Amalie from Béguelin

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Amalie of Béguelin; unknown artist

Amalie Henriette Caroline von Béguelin b. Cramer (born May 7, 1778 in Glogau ; † July 20, 1848 in Berlin ) was a German salonnière and a friend and advisor to August Neidhardt von Gneisenau and Karl August von Hardenberg and wife of the important Prussian tax officer Heinrich von Béguelin (1765-1818) .

Live and act

family

Hermsdorf Castle near Glogau, birthplace of Amalie Cramer, status 2014

Amalie Henriette Caroline von Béguelin-Cramer's parents were court councilor Carl Christoph Cramer (1750-1827), born in Ansbach / Bavaria. He was appointed as an educator in the house of the Prussian Budget Minister for Silesia Ernst Wilhelm Graf Schlabrendorf and was born in 1776 with Louise Ernestine. Biesler, the adopted daughter of Hofrat Simon Heinrich Sack, worked as a tax collector in Glogau . He carried the title of Hofrat and with his fortune and that of his wife acquired the rule of Köben on the Oder and Hermsdorf Castle near Glogau. As a result of the unaffordable war contributions that the wealthy citizens of Glogau had to carry through the French occupation, Cramer saw himself forced to sell the Koben rule with the loss of almost all of his fortune and fell into an incurable “madness”.

Amalie Cramer married Heinrich von Béguelin , the Privy Councilor of State and Prussian finance officer, in 1798 , with whom she had a happy marriage. He was the son of Nicolaus von Béguelin (1714–1789), director of the philosophical class of the Academy of Sciences in Berlin and court master of the future King Friedrich Wilhelm II .

The Béguelin couple had the following children during their 20-year marriage:

  • Josephie Adelheid Clementine Antoinette (* February 27, 1799 - December 30, 1822) ⚭ Wilhelm Friedrich Amadeus von Kienitz († December 8, 1863), Steurrat in Zossen
  • Konstanze Klara Eugenie (* June 21, 1800; † August 15, 1883) ⚭ 1823 Wilhelm Friedrich Amadeus von Kienitz († December 8, 1863)
  • Charlotte Luise Henriette Karoline Amalie Serafine (* July 8, 1801, † September 11, 1803)
  • Cäcilie Johanne Franziska (* February 15, 1803; † April 15, 1847) Fil 1829 Filipp Kalau von Hofe, Major († June 7, 1849)
  • Serafine Karoline Auguste Dorothea (* December 22, 1804 - November 4, 1807)
  • Heinrich Karl Raimund Maximilian (born December 26, 1805 - † January 29, 1807)
  • Raimund Karl Gaston (born November 3, 1807 - † August 25, 1891) ⚭ 1842 Pauline Emilie Johanna Henriette Steger (* March 9, 1818 - † March 7, 1888)
  • Oktavia (born January 31, 1809 - September 6, 1809)
  • Mona (born January 31, 1809 - † February 17, 1809)
  • Prosper Edmund Heinrich Otto Nikolaus (born September 25, 1810 - † April 6, 1812)
  • August Karl (born October 31, 1812), tax collector
  • Theodor Karl Heinrich Felix (born March 29, 1815 - † July 12, 1876), a. D.

Many children died very early. She only found out about the death of the child Edmund after she and her husband returned from Paris in 1812. Her death had previously been kept secret so as not to influence her husband's mission. When the husband died due to a stroke on October 7, 1818, the eldest of her three daughters, Antonie, was only 19 years old, while the eldest of the three sons, Raimund, was 11 years old and the youngest boy was still an early child. Raimund von Beguelin , who later became the Prussian secret chief accountant, was the godson of Stein and Gneisenau . Their daughter Antonie died in 1822 after a short marriage.

Life and meaning

Meeting of the monarchs on the Memel near Tilsit; Painting by Adolphe Roehn (1799–1864)

Heinrich von Béguelin, the secret state councilor and Prussian tax officer, was president of the maritime trade and head of the accounting chamber , an employee of the Prussian reformer Freiherr vom Stein and the state chancellor Karl August von Hardenberg . He set up a statistical office and worked on the reorganization of Prussian finances after 1806. His wife Amalie ran a small political salon in Berlin from 1806, and from 1812 in the apartment in the Seehlassung (bank building) on ​​Jägerstrasse, where court circles and the leading state officials frequented.

Freiherr vom Stein (painting by Johann Christoph Rincklake ) headed the allied central administration department for the occupied territories

Amalie Cramer accompanied her husband twice to negotiate with Napoleon in Paris. Her husband had been sent there with the Prussian special envoy Sigmund Otto Joseph von Treskow to negotiate the forced contributions after the defeat by Napoleon and the Peace of Tilsit . Amalie herself had a close friendship with State Chancellor Hardenberg. She managed to get the cautious Hardenberg to agree with the impatiently waiting field marshal and army reformer Gneisenau to begin the wars of freedom against Napoleon Bonaparte . Extensive correspondence has been preserved and later published. It emerges from him that with “ravishing eloquence in noble anger” she persuaded the hesitant State Chancellor Hardenberg to drop his concerns and resolve to vigorously oppose France. At her insistence, Gneisenau was called to Berlin from his estate in Silesia, to which he had withdrawn. Amalie von Beguelin mediated the communication between the two.

With the then beginning Wars of Liberation (1813-1815), the French supremacy under Napoleon Bonaparte over Prussia and large parts of the European continent was ended after Napoleon Bonaparte was finally defeated at Waterloo .

For the last years of his life from 1816 to 1818, her husband was Chief President of the 2nd Department of the Chamber of Accounts.

Amalie von Beguelin still ran a large house until her husband's death in 1818. After that, in very poor financial circumstances, she withdrew almost completely from social life. The frequent changes of residence, the temporary cut and finally the loss of the salary of her husband, who had refused to work for the French occupying power, the billing burdens and war taxes as well as the trips abroad had greatly reduced her husband's fortune. Her father's prosperity had also been completely destroyed by the war. She devoted herself to the upbringing of underage children and was able to achieve that, through the mediation of friends, the upbringing of her sons in the Pforta state school and in the Roßleben monastery school was facilitated by partially exempting the costs.

Relationship with Hardenberg

Karl August von Hardenberg

It is believed that Amalie had an affair with Hardenberg. After that, Amalie is said to have been intimate friends with Hardenberg. Amalie was Hardenberg's mistress , whose husband covered her relationship because he was heavily in debt and wanted to get a lucrative benefice in the public service through Hardenberg . Amalie was said to be the highest standing woman the State Chancellor loved and whom city gossip called his mistress. His third wife, the singer Schönemann, whom he married in 1807, “was no more faithful than the others”. She made Hardenberg's life difficult with her jealousy of Amalie von Béguelin. In 1812, the old Countess Sophie Marie von Voss , chief stewardess of the recently deceased Queen Louise , denounced the 62-year-old Hardenberg's relationship and the protection of the supposedly incompetent husband, which made the state chancellor a mockery of the public, to Police Minister Wilhelm zu Sayn-Wittgenstein-Hohenstein .

The statements by Adolf Ernst, the commentator and editor of the "Memories of Heinrich and Amalie von Beguelin from the years 1807-1813", who does not speak of such an intimate relationship, may have been influenced by the fact that he was married to a daughter of The Béguelin family was.

Ernst describes that after his return from Paris in 1812 public opinion accused Béguelin of having concluded the treaty in Paris frivolously and that Amalie von Béguelin ruled Chancellor Hardenberg (p. 62f). Her husband had bought the Jarischau and Muhrau monastery estates in an auction in 1812. Funding ran into difficulties. Hardenberg helped by granting a state loan of 27,000 Thalers without real security. Since Béguelin had to borrow more funds from friends to purchase, he sold the goods again in 1814. It was not until 1815 that he was able to redeem his liabilities from the remaining purchase prices (p. 76). It was also received with displeasure that Hardenberg gave Béguelin a splendid official apartment in the Seehandel from 1812 on, which he was not employed at, but in which his wife continued to run the salon in which Hardenberg was a regular guest.

However, no clear evidence of an affair can be found in the personal testimonies or original sources. It might just be the usual gossip based on resentment or envy.

literature

  • Adolf Ernst: Memories of Heinrich and Amalie von Beguelin from the years 1807-1813. Along with letters from Gneisenau and Hardenberg. Berlin, online version: [4] and [5]
  • Hans Haussherr:  Beguelin, Heinrich von. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 1, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1953, ISBN 3-428-00182-6 , p. 747 ( digitized version ).
  • Petra Wilhelmy: The Berlin Salon in the 19th Century: 1780–1914. De Gruyter, Berlin 1989, ISBN 978-311011891-9 , pp. 118 ff, p. 611. Keyword: “Beguelin, Amalie von”. With further references to sources, secondary literature and guests. Online version: [6]
  • Karl Mamroth, History of Prussian State Taxation 1806-1816, reprint of the original from 1890. Books on Demand, May 12, 2016, p. 172 ff digital
  • Newspaper article (without author) in: Indiana Tribüne, Volume 16, Number 244, Indianapolis, Marion County, 23 May 1893, "Frau Amalie von Beguelin" - in German -, digital

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Later Prussian Secret Accountant, as well as the godson of Stein and Gneisenau
  2. ↑ Hans Haussherr: Beguelin, Heinrich von. In: Neue Deutsche Biographie , 1 (1953), p. 747. Online
  3. ^ Petra Wilhelmy: The Berlin Salon in the 19th Century: 1780-1914. Berlin 1989, pp. 118 ff and p. 611. Keyword: “Beguelin, Amalie von” with further references to sources, secondary literature and guests. Online: [1]
  4. ^ Johann Gustav Droysen: The life of Field Marshal Count York von Wartenburg. Volume 1 (Google eBook), Leipzig 1871. P. 202. digital: [2]
  5. ^ Petra Wilhelmy: The Berlin Salon in the 19th Century: 1780-1914. De Gruyter, Berlin 1989, ISBN 978-311011891-9 , p. 611. Keyword: “Beguelin, Amalie von”. With further references to sources, secondary literature and guests. Online: [3]
  6. ↑ Book review of the "Memoirs" (without author), Prussian Yearbooks, Volume 17, 1892, 510 ff e-book digital
  7. ↑ Hans-Günter Henneke, Hardenberg's concept of a benevolent official dictatorship, p. 20, in Volume 133 of the publications of the Association for the History of the German Districts eV
  8. ↑ Ingo Hermann, Hardenberg: der Reformkanzler, 2003, pp. 126, 311 and 408, snippet view
  9. ^ Detlef Gaus, Geselligkeit und Gesellige: Education, bourgeoisie and educated bourgeois culture around 1800, 2016, p. 125, snippet view
  10. ↑ Hans Hausherr, The Hour Hardenbergs, 1943, p. 190, snippet view
  11. ↑ Ludmilla Assing. Prince Hermann von Pückler-Muskau, a biography 1st half, 2004 (reprint of the edition from 1873) p. 201, ebook digital
  12. ↑ quoted from Andrea Hofmeister, The Reform State Chancellor and the Public, in: Thomas Stamm-Kuhlmann, "Free use of forces": An inventory of Hardenberg research, 2001, p. 125 f. ISBN 3.486-56631-8, digital e-book
  13. ^ Marion Schulte, Prussian officers on Judaism and emancipation: 1762-1815, footnote 469, e-book digital
personal data
SURNAME Béguelin, Amalie of
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Cramer zu Glogau, Amalie; Béguelin, Amalie Cramer from; Cramer Béguelin, Amalie of
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German salonnière
DATE OF BIRTH May 7, 1778
PLACE OF BIRTH Glogau
DATE OF DEATH July 20, 1848
Place of death Berlin