Royal Scandal Alert! Marie Antoinette Queen of France Had Affair, Possible Love Children

A photo posted by Jean-Jacques PAHIN (@jjpahin) on Jan 7, 2016 at 9:30am PST

How's this for a royal scandal? In shocking revelations from historian and author Evelyn Farr, the infamous 18^th-century queen of France who was beheaded during the French Revolution, Marie Antoinette, is revealed to have had an affair with a Swedish lover that may have produced two children.

According to Farr in her book I Love You Madly- Marie Antoinette and Count Fersen: The Secret Letters, which will be released in March in the U.K. and in the summer in the U.S., secret codes and invisible ink were used by the pair over a course of 20 years. Farr has compiled the most complete collection of the letters to date.

The parts of letters that most people could see (meaning, the parts that weren't in code or blacked out) made the relationship between Fersen and the Queen seem platonic. But, as Farr told The Independent, "This is the first time the full extent of their relationship has been exposed."

Farr told PEOPLE that without the affair, Antoinette's life would have been "absolutely awful." Farr is referring to the loveless arranged marriage she had with King Louis VXI, whom she was forced to marry at 14. The affair with Fersen reportedly started four years later.

Based on her research, Farr says she has reason to believe that Marie Antoinette's son Louis Joseph and daughter Princess Sophie were fathered by Fersen.

Her key evidence is a letter that was sent to the British Prime Minister of the time, William Pitt and his Foreign Secretary Lord Grenville by a friend of the couple, Quintin Craufurd, which says:

"I know him [Fersen] intimately, and think him a man of unquestionable honour and veracity. He is calm, resolute, and uncommonly discreet, without being reserved. This gentleman was Colonel of the Royal Suédois; was Her Most Christian Majesty's prime favourite; and is generally supposed to be the father of the present Dauphin." "Dauphin" is the term for the eldest son of a French king.

The letters between the two lovebirds include phrases such as "I love you and will love you madly all my life" and "I love you madly and never, ever could I exist a moment without adoring you."

The full contents of the letters were not known until now because Fersen used codes and invisible ink, according to Farr.