intimate encounter with a blond Eton schoolboy. He went to school in Paris and studied briefly there at the École libre des sciences politiques, and afterward at the University of Geneva.
In 1897, d'Adelswärd visited Capri and other parts of Italy with his mother. The family steel furnaces had become profitable enough to make d'Adelswärd a rich and 'eligible' bachelor when he inherited at the age of 22. Apart from joining the military, he traveled extensively and settled down as a writer. He published Chansons légères (1900) and Hymnaire d'Adonis (1902), and other poems and novels. In 1902, he holidayed in Venice, where he associated with the novelist Jean Lorrain. On his return to Paris, he published a novel, Notre Dame des mers mortes.
In 1903, d'Adelswärd and his friend, Albert François (Hamelin) de Warren (1881–1928), brother of René de Warren, were rumoured to be holding "entertainments" – tableaux vivants of pupils from the best Parisian schools – in his house at 18 Avenue de Friedland. One of the first alleged "victims" was Eduardo (Bruno) de Warren (1886–1957), brother of Hamelin. D'Adelswärd and Hamelin were arrested on charges of inciting minors to commit debauchery. D'Adelswärd was arrested on 9 July by Octave Hamard, chief of the Paris police, and his deputy Blot by order of Charles de Valles, pretrial judge. The order stated the suspicion of indecent behaviour with minors and offending public decency. He was brought to La Santé Prison after arrest. The newspapers and magazines published alleged details of d'Adelswärd's and Hamelin's orgies, which they called messes noires (Black Masses), in their homes twice a week, with youngsters from the upper classes, mostly recruited from the Lycée Carnot and the Chaptal, Condorcet, Janson-deSailly, and Saint-Joseph-des-Tuileries schools.
According to Peyrefitte, the scandal started with a failed blackmail attempt by d'Adelswärd's former servant, demanding 100,000 francs in return for his silence. D'Adelswärd's mother refused to pay, so he went to the police. At the beginning, the police dismissed the allegations. But the story was later confirmed by another arrested blackmailer who was an intimate acquaintance of Albert François de Warren. Will Ogrinc reported that, after investigating the French National Archives in 2003, he did not come across any documents about the failed blackmail attempt by d'Adelswärd's former valet and that it was probably invented by Peyrefitte. In the court documents, the valet, whose name was Velpry, told investigators about the periodic visits of the Croisé de Pourcelet brothers to d'Adelswärd's apartment and that, after one of their visits, he had found obscene photos and handkerchiefs stained with semen on the table. He also claimed that he had let d'Adelswärd's mother know about it and quit his job. Some documents mention that d'Adelswärd was blackmailed by several rent boys with whom he had relations. The dossier mentions the names of six rent boys: Beret, Boscher, twenty-one-year-old Kothé, Lefebvre, nineteen-year-old Leroy, and fifteen-year-old Verguet, though there is no mention as to which of them might have been the blackmailer.
Police started to watch some of the schoolboys, which at first sight confirmed the allegations. Hamelin fled to the United States on 27 June 1903, but d'Adelswärd was arrested. His aunt Jeanne d'Adelswärd and former guardian Viscount Audoin de Dampierre employed Edgar Demange, a lawyer who previously defended Alfred Dreyfus, in his defence.
The trial started on 28 November 1903 in the Seine Tribunal. It was presided over by Judge Bondoux. It was a closed trial with the public barred from the hearings. Some schoolboys testified for the prosecution. The defence tried to prove d'Adelswärd's heterosexuality by making him testify about his encounters with women. D'Adelswärd and de Warren were found guilty, but having been in prison for five months already d'Adelswärd was set free immediately after the trial. He was also fined 50 francs and lost civil rights for five years. Hamelin stayed in prison and appealed his sentence to a higher court. The "entertainments" had been attended by the cream of Parisian society, including some Catholic priests and the writer Achille Essebac. This could be a factor which may have induced the court to drop some charges. According to Will Ogrinc, the court limited the case to "inciting minors to debauchery" because of illegal conduct between boys and two young men in their twenties, preventing implications against older participants. Many boys did not appear at the interrogations and trial, since they had been sent to the countryside by their parents to avoid embarrassing revelations.
There is no detailed description of the boys' testimony, but Peyrefitte writes of Jean Lorrain's report that, after the tableaux vivants, d'Adelswärd followed the boys who had been stimulated by the entertainment to the bathroom and masturbated them.
The scandal foiled d'Adelswärd's plans to marry Blanche Suzanne Caroline de Maupeou (1884–1951), daughter of the respected aristocratic and wealthy Protestant industrialist Viscount de Maupeou. The court documents mention that one of the blackmail letters was sent to the Viscount prior to the scandal and that Blanche's family was happy to receive the information prior to his arrest and to cancel their marriage plans. After d'Adelswärd's release on 3 December 1903, he tried to visit his fiancée with the intent of explaining the affair, but was sent away by a servant. There were rumours in the press that he tried to end his life, but the accounts in Gazzetta Piemontese and Le Figaro differ.
Contemporary literary responses to the affair were divided. Pierre Louÿs condemned d'Adelswärd in a private letter to his brother, while Paul Léautaud discussed the scandal with Marcel Schwob. In the salon of Marguerite de Pierrebourg, Marcel Proust defended d'Adelswärd when the playwright and Académie Française member Paul Hervieu called for his punishment, arguing instead for compassion and for the right of individuals to love in their own way. Charles-Louis Philippe adopted a similarly tolerant position in his contribution “Le Mouton à cinq pattes” to the 1903 Messes Noires issue of Le Canard Sauvage, presenting individual passions as deserving acceptance. In the same issue, Alfred Jarry defended d'Adelswärd in the satirical article “L'Âme ouverte à l'Art antique”.