Josephine von Leuchtenberg
Princess Josephine von Leuchtenberg (* March 14, 1807 as Joséphine Maximilienne Eugénie Napoléone de Beauharnais in Milan , † June 7, 1876 in Stockholm ), also Queen Josefina , in Swedish Josefina av Leuchtenberg , was Queen of Sweden and Norway from 1844 to 1859 . She was the eldest daughter of the French general Eugène de Beauharnais , Duke von Leuchtenberg (stepson of Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte ) and Princess Auguste of Bavaria and thus granddaughter of the Empress Joséphine of France and granddaughter of the Bavarian King Maximilian I.
youth
Her father, Eugène de Beauharnais , was appointed Viceroy of the Kingdom of Italy by Napoleon in 1805 . His residence was in Milan, where Joséphine was born on March 14, 1807 as his first child. She was baptized Joséphine Maximilienne Eugénie Napoléone, the first name at Napoleon's request, the last as a tribute to him. Just a few months after her birth, she was given the title of Princess of Bologna and in 1813 she was made Duchess of Galliera . Her childhood years she lived in the castle in Monza near Milan. One of her tutors was Philippine von Mieg (* August 24, 1784, † December 20, 1862), who later became the homeopath Dr. Gottfried Wilhelm Stüler married, the brother of the royal architect Friedrich August Stüler in Berlin. The tombstone for Philippine Stüler geb. von Mieg on the old Dorotheenstadt and Friedrichwerder cemetery in Berlin bears the inscription: “JOSEPHINE verw. QUEEN v. SWEDEN & NORW. BUILT THIS STONE IN GRATEFUL MEMORY OF YOUR TEACHER u. GIRLFRIEND".
After Napoleon's fall in 1814, Eugène de Beauharnais went into exile in Munich . In 1817 he received the Principality of Eichstätt from his father-in-law King Maximilian I , where the family had a residence . In winter she lived in Munich, in summer at the castle in Ismaning and in autumn in Eichstätt. Joséphine's mother tongue was French and she and her siblings also had to learn German, Italian and English. The other school subjects were arithmetic, history, geography and astronomy. On March 24, 1821, Joséphine was confirmed by a Catholic priest. The philosopher Friedrich von Schelling , who worked in Munich, describes her as a lovable and happy child.
wedding
Charles XIV. John of Sweden had been seriously concerned with Crown Prince Oscar's marriage since 1821. There were a few princesses of the right age who the king thought were particularly interesting: You know my wishes, I want you to adjust to the young princess of Denmark first, if she pleases you and shares your feelings, then to Princess von Leuchtenberg and in third place on them in Kassel and in last place on them in Weimar the king wrote in a letter to his son. In May 1822, the Crown Prince went on a tour of Europe to meet these princesses. In Copenhagen he met the princesses Caroline and Vilhelmine . In the Netherlands he visited the royal court and was delighted with Princess Marianne , who at the time was 12 years old, however, was still too young to marry.
On August 23, Oscar visited Eichstätt to meet 15-year-old Joséphine and her siblings. Before the Crown Prince's arrival, Prince Eugène had taken her for a walk in the park and told her what the Swedish Crown Prince's intention was for his visit. The Crown Prince liked her and on August 26th he asked for her hand. That Joséphine was Catholic was a matter that was discussed before marriage. Joséphine was religious while her father was religiously indifferent. However, for the sake of his wife Augusta, he asked that Joséphine may keep her faith. The Swedish advisors Wetterstedt and Löwenhielm differed as to what would be the most appropriate. But there was a precedent: Joséphine's future mother-in-law Desideria of Sweden was allowed to keep her Catholic faith when she became Queen of Sweden . The marriage certificate only stipulated that Joséphine should take part in church ceremonies.
Crown Prince Oscar went back to Sweden, and Joséphine began to learn Swedish. When Count Wetterstedt returned to Munich in February 1823, he was able to state that Joséphine had made great strides in the language: I have already had the honor of talking to Your Royal Highness in Swedish for more than half an hour.
The Catholic wedding ceremony took place in Munich on May 22, 1823, without the Crown Prince being present. Joséphine was led to the altar by her father Eugène, while Crown Prince Oscar was represented by Joséphine's uncle Karl of Bavaria . Two days later, Joséphine left her home to travel to Sweden, together with Countess Tascher de la Pagerie and Baroness Wurms and her maid Berta Zück. In Lübeck, the company met Mariana Koskull and Countess Brahe and went on board the ship of the line Carl XIII . Also on the trip to Sweden was Queen Desideria of Sweden, who had stayed away from Sweden for 12 years. Crown Prince Oscar went on board in Vaxholm . When the ship arrived in Stockholm on June 13, 1823, tens of thousands of people had gathered on the beaches.
When the ship arrived in Stockholm, Joséphine and the Queen boarded the boat Wasaorden and went ashore at Manilla on Södra Djurgården . The King and the Crown Prince waited on the bridge. The women then drove gala carriages with eight white stallions harnessed to Haga Castle , where they were greeted by Princess Sofia Albertina , sister of the late King Karl XIII. welcomed by Sweden . Joséphine lived on Haga for a few days before the Catholic wedding ceremony was confirmed on June 19 at a ceremony in Storkyrka . This was followed by a series of festivities that were concluded in the Royal Opera , where, among other things, Per Adolf Granberg's Freja's wedding with music by Franz Berwald and Mozart's opera Titus were performed.
Visit to Norway
On February 12, 1824, the king decided to designate the crown prince as viceroy of Norway, and that he should travel there with Josephine. In Norwegian politics, the so-called veto question became topical in 1821. The background was that the king only had a suspensive veto against the storting , but in August 1821 the king had proposed changes to the Norwegian constitution that would give the king an absolute veto. In return, the king was ready to accommodate a number of Norwegian demands. The royalist wave, which had swept over Stockholm in the summer of 1823, the king hoped would arrive in Kristiania , which in turn would make the Storting more docile.
The Crown Prince couple's trip to Norway was postponed when Josephine's father died on February 21, 1824. On April 5th the couple left Stockholm and traveled via Västerås, Örebro, Karlstad, Kongsvinger to Kristiania, where they arrived on April 11th. There it lived at the royal residence in Kristiania. In the mornings Josephine gave a reception and in the afternoons she made official visits to schools or rectories. In the evening there were guests and then the Crown Prince couple went through the files together that required his signature. After six weeks, the couple traveled to Herrevad Monastery in Skåne to attend military exercises there. In August they returned to Kristiania. Since the Storting did not want to give the King an absolute veto, the Crown Prince had to attend the dissolution of the Storting. On October 11th, the couple left Kristiania for the return journey to Sweden via Fredrikshald .
children
On May 3, 1826, the first child of the Crown Prince couple Karl was born and within a few years four siblings. A separate room has been set up for the children in the south-eastern part of Stockholm Palace , facing the castle courtyard. In autumn 1834, the two oldest sons were old enough to be looked after by two teachers, the philosopher Christopher Jacob Boström and the Norwegian teacher Otto Aubert. Josephine gave Aubert wide powers in terms of discipline. In a letter to Empress Karolina Augusta of Austria , Josephine explained how she was careful not to spoil the children. Aubert described the Crown Princess as always lovable, simple, natural and pleasant to deal with. He was amazed at her education; once she asked him what he thought of the German philosopher Schlegel .
Crown Prince Karl had fallen in love with one of Josephine's ladies-in-waiting, Miss Sigrid Sparre, but Josephine put an end to this in 1848 when Sigrid Sparre had to leave the court, despite protests from the Crown Prince. With Charles XV. However, it left a lasting trace, upon his death he confessed to Sigrid Sparre's brother: "Your sister was my only love - if she had become mine, I would have been a different person." Karl XV. believed that behind the resolute action of the mother was her Catholic confessor, Studach, and the event only deepened his antipathy for Catholicism. For him, Catholicism would become the same as Jesuitism and secret schemes. When Karl became regent in September 1857 due to his father's illness , the Reichstag was preoccupied with the issue of religious freedom, including the repeal of the conventicle poster, a concern that Oscar was important. During the reign, Karl secretly worked for the Reichstag to accept the proposal, which it did.
Political influence
When Oscar I became king, Josephine got a heightened influence in politics, and for Oscar his wife became the only truly trusted advisor. Its concrete influence is difficult to determine, but surviving letters from Josephine to her aunt Elisabeth Ludovika of Bavaria , Queen of Prussia, show that she tried to mediate peace in the Schleswig-Holstein War that broke out in 1848. Crown Prince Karl describes her as the one who stood behind the November Treaty of November 21, 1855 between Sweden-Norway on one side and France and Great Britain on the other. Josephine was a cousin of Napoleon III. and the godmother of Napoleon IV. In any case, she played an important role in the secret diplomacy of Oscar I.
Religious belief
When Josephine came to Sweden for the first time, she was accompanied by the family's chaplain , Jakob Laurenz Studach . He became her confessor, but also looked after the small Catholic community in Stockholm, and later he was promoted to Vicar Apostolic . At that time, being a Catholic in Sweden was subject to severe restrictions and the Catholic mass was only allowed to the Austrian, French, Spanish and Portuguese ambassadors in Stockholm. Missionary activity was prohibited and Swedes who converted to Catholicism were punished with expulsion from the country. The church was therefore both small and poor.
According to King Gustav III's Edict of Tolerance . by 1781 the Catholic community had four heads or apostolic vicars . After the death of Johann Baptist Gridaine, confessor of Queen Desideria , Studach became the new head of the community in 1833. He managed to raise funds from abroad for the construction of a Catholic church, Sankta Eugenia on Norra Smedjegata in Stockholm. The name was a tribute to both the Crown Princess and the Queen, whose first name was Eugenia, but also to the Crown Princess' father, Eugène de Beauharnais.
Josephine's Catholic beliefs troubled her all her life. After Crown Prince Karl's birth, according to Lundebeck (1943), she was asked by the consistory to attend a Protestant church convention in the Nikolaikirche (Stockholm) , a wish that King Karl Johann complied with. The ceremony included Josephine bowing her knees in front of the Archbishop. According to Lundebeck, she only took part with the greatest reluctance.
On September 28, 1844, Josephine was crowned queen in the Storkyrka. She sat on Queen Kristina's silver throne and got her forehead anointed with oil by the Archbishop and her wrists by the Archbishop and Count Lagerbjelke. Then the heralds raised their staffs and exclaimed: Now Queen Josephine Maximiliana Eugenia is crowned Queen of Sweden, Göthes and Wende, she and no one else. Neither Oscar I nor Josephine, however, were crowned in Norway. The government in Norway certainly wanted to know about the coronation, but noted that Nidaros Cathedral in Trondheim was in a state of decay and that upgrading would be expensive. In Norway, the Bishop of Trondheim, Hans Riddervold , was against the queen's coronation and cited reasons under constitutional law: According to the Norwegian constitution , the queen was excluded from running the government under all circumstances and the coronation was supposed to be an empty ceremony. Oscar I did not want to be crowned in Norway unless the queen was crowned at the same time. The question of the Norwegian coronation came back several times until 1853 without ever being realized. Braun (1950) does not rule out that Riddervold's resistance was actually based on Josephine's belief. Lundebeck (1943) claims that the Norwegian archbishop refused to crown a Catholic queen.
to travel
Because of Oscars I. Bad Health in 1852, the doctors recommended a health cure in Bad Kissingen in Germany. In July of the same year, the royal couple traveled with Princess Eugenie and Prince Gustav . Josephine visited her sister Theodolinde in Munich. The king was quickly restored and the family returned home in early September. The steam corvette Thor drove from Lübeck to Norway, but had to drop anchor off Frederikshavn on the Danish east coast because of the rough sea . Because the family was expected in Kristiania , the king decided to continue the journey despite the storm on the Kattegat . When the ship arrived in Kristiania on September 16, Prince Gustav had a high fever. It quickly became apparent that he suffered from typhus and was getting weaker and weaker. He died on September 24th at the age of 25.
After Prince Gustav's sudden death, both the King and Princess Eugenie fell seriously ill and were bedridden for the entire fall. Josephine wrote to Oscar's personal physician Magnus Huss in Paris and asked him to come back as soon as possible. When Huss examined the king more closely, he found that the king's life was in danger. According to Archbishop Reuterdahl , the queen and her confessor had locked themselves in the Catholic prayer chapel of the castle and prayed to God for the speedy recovery of the two. The sick king quickly improved, which Josephine attributed to the power of prayer. The king died seven years later, on July 8, 1859 in Stockholm.
In 1872 Josephine traveled to Portugal for a last visit to her terminally ill sister Amélie , widow of Emperor Peter I of Brazil . Via Paris she came to Madrid, where she was received by the Spanish King Amadeus I on El Escorial . In Lisbon she visited her sister who had a lung problem for 15 days. Presumably they were talking about Amélie's will, which made Josephine the chief heir to Amélie's great fortune. Josephine was also allowed to take over the management of the Hospicio Donna Maria Amélia , a nursing home for lung patients on Madeira , which was named after Amelie's daughter Maria Amalia , who died there in 1853. The journey home went via Lourdes and a longer stay in Bavaria. When she was on her way home on September 18, 1872, she received a telegram in Hamburg that her son Karl XV. be seriously ill. The king died that day in Malmö , where Josephine did not arrive until two days later. The following year, her youngest son, Prince August, died of pneumonia.
In May 1875 Josephine traveled to Rome with a small retinue to meet the Pope . The trip was made incognito as Countess von Tullgarn. In Rome she was received by King Victor Emmanuel II and received an audience with Pope Pius IX. with whom she had had correspondence since the 1850s. Despite her age, she managed to climb the dome of St. Peter's Basilica . On the way home she intended to meet her uncle Prince Karl of Bavaria in Tegernsee in Bavaria . Unfortunately, he died a few days earlier in a riding accident. In Salzburg she got the opportunity to meet the French ex-empress Eugénie of France , widow of Napoleon III.
Demise
At the end of May 1876 the queen widow Josephine became weaker and weaker. She asked the former Justice Minister Louis de Geer to be her executor for a fortune that went up to 9.5 million kroner. She died at 3:30 a.m. on June 7th. The funeral service took place in the Knights' Hall of the Serafim Order at Stockholm Palace . The next day the funeral took place in the Riddarholmskyrkan . After Archbishop Anton Niklas Sundberg's memorial address, the coffin was placed in the Bernadott crypt.
progeny
Josephine von Leuchtenberg married Crown Prince Oscar on May 22, 1823 , later King Oscar I of Sweden . She had five children:
- Charles XV (May 3, 1826 - September 18, 1872), King of Sweden and Norway
- Gustav (June 18, 1827 - September 24, 1852), Duke of Uppland
- Oskar II (January 21, 1829 - December 8, 1907), King of Sweden and Norway
- Eugenie (April 24, 1830 - April 23, 1889), Princess of Sweden
- August (24 August 1831 - 4 March 1873), Duke of Dalekarlien
Charity
Josefina was a member and founded or took under her auspices a number of associations. Of these, the following can be cited:
- Sällskapet de fattigas vänner was founded in 1826 to help poor widows with children
- Sällskapet för öm och sedlig modersvård was founded in 1827 with the aim of helping poor mothers in Stockholm
- Sällskapet till dugligt och troget tjänstefolks belönande was created in 1828 to encourage servants in Stockholm to work harder
- Sällskapet till arbetsamhetens uppmuntran was created in 1833 to regulate the work of poor women, especially in winter
- Sällskapet för inhemsk silkesodling was created to encourage the cultivation of mulberry bushes
- Institutet för dövstumma och blinda (Institute for the deaf and dumb and the blind) was founded in 1808. Josefina was the speaker after Queen Desiderias died in 1860.
- Stiftelsen Josephinahemmet was built in 1873 to provide shelter and care for members of the Roman Catholic community in Stockholm who were unable to work.
During her time as Crown Princess, she supported the painter Sophie Adlersparre financially .
literature
- Robert Braun : Silver crowns. En bok om drottning Josefine av Sverige-Norge. Norlins förlag, Stockholm 1950.
- Carl Hallendorff: Från Karl XV: s dagar. Personer and trader. Norstedts, Stockholm 1924.
- Lundebeck is different: Joséphine av Sverige-Norge, Gustaf V: s farmoder. Medéns förlags AB, Stockholm 1943.
- Alma Söderhjelm, Carl-Fredrik Palmstjerna: Oscar I. Bonniers, Stockholm 1944.
Web links
| predecessor | Office | Successor |
|---|---|---|
| Désirée Clary |
Queen of Sweden 1844-1859 |
Luise of Orange-Nassau |
Individual evidence
- ↑ Braun (1950), p. 43
- ↑ Josefina Maximiliana Eugenia Napoleona . In: Herman Hofberg, Frithiof Heurlin, Viktor Millqvist, Olof Rubenson (eds.): Svenskt biografiskt handlexikon . 2nd Edition. tape 1 : A-K . Albert Bonniers Verlag, Stockholm 1906, p. 555-556 (Swedish, runeberg.org ).
- ^ Alfred Etzold / Wolfgang Türk: The Dorotheenstädtische Friedhof. The burial places on Berliner Chausseestrasse, Berlin 1993 - Christian Links Verlag Berlin, p. 47
- ↑ Söderhjelm / Palmstjerna, pp. 110-112
- ↑ Braun (1950), p. 45
- ^ Letter from Karl Johan to Oscar, May 27, 1822. Quoted from Söderhjelm (1944), p. 96
- ↑ Söderhjelm (1944), pp. 98-103
- ↑ Söderhjelm (1944), pp. 112-118
- ^ Letter from Gustaf von Wetterstedt to King Karl Johan. Quoted from Söderhjelm (1944), p. 121
- ↑ Söderhjelm (1944), pp. 124–127, Lundebeck (1943), p. 48.
- ↑ Braun (1950), pp. 17-19.
- ↑ Söderhjelm (1944), pp. 128–129.
- ↑ Söderhjelm (1944), pp. 130-132
- ↑ Lundebeck (1943), pp. 168-170
- ↑ Söderhjelm (1944), p. 150
- ↑ Braun (1950), pp. 56-65
- ↑ Braun (1950), pp. 197-208
- ↑ Konventikkelplakaten was a law of January 3, 1741, which forbade a preacher to hold meetings (conventicles) without the consent of the local pastor. It was directed against the lay preachers. It was repealed in 1842, which initiated the development of freedom of assembly in Norway. Article Konventikkelplakaten in the Norwegian Wikipedia.
- ↑ Hallendorff (1924), pp. 55-56
- ↑ Braun (1950), p. 291
- ↑ Josefina Maximiliana Eugenia Napoleona . In: Herman Hofberg, Frithiof Heurlin, Viktor Millqvist, Olof Rubenson (eds.): Svenskt biografiskt handlexikon . 2nd Edition. tape 1 : A-K . Albert Bonniers Verlag, Stockholm 1906, p. 555-556 (Swedish, runeberg.org ).
- ↑ Braun (1950), pp. 103-120
- ↑ Braun (1950), pp. 120-130
- ↑ Lundebeck (1943), pp. 191–192
- ↑ Braun (1950), pp. 140-149
- ↑ Lundebeck (1943), p. 321
- ↑ Braun (1950), pp. 183-184
- ↑ Braun (1950), pp. 250-252
- ↑ Braun (1950), pp. 277-292
- ↑ Braun (1950), p. 323
- ↑ Adlersparre, Sofia Adolfina . In: Herman Hofberg, Frithiof Heurlin, Viktor Millqvist, Olof Rubenson (eds.): Svenskt biografiskt handlexikon . 2nd Edition. tape 1 : A-K . Albert Bonniers Verlag, Stockholm 1906, p. 8–9 (Swedish, runeberg.org ).
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Leuchtenberg, Josephine von |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Josefina; Josefina av Leuchtenberg (Swedish); Beauharnais, Joséphine de |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Queen of Sweden and Norway |
| DATE OF BIRTH | March 14, 1807 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Milan |
| DATE OF DEATH | June 7, 1876 |
| Place of death | Stockholm |