Franziska Romana from Hallwil

Gustav Adolf Schöner: Franziska Romana von Hallwil (1804).

Franziska Romana von Hallwil , also Hallwyl or Hallweil from an Austrian line of the old Aargau noble family von Hallwyl (baptized August 25, 1758 in Vienna ; †  March 6, 1836 at Hallwil Castle , Seengen ), née Countess von Hallwil, married Baroness von Hallwil, was a Swiss noblewoman of Austrian origin. She became known through her adventurous marriage, her friendship with Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi and her participation in the Helvetic Revolution .

Life

Youth in Austria

Palais Neupauer-Breuner in Vienna. Recording Diana Ringo.

Castle and town of Ebenfurth near Wiener Neustadt (map, 19th century).

Franziska was the youngest child of Count Franz Anton von Hallwil (1702–1779) and von Suttner's (1717–1784) widowed by  his wife Maria Anna, who was born by Garelli . The father was the last of his line in Austria . He had it to k. k. ( Imperial-Royal ) Lieutenant Field Marshal and brought to the real Privy Councilor . The mother, whose father Pius Nikolaus von Garelli , who came from Bologna , was the first personal physician of Emperor Charles VI. and had been prefect of the court library , had already given birth to thirteen other children in their two marriages, most of whom had died. Franziska grew up in today's Palais Neupauer-Breuner in Vienna and on the moated castle Ebenfurth near Wiener Neustadt . In Wiener Neustadt, the seat of the Theresian Military Academy , her uncle Ferdinand Count von Hallwil (1706–1773) had been a Catholic bishop since 1741.

Escape and marriage

Johann Abraham von Hallwil at the age of 14.

In 1773/74 Johann Abraham von Hallwil (1746–1779) paid a visit to the imperial city. The ancestor of the impoverished branch of the family, who owned the castle of the same name in what was then the Bernese Aargau , was not a blank slate: After he had been a lieutenant in France, he had two illegitimate daughters with the wife of his former captain Margarethe Zehender, born Schmid. The first was born in Solothurn in 1772, the second after Margaret's divorce in 1773 in England, where Abraham was staying at the time. Then he left the beloved. She later appeared as a governess in St. Petersburg and called herself Madame de Hallwil . The daughters were legitimized in 1794.

Count Hallwil introduced the distant relative to Viennese society. As a thank you, the 27-year-old impregnated Franziska, who was only 15 years old, before leaving. It is doubtful whether this happened under such romantic circumstances as Steinfels (see sources and representations) depicts. When Franziska realized her situation, she asked her parents to be allowed to become Abraham's wife. This in turn held by Switzerland on from her hand, although he would rather by marrying a Bernese patrician daughter alderman and bailiff would have been. A Catholic Austrian - and especially the niece of a bishop - could not marry a Protestant , and a Bernese lost rights and property in a mixed marriage . Franziska's father fell ill; the mother threatened to put her in the monastery after his death.

The desperate girl attempted suicide. His unmarried half-sister Leopoldine von Suttner (approx. 1743–1789), who was twice his age, understood it. On February 1, 1775, the two pretended in a nightly light measurement to go -Andacht. Instead, they got into a four-in-hand carriage bought by Leopoldine and drove, accompanied by an alleged Swiss Count Walter and a servant, via Strasbourg to Bern . After a married Countess Esterházy had fled to Zurich with her lover Count Schulenburg two months earlier , the case of the strict Empress Maria Theresa in Vienna caused a sensation. The judicial authorities sent two officers after the refugees, but they reached the Swiss border too late. The k. k. Resident in Basel asked Bern to extradite the allegedly abducted people. He received the reply that they had left Vienna of their own free will. Abraham and Franziska married, for which they had to go to the county of Montbéliard . Count and Countess Hallwil disinherited their daughters. A criminal case against this was discontinued at the request of the father.

Loss of husband

According to Steinfels, Franziska gave birth to dead twins shortly after the wedding. Abraham turned down a proposal from her father to move to Vienna and convert . So Franziska had to convert to the Reformed faith after a rapid bleaching by Pastor Heinrich Roll in Seon , in order not to end up penniless . From then on she dressed in the Bernese style and learned the dialect. In 1777 Abraham received the reign of Hallwil from his mother. Franziska's marital happiness - if it was one - lasted only for a short time: her husband died in 1779, almost at the same time as her mother-in-law. In addition to worrying about his sons Johann (1776–1802), Franz (1777–1852) and Karl (1778–1827) and his mentally ill brother Albrecht Gabriel, he left the 21-year-old in debt. According to the law of the time, she received a guardian as a widow . This was always a Bernese patrician. Franziska stayed at the lonely moated Hallwil castle for the time being and did not remarry. After Emperor Joseph II had assured her of impunity, she went to Vienna in 1781, but the attempted reconciliation with her now widowed mother failed. The interest income from the future inheritance of her sons made it possible for her to raise them appropriately.

Friendship with Pestalozzi

Franziska met Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi (1746–1827) at Pastor Wilhelm Schinz's in Seengen , whose educational institution for the poor on the Neuhof near Birr had to be liquidated in 1780. As a result, she became his confidante. In 1808 Pestalozzi dedicated the rhyming ode to the only one to her, which is a kind of autobiography. It says: “(...) when I wandered orphaned and found no mercy among people and no heavenly corner on this earth, and no door was open to me, even among the better people, then I found mercy with you, you opened Your door to me. ” Franziska also became friends with Pestalozzi's wife Anna, born Schulthess (1738–1815). In 1785 she appointed the Grisons pastor Jeremias L'Orsa (1757–1837) to be private tutor . This friend of Pestalozzis, like herself, seems to have been too indulgent to her sons. In 1804, Franziska's friend Johann Heinrich Heidegger suggested that Pestalozzi's institute be relocated from Münchenbuchsee to Hallwil. In 1805 Franziska tried unsuccessfully to mediate between Pestalozzi and his rival Philipp Emanuel von Fellenberg . While her friendship with Anna lasted until her death, that with Pestalozzi ended in 1819 when she tried to mediate in disputes at his institute in Yverdon .

Participation in the revolution

Model for the celebration in Aarau: dance around the freedom tree in Basel, January 22, 1798.

The musician Samuel Gottlob Auberlen , whom Franziska invited to Hallwil around 1784, praised her "tender, loving demeanor towards everyone, and especially towards all the relatives ( servants ) who are in their supremacy , towards all of their servants". In Zurich, where Franziska moved to her friends Dorothea (1765–1804) and Regula Usteri († 1840) in the year of the Stäfner trade (1795) - the sons had flown out in the meantime - the aristocrat should have become a full democrat.

When the Helvetic Revolution broke out in 1798, Franziska went to Aarau with Dorothea and Regula . She must have been the “noble woman” who was there on February 1st - the anniversary of her flight from Vienna - “girded with a saber, in white clothes, like several elegant women, all adorned with national ribbons, with Franconian (French), German and Swiss patriots ” danced around the freedom tree. She did this under the influence of her host, the silk ribbon manufacturer and later Senator of the Helvetic Republic Johann Rudolf Meyer (1739–1813). That their manager Johann Kaspar Fischer the Bernese bailiff on Kasteln wrote that she had to attend the "hässigen Scene" says probably more about the attitude of the sender and recipient of the letter to the revolution than it does about those Franziska.

She then fled to Zurich from the approaching Bernese troops. A few months later, the provisional national assembly of the newly founded canton of Aargau named the previous overlord of Hallwil an honorary citizen. She became a citizen of Brugg and, on the advice of the blue-blooded revolutionary Karl Albrecht Frisching, renounced the citizenship law of Bern. She did not have to renounce nobility and titles - these were abolished by the constitution of the Helvetic Republic. She now elected Aarau patriots as guardians , first the aforementioned Meyer, then the cotton industrialist and councilor Johannes Herzog (1773-1840).

progeny

Joseph Victor Scheffel : Hallwil Castle (1860). Jenny Bergensten recorded.

Franziska's ailing elder Johann died in Paris in 1802 when the Helvetic Consulta was taking place there. As a Russian officer, Franz ran into debt. Franziska had to repeatedly seek the help of Frédéric-César Laharpe , who was the tutor of Emperor Alexander I and leader of the patriots in the Helvetic Republic. But when Franz withheld a relative's jewelry in 1804, he had to say goodbye. In 1807 he married Adrienne de Loys and took over what was left of the Hallwil rule. 1808–1813 and 1815–1831 he sat in the Aargau Grand Council . In 1828 he became a colonel in the cantonal militia . He had the keep of Hallwil Castle demolished. Karl was in Prussian service from 1796–1801 . In 1805, the Pestalozzi couple took one of his illegitimate children into foster care, and in the following year he was threatened with a choir court because of another affair. In 1808 he married Wilhelmine de Goumoëns. In 1809 he became the commander of the Aargau Landjäger Corps . In 1811 he co-founded the Masonic Lodge in Aarau. At the beginning of the restoration period (1815) he was forced to leave Switzerland and became a lieutenant colonel in the Netherlands . He died in Breda . His sons ensured the continued existence of the family.

Franziska lived in Aarau from 1809; first with Karl, 1815–1828 with the widowed Rosina Elisabeth Rothpletz born nurse, last with Hans Georg Hunziker. She only returned to Hallwil after her daughter-in-law Adrienne had moved out in 1834. Franziska died at the age of 77. Her great-grandson Hans von Hallwil (1835–1909) became a councilor in Aargau. The wife of another great-grandson, Wilhelmina von Hallwil née Kempe (1844–1930), had Hallwil Castle restored and made it accessible to the public. She founded the Hallwil Foundation and the Hallwylska museet in Stockholm .

Sources and representations

• Franziska's extensive correspondence. State Archives of the Canton of Bern, FA von Hallwyl.
• Johann Jakob Steinfels: The Lords of Hallwyl in the 18th century. Manuscript, there.
• Kate Silber: Anna Pestalozzi Schulthess and the women around Pestalozzi. Berlin 1932.
• Alois Koch: Franziska Romana von Hallwil. Biographical sketches as contributions to the history of the Lords of Hallwil and to Pestalozzi research. Diss. Phil. Freiburg i. Ue., Seengen 1968 ( local history from the Seetal  41).
• Ursula Huber: Nobility and Adaptation. Citizen Franziska Romana Hallwil (1758–1836). In: What men wanted and women did (…) Contributions to women's and gender history in Aargau between Helvetik and the federal state, Baden 1998, pp. 50–57.
• Carl Brun: History of the Lords of Hallwyl. Ed. V. Inès Keller-Frick, Bern 2006, pp. 168 f., 214 ff.
• Thomas B. Frei et al .: Smart, self-confident, rebellious. Franziska Romana von Hallwyl (1758–1836) and her time. Seengen 2012.
• Thomas B. Frei: Hallwyl, Franziska Romana von. In: Historical Lexicon of Switzerland .
• A year in the life of Franziska Romana von Hallwyl or: Volunteers do historical research. In: Argovia, 129/2017, pp. 124–168 (Sarah Caspers: Introduction, pp. 124–127; Brigitta Äschlimann: The political situation in Switzerland and in Aargau in 1798, pp. 128–130; Rahel Büchli: Franziska Romanas Situation on the eve of the Helvetic Revolution, pp. 131 f .; Sarah Caspers: Effects of the Helvetic Revolution on Franziska Romana's personal situation, pp. 132–139; Sarah Caspers: Die Herrschaft Hallwyl am Ende des Ancien Régimes , pp. 139–149; Michaela Friedrich: In foreign services, pp. 149–153; Gabriela Gehrig: “Oh pauvre Suisse!” - Political statements and views in the letters of Karl von Hallwyl, pp. 154–157; Willy Nabholz: Cultivating relationships with letters, p. 158-164; Notes, pp. 165-168).

References and comments

1. ↑ Hallweil called the Austrian Counts and Franziska themselves. Because their descendants write Hallwyl , when they donated the headquarters to the canton of Aargau, they demanded that this ancient spelling should be used for the family, castle and estate - in contrast to the community and the lake. This despite the abolition of the -wyl and -weil letters by a Federal Council resolution of July 3, 1899.
2. ^ According to Carl Brun: Geschichte der Herren von Hallwyl, ed. v. Inès Keller-Frick, Bern 2006, p. 214, himself at.
3. ↑ Of the three branches of the family, Maréchal de camp Franz Joseph Graf von Hallwil (1719–1785) also died out in France .
4. ↑ Alois Koch: Franziska Romana von Hallwil (…) Seengen 1968, pp. 13, 54 / note. 89 f.
5. ↑ The age information is based on the assumption that Franziska was at least six months pregnant when she fled to Switzerland.
6. ↑ According to Alois Koch: Franziska Romana von Hallwil (…) Seengen 1968, p. 46, Franziska described it to her son Johann as an irreparable mistake that she had gotten pregnant.
7. ↑ Abraham's friend Gottlieb May (1744–1781). [1] (anecdotes: love and spurned love ).
8. ↑ Exclave of the Roman Empire in France .
9. ^ To the only one (1808). In: Complete Works, Volume 21, Zurich 1964, pp. 101–203, quotation: p. 103.
10. ↑ Samuel Gottlob Auberlens, music directors and organists at the Münster in Ulm, life, opinions and fatefulness. Ulm 1824, p. 30 f.
11. ↑ Sisters of the entrepreneur Johann Martin Usteri (1763–1827), who paints and writes, who is known for the song “ Rejoice in life ”.
12. ^ Franziska's political position has not yet been examined. Alois Koch: Franziska Romana von Hallwil (…) Seengen 1968, p. 62, gives the impression that she was influenced by Paul Usteri , whose cousins ​​Dorothea and Regula were, and by Frédéric-César Laharpe . But he does not provide any evidence for this.
13. ^ Johann Georg Heinzmann : Small Swiss Chronicle. 2. Theil, Bern 1801, p. 382 f. Heinzmann was married to Marianne Hagnauer from Aarau. Compare the description of the “happy dance of equality” in Pastor Johann Georg Fisch's memorandum on the last events in the Bernese municipal town of Arau im Argau (published anonymously), Basel 1798, p. 45. Franziska's name is not found there either. According to Ernst Jörin: Der Aargau 1798–1803 ( Argovia  42), Aarau 1929, p. 30 / note. 43, wrote the French ambassador Joseph Mengaud - mentioned by Fisch as the first among the dancers - to the directorate in Paris: "Toutes les femmes de la ville ont dansé autour malgré le mauvais temps (...)"
14. ↑ Sarah Caspers: Effects of the Helvetic Revolution on Franziska Romana's personal situation, in: A year in the life of Franziska Romanas von Hallwyl (…), Argovia, 129/2017, pp. 124–168, here: pp. 133 f. The mere fact that the post was monitored in the Old Confederation speaks against the fact that Franziska from Zurich corresponded with her employee in the country about politics.
15. ↑ Meyer told Franziska on December 25th, 1799 that she had done this in the interests of the sons: "I joined the unified party - so that they would be the safer to be protected by their goods".
16. ↑ The child died in Yverdon in 1807.
17. ↑ The Hallwyl House ( English ) HALLWYLSKA MUSEET. Retrieved April 11, 2019.
18. ↑ Steinfels (1751–1804) was 1779–1781 tutor and vicar for Pastor Schinz in Seengen. His writing is an amalgam of historiography, panegyric and trivial literature . A whole literature is based on it. Alois Koch: Franziska Romana von Hallwil (…) Seengen 1968 compiled these on pp. 150–152 and - with moderate success - warned against using the font as a source.
19. ↑ Koch's doctoral thesis forms the basis for any scientific study of the last mistress of Hallwil.
20. ↑ uncommented impression of a given Wilhelmina of Hallwil commissioned genealogical manuscript.