Arenenberg

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
View of the Arenenberg around 1840, gouache by Emanuel Labhardt

Arenenberg is the name of a castle on the Untersee in the municipality of Salenstein in the canton of Thurgau ( Switzerland ), opposite the island of Reichenau . The property gained historical importance as the residence of the former Dutch Queen Hortense de Beauharnais and the later French Emperor Napoleon III. The furnishings of today's Napoleon Museum largely consist of the original furniture .

Origin in the 16th century

Arenenberg Castle
View of Mannenbach
Front of the castle
The castle chapel
Arenenberg garden after restoration in spring 2009
Historical plan of the park

The castle was built at the beginning of the 16th century by the mayor of Constance , Sebastian Geissberg. A farm called Narrenberg previously stood in its place .

In 1585 the estate, which at that time belonged to Hans Konrad von Schwarach, was raised to a free seat by the Swiss Confederation. After changing hands several times, the castle was acquired by the von Streng family in the 18th century .

The name Narrenberg no longer seemed pleasant to the later residents of the area, and so Arenenberg was used more and more, perhaps with reference to the slope in front of the castle towards the lake, the Arnhalde. However, Arenenberg did not establish itself until the 18th and 19th. Century, also under the spelling Arenberg . The sister ship of the steamship Neptun was still called Arenaberg (1865–1939).

Hortense de Beauharnais

Through the mediation of the Appenzell Landammann Jacob Zellweger and the banker David Macaire , Johann Baptist von Streng sold the castle in 1817 to the ex-queen Hortense de Beauharnais, who was then in exile in Constance, for 30,000 guilders . She was the daughter of Empress Joséphine , Napoleon I's first wife , and the wife of Napoleon's brother Louis , who was King of Holland from 1806 to 1810 .

Before Hortense lived in the castle from 1818, it was rebuilt. The surrounding wall was razed , the main building lost its battlements and its turret, and all but one of the utility buildings was removed. The Constance builder Johann Baptist Wehrle was in charge . The interior was furnished according to the Parisian taste of the time. Hortense also created a landscape park. With the planning, she might have asked the French garden architect Louis-Martin Berthault to help her. In order to be close to his sister during the summer months, her brother Eugène de Beauharnais bought the property of the former Sandegg estate in 1819 and built Schloss Eugensberg above the medieval castle .

Hortense maintained social life and had personalities such as Alexandre Dumas , Julie Récamier , François-René de Chateaubriand , Casimir Delavigne , Count Francesco Arese and representatives of the high nobility as guests. She lived on the Arenenberg until her death in 1837.

“If I was already in exile, I often thought, standing on the terrace between the castle and the chapel, that I would put up with Arenenberg as an exile. How different the impression that a landscape makes on different eyes can be given by Chateaubriand: he found the view of Arenenberg "wide, but sad. This view dominates the Lower Lake Constance, which is nothing but an extension of the Rhine flooded meadows. On the other side of the lake one sees gloomy forests, remnants of the Black Forest, and white birds in flight under gray skies, driven by icy winds. " And that was the end of August, the best time for Arenenberg! Hortense Beauharnais, stepdaughter, adopted daughter and sister-in-law of Napoleon, made the discovery from Konstanz, where she spent the first years after Waterloo. "Le château bien petit, bien délabré, mais placé dans une position pittoresque me plut." [Trans. The castle is pretty small, pretty dilapidated, but located in a picturesque spot that I like.] She was a romantic, Queen Hortense, very much in the style of the time; gifted for playing the harp, playing the piano, composing, poetry, reading ... "

- Golo Mann : Arenenberg Castle

Napoleon III

Her youngest son Louis Napoleon, who later became Emperor Napoleon III. , grew up partly in Arenenberg Castle. He spent his childhood and youth on Lake Constance and learned the German language. After school in Augsburg , study rooms were set up in the economic buildings for Louis Napoleon on the Arenenberg. He was taught by professors from Constance in the natural sciences, art, philosophy and by an artillery officer in warfare. Louis Napoleon became a good rider, fencer and swimmer.

In 1832 he received honorary citizenship from the community of Salenstein. He wrote some military and political writings here. On the Arenenberg he planned his failed coup attempt in Strasbourg in 1836 . After a brief exile in the United States , he returned to Arenenberg in 1837 because his mother was dying.

In 1843 Louis Napoléon, who needed money after another attempted coup in exile in England, sold the castle for seventy-three thousand guilders to the former piano teacher Karl Keller, who was born in Glösa near Chemnitz and who had married the rich widow of the Marquis de Marcillac in Paris in 1837. In April 1855 his wife Empress Eugénie bought the estate back as a birthday present for her husband and had it renovated and partially rebuilt in 1855 and 1874. The last stay of Napoleon III. on the Arenenberg took place in August 1865. After his death, Eugénie visited the castle several times and finally donated it to the canton of Thurgau in 1906.

Use as a museum

The Napoleon Museum is located in the well-preserved castle, which still belongs to the Canton of Thurgau today. The furnished rooms on the ground floor (vestibule, winter garden, parlor of Queen Hortense, lower sea salon, library, dining room, bell system) and on the first floor (bedroom and death room of Queen Hortense, boudoir, study of Queen Hortense, study of the Son of Empress Eugénie and Napoleon III., Salon of Empress Eugénie, upper sea salon, bedroom of Emperor Napoleon III, bedroom of Empress Eugénie, toilet) with numerous paintings and other works of art from the Empire period . Before Empress Eugénie donated Arenenberg Castle to the Canton of Thurgau, she removed valuable objects from the building. Some rooms therefore had to be refurnished.

In front of the castle entrance there is a small neo-Gothic chapel facing the lake. The farm buildings house the Thurgau agricultural and domestic education and advice center. On the 200th birthday of Napoléon III. the palace gardens were largely restored in the anniversary year 2008. Parallel to the permanent castle exhibition, an exhibition on the past era of the Bonaparten in their exile on Lake Constance took place in neighboring Constance . A railcar of the Thurbo -Bahn between Constance and Switzerland or along Lake Constance was promoted in 2008 by Napoléon III. baptized.

Special exhibitions

  • May 1 to November 11, 2018: We were there too - men from Switzerland and the Constance Regiment No. 114 in the war of 1914–1918. Arenenberg (Napoleon Museum Thurgau)

park

With its park reopened in late summer 2008, the castle itself is a cultural monument of European standing. In the tradition of her family, Queen Hortense had a park of around 12 hectares built in the style of an English landscape garden . Hermann von Pückler-Muskau designed the park from 1834 and gave it its current appearance.

A small circular path along the slope opens up a magnificent view of Lake Constance between vineyards and gardens. The park's ornamental buildings include a small hermitage , the Hermitage, and a viewing pavilion flanked by two satyrs .

In the park there is also access to the small, well-preserved historic ice cellar and the entrance to a vault, which was probably part of the historic outhouse . The sanitary facilities in the historic castle are said to have been very advanced for their time. The ice cellar and vaults are located in the sandstone embankment that forms the south side of the park.

See also

literature

  • Johannes Meyer: Queen Hortense and Prince Ludwig Napoleon. Edited from the sources by Johannes Meyer. In: Writings of the Association for the History of Lake Constance and its Surroundings . Vol. 35, 1906, pp. 123-307. Digitized .
  • Jakob Hugentobler: A birthday party for Napoleon under the tent pavilion . In: Thurgauer Jahrbuch , Vol. 34, 1959, pp. 49–55. ( e-periodica.ch )
  • Jakob Hugentobler: The Imperial Telegraph on Arenenberg . In: Thurgauer Jahrbuch , Vol. 39, 1964, pp. 67–78. ( e-periodica.ch )
  • Jakob Hugentobler: The Bonaparte family on Arenenberg. Napoléon Museum, Salenstein 1989.
  • Pierre Grellet: Queen Hortense on Arenenberg. Huber, Frauenfeld 2001, ISBN 3-7193-1262-3 .
  • Hans-Peter Mathis (Hrsg.): Arenenberg the poet and painter. Napoleon Museum Arenenberg, 1995, ISBN 3-85809-095-6 .
  • Dominik Gügel, Christina Egli: Arcadia on Lake Constance. European garden culture of the early 19th century. Huber, Frauenfeld 2005, ISBN 3-7193-1389-1 .
  • Dominik Gügel, Christina Egli: People in the castle. Life around 1900 on the imperial estate Arenenberg . Huber, Frauenfeld 2006, ISBN 3-7193-1416-2 .
  • Hansjörg Gadient: Buried Treasure / Careful Recovery. Two specialist articles on the Arenenberg garden and its restoration In: TEC21. No. 33-34 of August 18, 2008, pp. 29-43.
  • Dominik Gügel, Christina Egli: Napoléon III. - The Emperor of Lake Constance. Labhard, Konstanz 2008, ISBN 978-3-939142-26-3 .
  • Golo Mann : The Napoleonids on Arenenberg . With pictures by Kurt Ammann. In: You. Cultural monthly. 24th year 1963 doi: 10.5169 / seals-294281
  • Johannes Willms : Napoléon III. France's last emperor . CH Beck, Munich 2008, ISBN 978-3-406-57151-0 .
  • Dominik Gügel, Christina Egli: Arenenberg Castle. The most beautiful castle on Lake Constance. Labhard, Konstanz 2005, ISBN 3-926937-85-8 . ( e-periodica )
  • Dominik Gügel: The Napoleon III. - Exhibition at Arenenberg Castle. In: Thurgauer Jahrbuch , Vol. 82, 2007, pp. 79–85. ( e-periodica.ch )
  • Dominik Gügel, Christina Egli: Arenenberg Castle Park: Background, history, tour. Labhard, Konstanz 2009, ISBN 978-3-939142-44-7 .

Web links

Commons : Schloss Arenenberg  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ 1546–1548 mayor
  2. ↑ Cf. Alfons Raimann, Peter Erni: Die Kunstdenkmäler des Kantons Thurgau. The Steckborn district . Society for Swiss Art History, Bern 2001, p. 282: “In 1731 Baron Rüpplin von Wittenwil and Kefikon bought the facility. However, he never moved to Arenenberg and in 1737 handed the property over to his son-in-law and estate manager, Anton Prosper von Streng ... "
  3. ^ Johannes Meyer: The previous owners of Arenenberg. 1908, p. 261.
  4. ^ Website of the Napoleon Museum, accessed on November 28, 2011 ( Memento from May 1, 2018 in the Internet Archive )
  5. ↑ Golo Mann : Arenenberg Castle. In: Twelve attempts. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 1973, p. 265.
  6. ^ Association for the history of Lake Constance and its surroundings (ed.): Writings of the association for the history of Lake Constance and its surroundings. Volumes 35-36. 1906, p. 271.
  7. ↑ 2008-02-21 - A Thurbo for the fast rider ( Memento from August 20, 2010 in the Internet Archive ), on medien-reports.de
  8. ^ Napoleon Museum Thurgau, press release April 30, 2018
  9. ↑ Simply imperial! The gardens of the Bonaparte family. In: Bad weather tips. Special issue of the Bodensee Ferienzeitung. Edition 2/2009. Südkurier GmbH Medienhaus, Konstanz 2009, p. 6.
  10. ↑ Garden world. Retrieved March 20, 2020 . , on napoleonmuseum.tg.ch

Coordinates: 47 ° 40 '22 "  N , 9 ° 3' 33"  E ; CH1903:  721 699  /  two hundred eighty-one thousand four hundred ninety-five