Charlotte Sophie Bentinck

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Charlotte Sophie Bentinck

Charlotte Sophie Countess (von) Bentinck , née Reichsgräfin von Aldenburg (born August 5, 1715 in Varel , † February 4, 1800 in Hamburg ), was a German aristocrat and u. a. friends with Voltaire , Friedrich the Great and Count Wilhelm von Schaumburg-Lippe .

Life

Origin, early years and marriage (until 1738)

Charlotte Sophie was born as the daughter of Count Anton II von Aldenburg (1681–1738) and Princess Wilhelmine Maria Landgräfin von Hessen-Homburg (1678–1770) in Varel, where she grew up. Her great-grandfather Count Anton Günther von Oldenburg (1583–1667) had given his son Anton I von Aldenburg , who came from an illegitimate relationship, a letter of nobility and the hereditary dignity of an Imperial Count of Aldenburg (the oldest form of name for Oldenburg). As a result, his son and heir Anton II was in control of the Varel media rule and the associated counts' Vorwerke in Butjadingen . This also included the Kniphausen rule , which was considered imperial direct glory, as well as the Jade Bailiwick . The rule of Doorwerth in the States General rounded off the Aldenburg possessions. Since Anton II remained without a male heir, the emperor approved female succession on June 1, 1731 , so that Charlotte Sophie could succeed as heiress of this property.

In 1732 Charlotte met Sophie Albrecht Wolfgang (1699–1748), the ruling lord of the small, friendly state of Schaumburg-Lippe , and fell in love with him.

As a result, Charlotte Sophie's father, Anton II, got into financial difficulties because his territory, a dwarf state even among the small German states , in the extreme north-west of the Holy Roman Empire , which was repeatedly hit by storm surges , was not quite viable. Anton II was forced to borrow 337,000 guilders from, among others, the Dutch Count Willem (Wilhelm) von Bentinck (1704–1774), Herr auf Rhoon and Pendrecht, Council President of the provinces of Friesland and Holland . Anton then chose this believer to be the husband of his daughter Charlotte Sophie, whereby the reasons of state or the personal interests of the father alone were the decisive factors in the choice of the husband. The marriage took place on June 1, 1733 and was therefore a marriage of convenience and interests that Charlotte Sophie was reluctant to do. After the wedding, Charlotte Sophie and her husband moved to The Hague as Countess Bentinck , where they gave birth to their two sons Christian Friedrich (1734–1768) and Johann Albrecht (1737–1775). However, she still clung to Albrecht Wolfgang von Schaumburg Lippe (who has meanwhile remarried in his second marriage).

At the Bückeburger Hof (1738–1750)

After Anton II died in 1738, Charlotte Sophie left her husband and returned to her mother in Varel. Apparently the dissolution of their marriage had a liberating effect on the cheerful countess, because she was almost constantly on the move for the next few years. Wherever it appeared, it gave impulses to spiritual life, but it also not infrequently confused society with its intrigues.

After a short stay in Varel, she then lived as a kind of favorite in a curious three-way relationship with Albrecht Wolfgang at the Bückeburger Hof. His wife, Charlotte, née Princess von Nassau-Siegen , widowed Princess von Anhalt-Köthen , was her childhood friend. Charlotte Sophie became pregnant by Albrecht Wolfgang, the first son was born in 1739 and was named Karl von Donop . On April 15, 1740, she was divorced from Count Bentinck. In 1745 a second son was born, his name was Carl Wilhelm Weisbrod . In 1740, Albrecht Wolfgang's legitimate sons Georg and Wilhelm began their studies in Leyden, Holland . Here they got to know Voltaire , who was already famous for the Enlightenment at the time , and who in The Hague was busy preparing the " Anti-Machiavell ", the debut work of the Prussian Crown Prince Friedrich , for printing. The work was read at the Bückeburg court in November 1740, probably inspired by Johann Heinrich Meister , the tutor of Albrecht Wolfgang's son Wilhelm. On his way back to Berlin, Voltaire visited the court in Bückeburg from December 9th to 11th, 1740, where he met Count Albrecht Wolfgang and Charlotte Sophie. A letter of thanks from Voltaire to Albrecht Wolfgang from Herford dated December 12, 1740 testifies to the visit. It is considered to be the origin of the close friendship between Charlotte Sophie and Voltaire. Furthermore, the meeting in the then beautifully furnished Bückeburg Castle - according to the more recent research of the Voltaire researcher Frédéric Deloffre - is considered to be the nucleus of Voltaire's novel Candide . According to his opinion, behind the Tonder-ten-Tronkh Castle is the Bückeburg Castle, behind Kunigunde the Countess Charlotte Sophie Bentinck herself ("red-cheeked, fresh, plump and appetizing", as in Chapter I, "the illustrious Westphalian" in Chapter XXII) , behind the title figure Candide the author Voltaire himself and behind Candide's educator Pangloss Johann Heinrich Meister.

Since the debacle connected with the divorce, Charlotte Sophie has been widely regarded as a woman addicted to waste and recognition. Since they themselves exercised the government Varel and Kniphausen, they delayed the payment of the divorced Count Bentinck rightful prerogative , nor resulted from interest rates to the other Dutch creditors due for the capital of 337,000 guilders. Bentinck asked the Danish King Christian V , who had guaranteed the marriage contract between the now warring spouses, to mediate. With the consent of the emperor, Christian V took over the chairmanship of an investigative commission to determine the debts of the Count's Aldenburg house. It found that Charlotte Sophie had owed more than 60,000 thalers in seven to eight years, three times as much as she should have spent based on her income. In order to be able to at least partially satisfy the claims of the creditors, the commission finally placed the Aldenburg estates, insofar as they were open to the Danish government, under compulsory administration.

The rule of Kniphausen, which was not under Danish sovereignty, was initially able to keep Charlotte Sophie as a pledge. After William Bentinck had called the Danish king for help, she also used the friendship with Albrecht Wolfgang to be able to take his support as a German imperial prince before the Reichshofrat . Albrecht Wolfgang's sudden death on September 24, 1748 was a severe blow for her. His son Wilhelm succeeded him and began to rehabilitate the almost bankrupt country. Charlotte Sophie was then forced to leave the court in Bückeburg and look for a new patron.

In Berlin (1750–1757)

In order to maintain her legal position against William Bentinck, which was in great danger, Charlotte Sophie now sought the proximity of Frederick II, who had meanwhile become King of Prussia. From 1750 to 1754 she stayed in Berlin , where she met again with Voltaire, with whom she maintained her close friendship, as the extensive correspondence shows. Charlotte Sophie's hope that Friedrich II could enforce her claims against William Bentinck, however, was not fulfilled. One reason for this was that her initially good relationship with the king was severely strained several times by her tactlessness and the disputes between Frederick II and Voltaire. Voltaire finally left Berlin in 1753. On August 18, 1754, Charlotte Sophie agreed to a declaration formulated by the French envoy in Berlin, through which she finally gave up her claims to Varel and Kniphausen in return for a guarantee of an annual pension. As long as her mother lived, she was supposed to be 8,000 Rtl. received, after their death 14,000 Rtl. Due to an objection brought by her immediately afterwards, Charlotte Sophie only achieved a delay of about three years. At least twelve Prussian soldiers from East Friesland had saved Kniphausen from Count Bentinck's access until then . After Bentinck's settlement was confirmed by the emperor and the Danish king, Charlotte Sophie had to leave Kniphausen to her former husband's proxy in March 1757. Varel and Kniphausen now passed into the possession of their two legitimate sons with the count. Charlotte Sophie did not give up now either.

In Vienna and Jever (1757–1768)

In 1757 Charlotte Sophie moved to Vienna . From there, she continued to litigate for her Aldenburg inheritance. Despite the personal support from Empress Maria Theresia , the success finally failed to materialize and she had to finally give up her project. In 1758 she traveled to Venice , through Italy , Switzerland and finally to Les Délices , Voltaire's country estate near Geneva , where the novel Candide or Optimism was written that year . After a few more years in Vienna, Charlotte Sophie moved with a small entourage in 1761, taking into account her 83-year-old mother, near Varels, to the Anhalt-Zerbstische Schloss Jever . Her constant quarrels with the castle captain there and an intrigue she had arranged made her a persona non grata there in 1768 . An ultimatum forced them to vacate the old residence quickly.

In Hamburg (from 1768)

After Charlotte Sophie fell out with several German courts, she moved to Hamburg in 1768 , where she lived for more than thirty years - longer than anywhere else. Here she lived in a prominent location on Jungfernstieg No. 3, at the corner of Neuer Wall, and later moved to rural Eimsbüttel . Because of the close personal relationships with the aristocratic society of the States General and because of her numerous relatives in England, she saw herself as a representative of the nobility. Diplomats who were accredited in Hamburg and belonged to the nobility and, after 1789, members of the French nobility who had fled the horrors of the revolution , frequented her salon, which she organized because of her diverse literary education . With her salon she formed a recognized counterpoint to the bourgeois circles in Hamburg. One of these circles, more precisely that of Elise Reimarus and Margaretha Büsch , gave itself the name “Theetisch” for the purpose of differentiation.

She preferred to keep her conversations and correspondence in French. Charlotte Sophie died in Hamburg in August 1800 at the old age of 84. She was buried in the family crypt in the castle church in Varel.

Coin collection

Charlotte Sophie owned a large coin collection. In 1787 a directory was created in 3 volumes. The images on the coins were engraved by her son Carl Wilhelm Weisbrod (1746–1806), who had learned the craft of a copper engraver as a student of Johann Georg Wille . This coin collection came to her son Karl von Donop on the way of inheritance. The collection was not sold at the time. In 1815 the numismatist Friedrich von Schlichtegroll published an overview of the collection's library. The collection became known after the authenticity of some pieces was questioned.

patronage

Works and letters

  • Une femme des lumières. Écrits et lettres de la comtesse de Bentinck 1715-1800 . Texts présentés by Anne Soprani and André Magnan. Paris: Editions CNRS 1997. (De l'Allemagne) ISBN 2-271-05055-3
  • Voltaire et sa "grande amie". Correspondance complète de Voltaire et de Mme Bentinck (1740–1778) . Ed. de Frédéric Deloffre and Jacques Cormier. Oxford: Voltaire Foundation 2003. ISBN 0-7294-0815-9

Literary template

The life of Sophie Charlotte formed the "historical basis" for Ludwig Bechstein's novel " The Dark Count ".

portrait

  • Anonymous, ( Charlotte Sophie Bentinck of Aldenburg (1715-1800). Retrieved on April 13, 2017 . ), Portrait, oil, size unknown, ( Heritage Museum. Retrieved on April 13, 2017 . )
  • Portrait of Charlotte Sophie Countess von Bentinck, b. Countess of Aldenburg (1715–1800). Bückeburg Castle, (Frontispiece in: The Eighteenth Century , Journal of the German Society for Research in the Eighteenth Century, Issue 1, Volume 40, Wallstein, Wolfenbüttel 2016)

literature

biography

Letters

  • Katherine Goodman: Goodbye Divine Comtesse. Luise Gottsched, Charlotte Sophie Countess Bentinck and Johann Christoph Gottsched in their letters. Königshausen & Neumann, Würzburg 2009, ISBN 978-3-8260-4098-6 , partly via books.google.de .

Voltaire

  • Frédéric Deloffre: The making of Voltaire's 'Candide'. From Bückeburg to Constantinople . In: Hubert Höing (Hrsg.): Schaumburg and the world. On Schaumburg's Foreign Relations in History . Bielefeld (et al.) 2002, pp. 143–152.
  • Curd Ochwadt: Voltaire and the Counts of Schaumburg-Lippe . Jacobi-Verlag, Bremen / Wolfenbüttel 1977, ISBN 3-87447-230-2 .
  • Friedrich-Wilhelm Schaer: Charlotte Sophie Countess von Bentinck, Friedrich the Great and Voltaire . In: Lower Saxony yearbook . Volume 43 (1971), pp. 81-121, ZDB -ID 2492726-0 ( Niedersächsisches Jahrbuch online ).

Hamburg

  • Christina Randig: A glowing aristocrat - Charlotte Sophie Countess von Bentinck, b. von Aldenburg, in the Hamburg years (1767–1800) . In: Journal of the Association for Hamburg History , Number 102, 2016, p. 17 f., ZDB -ID 2212827-X

family

  • Antje Koolman: The Bentincks. A noble Dutch family in northwest Germany in the 18th century . Oldenburg: Isensee 2003. (Oldenburger Forschungen. NF, Volume 18) ISBN 3-89598-936-3
  • The Bentinck House. An authentic representation in contemporary reports . Ed .: Heimatverein Varel. Compilation: Hans-Georg Buchtmann (among others). Varel 1993, ISBN 3-924113-12-2 (Vareler Heimathefte, Issue 7)

Novel

  • Hella S. Haasse: I always disagree. The irrepressible life of Countess Bentinck . Novel. From the Dutch by Maria Csollány . Wunderlich, Reinbek near Hamburg 1997. ISBN 3-8052-0580-5 -

Foreign language

  • Frédéric Deloffre, Jacques Cormier: Voltaire et sa “grande amie”: Correspondance complète de Voltaire et de Madame Bentinck (1740–1778) , The Voltaire Foundation, Oxford, 2003. The complete correspondence between Voltaire and Mme Bentinck
  • André Magnan: Dossier Voltaire en Prusse (1750–1753) . Oxford: The Voltaire Foundation 1986. (Studies on Voltaire and the eighteenth century. 244) ISBN 0-7294-0340-8 (therein pp. 365–398: Voltaire et la comtesse de Bentinck. Fragments biographiques [pp. 367–381: Charlotte Sophie comtesse de Bentinck née d'Aldenburg])
  • Hella S. Haasse: Mevrouw Bentinck of Overenigbaarheid van Karakter. Een was divorced . Querido, Amsterdam 1978, ISBN 90-214-6501-9 . The life story based on the estate of the born Imperial Countess von Aldenburg in the Imperial Archives of the Gelderland Province.
  • Elizabeth Le Blond: Charlotte Sophie Countess Bentinck. Her life and times, 1715-1800 . By her descendant Mrs. Aubrey Le Blond . 2 volumes. Hutchinson, London 1912.

Secondary literature

  • July 2nd .. In: Ernst Ahasverus Heinrich von Lehndorff : Thirty Years at the Court of Frederick the Great, From the diaries of Count Ernst Ahasverus Heinrich von Lehndorff, Friedrich Andreas Perthes , Gotha 1907, p. 162, ( Textarchiv - Internet Archive ).
    Coin collection
  • Hare: Bentink coin collection . In: Johann Samuelersch , Johann Gottfried Gruber (Hrsg.): General Encyclopedia of Sciences and Arts . tape 9 , Bene - Bibeh. Gleditsch, Leipzig 1822, p. 46–47 ( uni-goettingen.de ).
  • The Countess von Bentinck's collection . In: Friedrich Schlichtegroll (Ed.): Annals of the entire numismatics . tape 1 . Baumgärnter, Leipzig 1804, p. 102 ( limited preview in Google Book search).
  • History: Catalogs d'une Collection de Medailles antiques, faute par la Comtesse Douaire de Bentinck, née Comtesse d'Altenburg, Dame de Varel, Kniephausen et Doorwerth. Part. Part. In consecutive numbers . In: Allgemeine Literatur-Zeitung . November 12, 1787. Volume 3 , no. 271 . Jena 1787, p. 386–391 ( uni-jena.de - very detailed description of the individual coins based on the catalog).
  • Bentinck-von Aldenburg, [Charlotte Sophie]: Catalog d'une collection de medailles antiques. Amsterdam: Eel Suppl. 1788Catalogue d'une collection de médailles antiquesAmsterdam, b. Eels Erben: Supplement au Catalog d'une Collection de Medailles antiques faite par la Comtesse Douair de Bentinck, née Comtesse d'Aldenburg. Without preface and appendix, 241 p. 4 ° 1788. In: Allgemeine Literatur-Zeitung . September 2, 1789. Volume 3 , no. 273 . Jena 1789, p. 633-636 ( uni-jena.de ).

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Ernst Ahasverus Heinrich von Lehndorff, p. 162.
  2. ^ Katherine Goodman: Adieu Divine Comtesse. ... p. 12.
  3. ↑ Information on the date and place of the letters from Sophie Charlotte lead to the conclusion that "Eimsbüttel" was more of a "summer house" than a "retirement home". (Source: Elizabeth Le Blond: Charlotte Sophie Countess Bentinck. )
  4. ^ Friedrich Johann Lorenz Meyer : Sketches for a painting of Hamburg , Volume 1 (1st-3rd issue), Frederik Hermann Nestler, Hamburg, 1800, pp. 285ff., ( Online )
  5. ^ Holdings in the German Digital Library
  6. ↑ Allgemeine Literatur-Zeitung . November 12, 1787 and September 2, 1789.
  7. ↑ Weisbrod, Carl Wilhelm In: Georg Kaspar Nagler : Neues Allgemeine Künstler-Lexicon , Volume 24, Schwarzenberg & Schumann, Leipzig, undated, p. 68 ( online )
  8. ↑ Friedrich Schlichtegroll, p. 102
  9. ↑ Notice d'une collection de medailles antiques Grecques et Romaines , Michael Lindauer, Munich, 1815, ( online )
  10. ^ Johann Merzdorf: Bentinck: Charlotte Sophie , p. 343
  11. ^ Ernst Wagner: Sophie Charlotte von Aldenburg . In: From Varel's past . Bültmann & Gerriets, Varel 1909, p. 57 , urn : nbn: de: gbv: 45: 1-6666 .
personal data
SURNAME Bentinck, Charlotte Sophie
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Bentinck, Charlotte Sophie Countess of; Aldenburg, Charlotte Sophie Countess of (maiden name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German nobles
DATE OF BIRTH August 5, 1715
PLACE OF BIRTH Varel
DATE OF DEATH 4th February 1800
Place of death Hamburg