Luise von Göchhausen

Bust of Luise von Göchhausen

Luise von Göchhausen (actually Luise Ernestine Christiane Juliane von Göchhausen; * February 13, 1752 in Eisenach , † September 7, 1807 in Weimar ) was first lady-in-waiting of the Duchess Anna Amalia of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach .

Life

Luise von Göchhausen was small and hunchbacked from an early age and had little chance of entering into an appropriate relationship. That is why she was happy, grateful and loyal to be accepted into the circle of ladies-in-waiting in Weimar in 1783 . The Duchess held her in high regard for her humor, her cleverness and her quick-wittedness. Sometimes she could be malicious too. Although she was often the victim of pranks among friends, she was not resentful.

Luise von Göchhausen - drawing by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe , around 1780

Duchess Anna Amalia (right) with her first lady-in-waiting Luise von Göchhausen (left) in the park - a whitewashed silhouette of Starke around 1780

Carl August , the young Duke - they say - once had the entrance to her apartment walled up at nightfall. Luise von Göchhausen is said to have wandered half the night through the corridors ...

Anna Amalia with Luise von Göchhausen (right) and company in the Wittumspalais Detail from the well-known watercolor by Georg Melchior Kraus around 1795

At Goethe Luise had quickly a good ratio of Göchhausen. He often made use of their "mobile pen". She made copies of the Tiefurt Journal from the literary circle of the Duchess and the so-called Urfaust. After his evenings reading, Goethe gave her several manuscripts to copy. Among them were the first scenes of the Faust poem, which he destroyed in one attack like many other things . Thus they were considered lost. Goethe had Göchhausen address him by letter Dearest of all Secret Counselors! like. On October 17, 1790, Goethe wrote from Weimar to gag : The Dowager Duchess is for a year with the Göchhausen radikaliter broulliert [divided] , it is not possible that the relation is producing again; the duchess wishes the sooner she got rid of them .

In 1780, Duchess Anna Amalia and two servants moved into the upper floor of Tiefurt Castle. Her court lady Luise von Göchhausen was accommodated in the outbuilding. While Napoléon also threatened and occupied the Duchy of Weimar, the Duchess and her first lady-in-waiting went into exile for a short time. Luise von Göchhausen died only five months after the death of her duchess.

In 1887, the scenes from Faust, which Luise von Göchhausen had copied and which were believed to have long been lost, were found in her estate. In the joy of this find, the scenes were given the name Urfaust , which - albeit controversial - has survived to this day.

A large-scale research project carried out on behalf of the Mitteldeutscher Rundfunk (MDR) and the Weimarer Klassik Foundation to clarify whether one of the two skulls in the Weimar Princely Crypt really belonged to Schiller had the result in spring 2008, that the so-called Froriep skull can be assigned to Luise von Göchhausen.

Quotes

Luise von Göchhausen - a drawing by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Poem: The Divine .
Handwriting by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe . Early, as yet unfinished version. The transcript is addressed personally:
"Fräulein von Jöchhausen".

Goethe

• Goethe liked to be in my little room, chatting and joking with me.
• On September 10, 1783 to Knebel: Yesterday Goethe was with me and came down to my room with the following bon mot :

Sorry.

You sued the woman, she wavered from one to the other

Don't blame her, she is looking for a stable man (Deetjen, 57).

on Schiller's death (on May 9, 1805 in Weimar)

• On June 10, 1805 to Böttiger : He was very calm. He asked for his youngest child, caressed it, slept gently for a few hours, people believed he had been saved, the hearts that surrounded him opened up to joy - he was dead (Deetjen, 148).

Weimar court

• On November 4th, 1805 to Böttiger: Yesterday finally came the day that brought us the emperor ... The emperor had a horse given to him and, to the great delight of the crowd, rode with the duke into town ... to meet him ... The emperor took my duchess to the table and talked a lot, almost continuously, with her and his sister ... He is a handsome man; the most striking thing, it seems to me, is openness and goodness in his face (Deetjen, 156).

With the duchess

in Italy :

• On August 25, 1789 from Naples to Wieland : On the night of the 19th to the 20th of this month, Vesuvius gave us a beautiful and rare spectacle; For a while it had been very calm, suddenly the mountain in the middle opened on the sea side and towards Naples (just opposite our house), threw out high flames and many glowing stones and poured into various streams of lava , which still flow away and the nights reappear brusquely in the sea (Deetjen, 105).

in Leipzig :

• On August 14, 1782 from Tiefurth to Knebel: The most interesting thing that occurred to us in L. was an acquaintance made by Professor Ludewig about an extremely electric person. Baron Rose, a wealthy Liefländer , of hazard 20 till 21 years old, is very electrisch that when he coughs, he sparks coming out of the neck, and at night his breath läuchtet. The professor made some physical experiments with him in the Duchess Gegenwarth , which would seem wonderful to those who know science. This person is blonde, nothing short of lively, and very drawn in [withdrawn] in his manners. With intense heat and with the approach of thunderstorms he suffers greatly (Deetjen 51).

Web links

Commons : Luise von Göchhausen  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

1. ^ Hans Wahl, Anton Kippenberg: Goethe und seine Welt , Insel-Verlag, Leipzig 1932 p. 67 and 254
2. ↑ Konrad Kratzsch: Gossip Nest Weimar , Verlag King & Neumann, 2003, ISBN 3-8260-2527-X , pp 32-33
3. ↑ z. B. Letter of January 2, 1801, quoted in: Deetjen , p. 127
4. ^ Deetjen, p. 8
5. ↑ Der Spiegel: Riddle about Schiller's skull double

literature

• Hugo Schramm-Macdonald:  Göchhausen, Louise . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 9, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1879, pp. 303-305.
• August von Froriep: skull, death mask and living face of the court maid Luise von Göchhausen . Barth, Leipzig 1917.
• Werner Deetjen: The Göchhausen. Letters from a lady-in-waiting from classical Weimar . Publisher ES Mittler & Sohn, Berlin 1923.
• Hans Wahl, Anton Kippenberg: Goethe and his world . Insel-Verlag, Leipzig 1932, p. 67.
• Toni Deneke: The Miss Göchhausen . Gustav Kiepenheuer Verlag, Weimar 1955.
• Alfred Zastrau:  Göchhausen, Louise Ernestine Christiane Juliane von. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 6, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1964, ISBN 3-428-00187-7 , p. 506 f. ( Digitized version ).
• Gabriele Henkel, Wulf Otte: Duchess Anna Amalia - Braunschweig and Weimar, stations of a woman's life in the 18th century . Braunschweigisches Landesmuseum, Braunschweig 1995.
• Charlotte Marlo Werner: Goethe's Duchess Anna Amalia - Princess between Rococo and Revolution . Droste, Düsseldorf 1996.
• Elke Orlac: Louise, court jester at Weimar . Historical novel. Scholastika, Stuttgart 2019