Dorothea of Sagan
Dorothea von Sagan , née Dorothea von Biron (born August 21, 1793 at Schloss Friedrichsfelde near Berlin ; † September 19, 1862 in Sagan ) from the ruling duchy of Biron von Curland had been Duchess of Dino since 1817 , Duchess of Talleyrand since 1838 and since 1845 Duchess of Sagan . In France she is known as Dorothée de Courlande or duchesse de Dino .
Life
Dorothea was born as Princess Dorothea of Courland . Although she is said to have come from an extramarital relationship between her mother Dorothea von Kurland and the Polish Count Alexander Batowski , Dorothea's husband Peter von Biron , Duke of Kurland and Semgalla , treated her indifferently to her three older ( legitimate ) sisters.
After the death of her father Peter von Biron in 1800, Dorothea inherited the Palais Kurland in Berlin and the dominion of Deutsch Wartenberg with Kleinitz ( Klenica ) and Günthersdorf ( Zatonie ) in Silesia .
At the mediation of Tsar Alexander I , she married Count Edmond de Talleyrand-Périgord , a nephew of the French Foreign Minister Charles-Maurice de Talleyrand, on April 21, 1809 in Frankfurt am Main . After their wedding, she moved to France and became a lady-in-waiting at the imperial court of Napoleon I. Within three years she gave birth to three children: Napoléon-Louis (1811–1898), Dorothée (1812–1814) and Alexandre (1813–1894).
Since her marriage to Edmond had broken down since around 1812, she began a relationship with his uncle, Foreign Minister Charles-Maurice de Talleyrand , whom she accompanied to the Congress of Vienna in 1814 . In 1816 she moved in with her uncle and lover by marriage. The marriage with Edmond was not divorced until 1824. She lived with Charles-Maurice de Talleyrand in Paris and at Valençay Castle and from 1830 to 1834 in London, where he was the French ambassador and, as his “niece”, she held a splendid social position. Dorothea's daughter Pauline was born in 1820, but the paternity of Duke de Talleyrand-Périgord is controversial.
Several authors assume that Dorothea was the birth mother of the Czech writer Božena Němcová . Count Karl Clam-Martinic is believed to be the father of the illegitimate child . There is evidence that the two met at the Congress of Vienna in 1814 and 1815, and later also in Paris, and had a passionate affair until March 1816. Dorothea wanted to end her unhappy marriage with Edmond de Talleyrand even then. She is said to have intended to marry Count Clam-Martinic after a divorce, but this plan failed. According to a current source, Dorothea gave birth to a child resulting from this connection in September 1816 in France, in the spa town of Bourbon-l'Archambault , and had it entered in the register under the name Marie-Henriette Dessalles. The child was then later, possibly through the mediation of Dorothea's sister, Duchess Katharina Wilhelmine von Sagan , adopted by her servants Johann Pankl and Theresie Novotná, who married in the summer of 1820, as their daughter Barbara and recognized as their own child.
Together with her eldest sister Katharina Wilhelmine, Dorothea converted to the Catholic faith in Rome in 1827, that is, long after her marriage and three years after her divorce from the Catholic Talleyrand. In 1828 she bought the Loire Castle Rochecotte in Saint-Patrice for herself . In 1837 she sold the Kurlandpalais Unter den Linden to Tsar Nicholas I.
She succeeded in reconciling Foreign Minister Talleyrand with the Church before his death. After his death in 1838 she became his universal heir and thus one of the richest women in Europe. In the next few years Dorothea lived alternately in France and Prussia, where she first lived in Deutsch Wartenberg in Silesia. 1842–1843 she rebuilt the associated Günthersdorf Castle in a classicistic style . In 1842 she acquired the Duchy of Sagan from her sister Pauline and moved into the castle in Sagan . King Friedrich Wilhelm IV awarded her the title of Duchess of Sagan in 1845 . She also played an important role at his court, as she had previously done in Paris at the court of Napoleon and the subsequent Bourbons, as well as in London and Vienna. "She sovereignly ruled her duchy herself, equipped with all the experiences of an eventful, always brilliant, but not very happy life."
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In Sagan she had the castle modernized extensively and enlarged the castle park with the help of Prince Pückler . She recognized the need of her subjects, became charitable and kind. In 1855 she founded the Dorotheen School, an employment institution for neglected children, and in 1859 the St. Dorotheen Hospital. 1849 she left the Church of the Holy. Cross from scratch novelty rebuild the church cemetery of the Dukes of Sagan. Her grave is also located there.
Dorothea was a well-known landscape painter at the time, whose works were shown in 1820 at an exhibition organized by the Royal Prussian Academy of the Arts in Berlin.
literature
- Günter Erbe : Dorothea Duchess of Sagan (1793–1862). A Franco-German career . Cologne · Weimar · Vienna 2009.
- Hugo Weczerka (Hrsg.): Handbook of the historical places . Volume: Silesia (= Kröner's pocket edition . Volume 316). Kröner, Stuttgart 1977, ISBN 3-520-31601-3 .
- Dehio Handbook of Art Monuments in Poland, Silesia , Munich · Berlin 2005.
- Philip Ziegler: The Duchess of Dino . Munich 1965.
- H. Oehlke: Dorothea Duchess of Sagan . In: Schlesische Lebensbilder, Volume III, pp. 239–246.
- Clemens Brühl: The Sagan . Berlin 1941.
- Helena Sobková: Kateřina Zaháňská . Prague 1995.
- Sabine and Klaus Hofmann: Between Metternich and Talleyrand. The court of muses of the Duchess of Courland in the castle of Löbichau . Poster stone 2004.
- Willy Norbert: Sagan Castle . In: Velhagen & Klasings monthly books 2/1926.
- RG Waldeck : Venus in the evening sky. Talleyrand's Last Love (novel). Reinbek 1976.
- Johannes Willms: Talleyrand: Virtuose der Macht , CH Beck, Munich 2011.
Web links
- Dorothy Duchesse de Dino: Memoirs of the Duchesse de Dino v.1 / 3, 1831–1835 in Project Gutenberg ( currently not available to users from Germany as a rule )
Individual evidence
- ↑ Talleyrand's biographer Willms denies an intimate relationship between Dorothea von Sagan and the Duke de Talleyrand; see Johannes Willms: "Talleyrand: Virtuose der Macht", CH Beck, Munich 2011, p. 225.
- ↑ Statement by Willms, without specifying the later identity of the child; see Johannes Willms: "Talleyrand: Virtuose der Macht", p. 226.
- ↑ Udo von Alvensleben , Visits before Downfall, Nobility Seats between Altmark and Masuria , compiled from diary entries and edited by Harald von Koenigswald, Frankfurt / M.-Berlin 1968, p. 218.
| predecessor | Office | successor |
|---|---|---|
| Maria Luise Pauline from Biron |
Duchess of Sagan 1844–1862 |
Napoleon Louis |
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Dorothea of Sagan |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Biron, Dorothea von; Talleyrand-Périgord, Dorothée de |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Duchess of Sagan, Princess of Courland and Zemgale, Duchess of Dino, Duchess of Talleyrand-Périgord |
| DATE OF BIRTH | August 21, 1793 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Friedrichsfelde Palace near Berlin |
| DATE OF DEATH | September 19, 1862 |
| Place of death | Sagan , Silesia |