Constantine of Salm-Salm

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Konstantin Alexander Joseph Johann Nepomuk 3rd Prince of Salm-Salm (born November 22, 1762 in Hoogstraten (Hoogstraeten), † February 25, 1828 in Karlsruhe ) was one of the two sovereign princes in the Principality of Salm , along with Friedrich IV. Of Salm-Kyrburg ( 1802-1811).

Life

He was born on November 22, 1762, the son of Maximilian Friedrich Ernst von Salm-Salm (1732–1773) and Marie Luise Eleonore Landgravine of Hesse-Rheinfels-Rotenburg (1729–1800). Marie Luise was the granddaughter of Ernst Leopold and daughter of his son Joseph. Father Maximilian Friedrich Ernst Prince zu Salm-Salm (1732–1773) was the younger brother of Ludwig Karl Otto, 2nd Prince of Salm-Salm (1721–1778). The two brothers led a long legal battle over the extensive inheritance or will of their father and its legal existence before the emperor in Vienna. Some of the other 15 siblings took changing positions in this dispute, which led to the temporary invasion of the royal seat of Senones . The dispute was settled by the so-called Paris Brotherly Peace of July 3, 1771. Maximilian Friedrich Ernst Prince zu Salm-Salm inherited the title, rights and income of the Duke of Hoogstraeten, the birthplace of Konstantin Alexander Joseph. The younger brother Maximilian died five years before his older brother Ludwig Karl Otto. The latter died on July 29, 1778 without a direct male heir.

Constantine became the 3rd prince of Salm-Salm, but was not yet of legal age at this point. He personally declared that he was of legal age and set up the legal guardianship of his mother and his uncle. The uncle was Wilhelm Florentin von Salm-Salm (1745-1810), Bishop of Tournai (Belgium) and Archbishop of Prague . He also changed some employees and appointed a new director for his administration. This breach of law was brought to court with the emperor in Vienna, who on July 25, 1783, rescinded the early declaration of majority by decision.

Map of the former county of Ober-Salm, the forerunner of the Principality of Salm-Salm

In 1751, Prince Ludwig-Carl Otto zu Salm- Salm chose Senones (Vosges) as his residence for Principauté Salm . The Principality of Salm, which was called Principality of Salm-Salm from 1751 , was an exclave of the Holy Roman Empire from 1766, surrounded by France. It went under after the French Revolution (1789) as a result of French occupation and annexation (1793) as an independent territory. In the Treaty of Lunéville (1801), the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation ceded all the lands on the left bank of the Rhine to France. Constantine, a sovereign ruler of the Holy Roman Empire on the left bank of the Rhine, was thus one of the deposed imperial princes who were entitled to compensation from the empire under Article VII of this international treaty. He finally received it through the secularization of the bishopric of Münster , the western parts of which fell to him and the underage Prince Friedrich IV of Salm-Kyrburg . As early as 1790 Konstantin zu Salm-Salm had left his home country, which was threatened by the revolution , and from then on moved into Anholt Castle as the new main residence under his Westphalian rule Anholt . Before he fled, he had still carried out the secularization of Senones Abbey on February 24, 1790 , against which the Chapter protested on March 1 and lodged a complaint with the Imperial Court of Justice in Wetzlar. Nevertheless, the monastery was dissolved in 1793.

Prince Konstantin obtained sovereignty over the Principality of Salm in Westphalia through the Reichsdeputationshauptschluss 1803. In this legal act, two thirds of the offices of Bocholt and Ahaus of the secularized Principality of Munster were assigned to him as compensation for the Principality of Salm-Salm on the left bank of the Rhine, which was ceded to France by the Holy Roman Empire in 1801 . He had inherited the imperial rule of Anholt as property on the right bank of the Rhine when his father died (1773). With the third third of the offices in Bocholt and Ahaus assigned to the Prince of Salm-Kyrburg, the territories were ruled together as the Principality of Salm.

In July 1806, Prince Konstantin zu Salm-Salm and Friedrich IV. Prince zu Salm-Kyrburg were among the founders of the Rhine Confederation , a West and South German military and state federation under Napoleon's protectorate . As former imperial princes, they left the Holy Roman Empire at the same time. With the establishment of the Rhine Confederation and the subsequent laying down of the imperial crown by Franz II , the princes and their principality of Salm achieved full sovereignty . In fact, their small country was largely a satellite state of France.

On December 13, 1810, France decided to annex the territory of the Principality of Salm. After the collapse of French rule (1813/1814), the princes of Salm-Salm and Salm-Kyrburg did not succeed in regaining sovereignty over the principality. The Congress of Vienna added the territory of the Principality of Salm to the Kingdom of Prussia in 1815 . The princes of Salm-Salm and Salm-Kyrburg were henceforth only noblemen in Prussia. As such, he was a member of the Provincial Parliament of the Province of Westphalia in 1826 .

In the 1820s, Constantine was a patron of the German-Roman Nazarene Franz Nadorp . On May 17, 1826, Prince Konstantin, who had previously belonged to the Catholic religious community , converted to Protestantism on his behalf by means of a solemn oath, which the Protestant theologians Carl Christian von Flatt and Friedrich Gottlieb Süskind took in Stuttgart , which he did not like reporting in French and German newspapers, to which he responded in the same year by publishing his own in German. Prussia's King Friedrich Wilhelm III. made a declaration of honor in favor of Constantine on December 9, 1826. The Konstantinforst, a forest area near Dingden (town of Hamminkeln ), was named after Prince Konstantin .

Konstantin's tomb is in the Anholt crypt chapel , which he himself arranged to be rebuilt and rededicated as the burial place of his family in 1804.

Marriages and offspring

Konstantins Erbe, Florentin, the 4th Prince of Salm-Salm (1786–1846)

Prince Constantine married three times. First he married in 1782 in Püttlingen Viktoria Felizitas Princess of Löwenstein-Wertheim- Rochefort (1769–1789). She bore him a daughter, Princess Marie Victoria zu Salm-Salm (1784–1786), and a son, the subsequent 4th Prince Florentin zu Salm-Salm (1786–1846).

In 1788 he married Maria Walburga Countess von Sternberg-Manderscheid (1770–1806) in Vinoř (Bohemia) , with whom he had three sons and four daughters:

  • Christian Philipp Prince of Salm-Salm (1791–1791)
  • Georg Leopold Maximilian Christian Prince of Salm-Salm (1793–1836) ⚭ Countess Rosina von Sternberg (1802–1870)
  • Eleonore Wilhelmine Luise Princess of Salm-Salm (1794–1871) ⚭ Alfred von Croÿ (1789–1861)
  • Johanna Wilhelmine Auguste Princess of Salm-Salm (1796–1868) ⚭ Philipp von Croÿ (1801–1871)
  • Auguste Luise Marie Princess of Salm-Salm (1798–1837)
  • Sophie Princess of Salm-Salm (1799–?)
  • Franz-Joseph Friedrich Prince of Salm-Salm (1801–1842) ⚭ Marie Josephine Sophie, Princess of Löwenstein-Wertheim-Rosenberg (1814–1876)

In 1810 he finally married the bourgeois Catherina Bender (1791–1831, since 1830 Mrs. Salm de Loon) in The Hague , who gave him five sons:

  • Otto Ludwig Oswald Count of Salm-Hoogstraeten (1810–1869)
  • Eduard August Georg Graf von Salm-Hoogstraeten (1812–1886)
  • Rudolf Hermann Wilhelm Florentin Count of Salm-Hoogstraeten (1817–1869)
  • Albrecht Friedrich Ludwig Johann Graf von Salm-Hoogstraeten (1819–1904)
  • Hermann Johann Ignaz Friedrich Graf von Salm-Hoogstraeten (1821–1902)

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Portrait in the portal erfgoedbankhoogstraten.be (DIA-1018 in Beeldbank Hoogstraten ) , accessed on January 3, 2014
  2. ↑ A short history of the transfer of His Highness the Prince v. Salm-Salm from the Roman Catholic religion to the Christian Protestant faith according to the Augsburg Confession, May 17, 1826; with the reasons for this change of belief . In: Our time, or historical survey of the most remarkable events from 1789-1830 based on the most excellent French, English and German works, edited by a former officer of the Imperial French Army . Extraordinary booklet Nro. 6, EF Wolters, Stuttgart 1827, p. 143 ( Google Books )
  3. ↑ Constantin Alexander Joseph Prince of Salm-Salm: Historical representation of the facts related to the conversion of Sr. Highness, the Prince of Salm-Salm, from the Roman-Catholic religion to the Christian-Evangelical cult of the Augsburg Confession; together with the motives for this change of communion . Bran'sche Buchhandlung, Jena, 1826
  4. ↑ Der Friedens- und Kriegs-Kurier , one hundred and fifty-third year, No. 32, Verlag Paul Jonathan Felseckers Erben, Nuremberg, edition of February 6, 1827

literature

  • Emanuel Prinz zu Salm-Salm : The emergence of the princely Salm-Salm'schen Fideikommiss with special consideration of the trials before the highest imperial courts up to the Paris brotherly peace of July 2, 1771 . Dissertation University of Münster 1995, Lit, Münster 1996, ISBN 3-8258-2605-8 .
  • Alfred Bruns (Ed.), Josef Häming (compilation): The Members of the Westphalia Parliament 1826–1978 (= Westphalian source and archive directories, Volume 2). Landschaftsverband Westfalen-Lippe, Münster 1978, p. 534.

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Constantine of Salm-Salm
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Konstantin Alexander Joseph Johann Nepomuk 3rd Prince of Salm-Salm (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Prince in the Principality of Salm (1802–1811)
DATE OF BIRTH November 22, 1762
PLACE OF BIRTH Hoogstraten
DATE OF DEATH February 25, 1828
Place of death Karlsruhe