The box with the peace doll

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Clemens Brentano
(1778-1842)

The box with the peace doll is a story by Clemens Brentano , which - written in Wiepersdorf in autumn 1814 - was published from January 3 to 28, 1815 in the Viennese literary magazine "Friedensblätter". Information on the origin of the text and the dates of publication can be found in Volume 19 of the Frankfurt Brentano edition [FBA].

Restoration : The Frenchman Frenel, disinherited by child suppression during the revolution, is rehabilitated as Chevalier de Montpreville in 1814.

title

In the colorful box lies a bourbon doll, "a Parisian fashion doll made of wax, from the first peace fashion, with a chapeau à l'Angoulême au Bouquet de Lys". The hat of that peace doll, draped with the bouquet of lilies, points to the heraldic flower of Louis XVIII. down. When Frenel receives the doll at the end of the story, Brentano underscores a process. The French get their noble privilege back.

shape

In the framework narrative set in Prussia in 1814, Brentano has a court clerk investigate the criminal case. In the internal narrative , which takes place in Paris immediately after 1789, there are confessions from the French. Brentano's lecture is initially obscure. For example, the names of Sanseau and Dumoulin - these are the villains - are initially kept secret. Later the two French testify under false names and mix lies with truth.

content

The German patriots also want to celebrate the anniversary of the Battle of Leipzig at the Prussian baron's country estate near the Saxon border . While the baron is overseeing the outside work, a train of French people returning from Russian captivity passes by. While one of these, a certain Frenel, steps in with the heavy work, the baron, astonished, watches Madame Frenel a little off the beaten track. The woman wants to take away the Parisian fashion doll and colorful box from his two children that he had brought for his wife from a Parisian junk shop. Monsieur Frenel cannot understand his wife's behavior. For Frenel, however, this box is Pandora's box . The French couple get into an argument. Meanwhile, the rest of the French have moved a little further. On the way, Pierre St. Luce, that is Frenel's father-in-law, a furrier from Lyon, is attacked with knife wounds by the Frenchman Sanseau. A German corporal saves St. Luce with one shot. It hits Sanseau in the abdomen. While the box Frenel reminds of the corpse of a child, his loyal father-in-law tells St. Luce of Moscow. When he was trading in furs there, he had taken a similar box filled with jewels from a customer and buried the treasure in Russian soil before returning to the Bourbons. When he saw the box on the sickbed, Sanseau exclaimed that he was lost. He pretends to be Pigot customs officer and charges St. Luce heavily. Frenel's father-in-law is the Parisian grave digger and corpse collector Dumoulin.

Frenel tells of the lawyer Sanseau, the former business friend of his father, the Chevaliers de Montpreville. The Chevalier died before Frenel was born. When Frenel was born, the false friend made sure that a dead child was laid next to the mother. Madame Frenel, who is four years older than her husband, was then forced to move the child's body in the box. The newborn Frenel was then declared to have been foisted. The mastermind Sanseau had inherited. A maid of Frenel's mother had later offered the box for sale. When Sanseau overheard the openings in the room next door, he attempts suicide. This fails. Sanseau confesses to the child suppression and asserts that he did not let Dumoulin know about his plans, but only used them as a tool. Sanseau dies after the Frenel couple have forgiven him. Dumoulin commits suicide after confessing his deeds in writing. Frenel's wife is not his child. He had once got hold of her after her mother, a certain Madame Renaut, had died.

reception

  • The model for the Prussian baron in the frame story is Brentano's brother-in-law Achim von Arnim . Arnim's surroundings in Wiepersdorf are also faithfully reproduced. One of Brentano's sources for his adventurous inner story was the memoirs of Count von Letaneuf from 1740. The author found these in the Wiepersdorf castle library.
  • The big themes of patriotism, peace and justice are illustrated in the internal narrative based on the recent revolution in France and in the framework narrative based on the present - i.e. the wars of liberation . The title speaks antithetics . The box, this Pandora's box, contains a peace symbol.
  • The text is not one of Brentano's best works, because the author speaks symbolically to the reader.
  • A certain proximity of the novella to Kleist is noticeable, it is in Prussia - in a world that was not actually the Brentanos.
  • The Christian ending of the story - the plan to build a burial chapel with the "image of the Virgin Mary, who is crushing the serpent" - does not hide the passage against Judaism.
  • With the exception of his satire “The Philistine Before, in and after History” from 1811 and the present story, Brentano avoided anti-Judaism.
  • Riley gives further leading works: J. Körner (1927), H. Gartz (Bonn 1955) and VL Ziegler (1978).

expenditure

  • Clemens Brentano: The box with the peace doll. With original lithographs by Julius Zimpel. Edited and with an afterword by Josef Körner . 66 pages. Eduard Strache, Vienna 1922
  • Clemens Brentano: The box with the peace doll. Novella. Reclam jun., Leipzig 1924. Reclam's Universal Library 6474. 53 pages, Fraktur. Cardboard ribbon bound with color head cut
  • Clemens Brentano: The box with the peace doll. With illustrations by GM Jungferman. 72 pages. Wilhelm Frick Verlag Vienna 1944. Wiener Bücherei Volume 29.

Quoted text edition

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

Source means the quoted text edition

  1. ↑ Source, p. 697
  2. ↑ Source, pp. 706-707
  3. ↑ Source, pp. 697-752
  4. ↑ Source, p. 320, 18. Zvo
  5. ↑ Schultz, pp. 80-81
  6. ↑ Source, pp. 707-720
  7. ↑ Source, p. 705 above
  8. ↑ Source, p. 706
  9. ↑ Riley, p. 101, 18. Zvu
  10. ↑ Pfeiffer-Belli, p. 150
  11. ↑ Source, p. 356, 8. Zvo
  12. ↑ Source, p. 352, 17. Zvo
  13. ↑ Schulz, p. 475, 5th Zvu
  14. ↑ Härtl, p. 202 below
  15. ^ Riley, p. 106, penultimate entry