Madame Du Titre

Madame Du Titre, around 1800

Madame Du Titre (born January 27, 1748 in Berlin as Marie Anne George ; † July 22, 1827 there ) belonged to the French colony in Berlin. Because of her special motherhood, her impartiality with a clear lack of formal education and because of her native dialect , she went down in city history as the Berlin original .

Biographical

Marie Anne was the ninth of ten children of the wealthy brewery owner Benjamin George (1712–1771) and his wife Sara, nee. Robert (1707-1801). The George family, originally from Metz , owned land near the Weidendammer Bridge. Today's Georgenstrasse at Friedrichstrasse station near the Spree was named in 1798 after cousin Benjamin George (1739–1823).

On March 25, 1781, Marie Anne George married Etienne Du Titre (1734–1817), an extremely successful cotton , silk and calico trader who was 14 years older than her and one of the richest men in Berlin. He had not only the largest with 108 looms cotton manufactory of the city, but also a factory with 70 workers, in which the materials were printed. His younger brother Benjamin Du Titre had been married to Christine Enke since 1782, a sister of the royal maitress Wilhelmine von Lichtenau . An anecdote that has been handed down several times describes the actual marriage proposal: Du Titre made a visit to the house of the future father-in-law and found his daughter in the kitchen, where she was chopping parsley for lunch - there should be green fish; “Mamsellken, would you like to chop green parsley in my kitchen one day?” Asked the groom and got the hoped-for yes-word.

The Du Titres (in another, less common spelling, Dutitre or du Titre) were among the truly wealthy citizens of the city. In their house at Poststrasse 26 near the Nikolaikirche they lived an elaborate lifestyle. They could spend the summer months in a house in Charlottenburg , Berliner Strasse 54. Madame Du Titre was always smartly dressed, very busy maintaining social connections, and well informed about news of the city. The couple had a son, who died aged three, and two daughters, Sara Augustine and Marie Louise. Both received an excellent upbringing - a brother of the poet Adelbert von Chamisso worked temporarily as an educator in the family. Sara married the merchant and silk producer Beyrich in 1805, Marie married the banker Wilhelm Christian Benecke in 1808 . In addition to a house on Pariser Platz, he also owned the Silesian estate of Gröditzberg; In 1829 he was raised to the Prussian nobility as Baron Benecke von Gröditzberg .

Grave cross

Marie Anne Du Titre died on July 22, 1827, ten years after her husband; the church register gives 9:45 a.m. as the time of her death and dropsy as the cause of death . She was buried in the churchyard in front of the Oranienburger Tor, today's French cemetery at Chausseestrasse 127, which was laid out in 1780 for the Berlin Huguenots. A cast iron cross from the Royal Iron Foundry was placed on her grave around 1830 . Her grave was dedicated to the city of Berlin as an honorary grave until 2015 .

The anecdotes

General

Madame Du Titre belonged to a generation of already largely assimilated Huguenots. Although she also spoke fluent French , she expressly used the Berlin dialect in everyday language in a form that was felt to be original and unadulterated. This was mentioned or quoted again and again in reports of her utterances and certainly contributed to her local fame, probably also because it was not common in the circles in which she frequented. ETA Hoffmann is said to have described her as the only woman from Berlin “ who could speak Berlin with grace” .

There are contradicting statements from contemporaries about Madame Du Titre's relationship to her own statements. A woman from Hohenhausen wrote that her name had become, so to speak , a synonym for comical stories of all kinds, which were often arbitrarily associated with her. But she was by no means a ridiculous person, but generally popular and respected, and mostly made conscious of the jokes attributed to her in order to amuse her acquaintances. According to another source , while she "always told funny stories", she resented laughing at her, especially when young girls did so.

The repeated stories must be viewed as more or less authentic, depending on the sources. Some things sound convincing, but are only poorly or not at all documented. Other things have come down to us several times, but in widely differing versions. As an example, here is what is probably the most famous anecdote, described by three different authors. Some other selected stories are retold in abbreviated form.

Encounter with Goethe

Willibald Alexis reports in “Three sheets from my memories” from 1839, but without mentioning the name of Madame Du Titre: “The famous anecdote about the elderly Berlin woman who was in silent admiration also belongs to that time (meaning the year 1819) sought his ( Goethe's ) acquaintance, and made the Goethes themselves so great pleasure. As far as I know, it has not yet been printed. The hero stepped up to her unexpectedly and asked, quickly Napoleonically , probably with the intention of confusing her: Do you know me? And the lady replied with a reverent curtsey : Great man! Who shouldn't know you: The clay mold is firmly bricked in the ground! "

As a participant in a dinner at the Grand Duke of Weimar , Freiherr von Czettritz- Neuhauß heard Goethe himself telling the story and wrote about it (in Biedermann, “Goethe's Conversations”, Leipzig 1900): “A rich citizen's wife from Berlin, enthusiastic admirer of Goethe, made up her mind to undertake the long journey on bad roads to Weimar to see the great man like poet face to face. Arrived happily on the spot, she asked Goethe to have an audience, which she was refused. Desolate and full of pain, she runs to the privy councilor von Müller, Goethe's intimate friend - as she was his acquaintance, Goethe did not touch in his lecture - and asks for his mediation, to whom he submits, and who finally gets him to tell him: Leave it Your client know that I want to see her at 11 a.m. tomorrow morning. Late in the evening the supplicant receives this happy news, which makes her a sleepless night, as soon as early in the morning she throws herself into the highest splendor and the pointer of the city clock seems to her to be a snail that has failed. Finally he points ¾ to 11 and she hurries to the big man's apartment, where she is met by a servant and shown into the reception room. Excited to the highest degree, the good woman paced the hall up and down until finally the one she longed for appears, she rushes towards him, throws herself on her knees and pathetically declaims: Firmly bricked in the earth, the house is made of clay! To which Goethe says to you: I am glad that you honor my friend Schiller ! - and leave. "

The third variant comes from G. Parthey (“A failed and a successful visit to Goethe in 1819 and 1827”, Berlin 1862). "... A visit by the famous Frau Dutitre to Goethe, continued Paul, caused great amusement some time ago in Berlin, especially when she told it herself in her naive way: I had made up my mind, she said, to visit Goethe once again, and how ick times drove through Weimar, ick went to his garden and gave the gardener eenen hard Daler , that he gave me in eene Laube hide and should jeben a hint when Goethe came. And when he was coming down the avenue and the gardener had waved to me, I stepped out and said: Dear man! There he stood still, put his hands on his back, gave me a big look and asked: Do you know me? I said: Great man, who shouldn't know you! And began to declaim: Firmly bricked in the earth, the form is made of gypsum ! He then bowed his head, turned and walked on. So I had my way and saw the great Goethe. "

According to Hans Ostwald (Der Urberliner in Witz, Humor und Anekdote, Berlin undated), Madame Dutitre is said to have replied when she was later informed about her mistake: “Oh what, it doesn't matter, Schiller and Joethe are really good ejal. "

More anecdotes

Anecdotes about Madame Du Titre have appeared in several publications since the middle of the 19th century, and they must have been passed on orally for a long time in Berlin. Some of these stories related to her relationship with King Friedrich Wilhelm III. , whom she was always respectful, but not in the least submissive, who, conversely, also respected her and liked to talk to her. One day he asked about her daughter Marie and her son-in-law, the Baron von Gröditzberg, who were currently in Italy . The proud mother's answer: "Every Tuesday and Friday with the Popes in Rome for tea - and the Popess as kind to my daughter as majesties to me." After the death of Queen Luise , she expressed her sympathy for him: "Yes, your majesties, it's bad for you. Who else takes a widower with seven children? "

Several anecdotes reproduce statements made during theater or concert visits. In her memoirs, the actress Karoline Bauer reports that Madame appeared "almost every evening in the most original finery in her theater box" and her "drastic, loudly whispered interludes often aroused general amusement in the audience and on the stage". When there was talk of the bull that Luther wanted to burn in a play about Martin Luther , she said to her neighbor: “Well, I'll laugh at me when the bottle bursts.” At a performance of Macbeth , the leading actress walked in nightgown across the stage, not paying attention to the dripping candle in her hand; In the tense silence Madame Du Titre could be heard: “But Macbethchen, Macbethchen, you are dripping!” - After attending a concert by a great virtuoso, when asked how she liked it, she is said to have replied: “I got it very amused; if only the disgusting music wasn't there. "

The Madame's society ladies were only employed on the condition that they never contradicted their employer. When she told me one day how she was “jelofen and jelofen” all morning from visit to visit, the employee corrected carefully: it is better to say “gone” instead of “jelofen”. Madame Du Titre then: “Wat, gone, gone? Mamsellken, ick am jelofen, jelofen and ick got the rich Du Titre - and you went and went and haven't got one yet. So it's better to go, remember that! "

When traveling in an open car, Madame du Titre wore a hat decorated with three marabou feathers. The wind tore a feather loose. Madame du Titre saw the feather flying around and asked her companion: "Mamsellken, wasn't that a pigeon?" She did not contradict. With the second pen, too, she confirmed the assumption that it was a piece of paper. Only the third pen recognized Madame as such: "Mr. Jees, Mamsellken, wasn't that a Marampuff?" The society lady replied: "Yes, Madame du Titre, it was the last!"

On the other hand, the following mishap is apparently rather involuntary comedy: Madame du Titre had to take a walk in front of a wild cattle and sought refuge in an elegant shop with the exclamation: "Oh, someone - here comes a great cow!"

The family doctor of the Du Titre family was the popular and highly respected physician Ernst Ludwig Heim , who had a much-visited practice near Gendarmenmarkt . Madame Du Titre often spared him the trouble of climbing the stairs when visiting the house, by already sticking her tongue out at him from the window, as proof of her good health and with the words: "Doctor, I don't miss anything!" When Etienne Du Titre was terminally ill, Finally Heim had to urge her to enter the death room again. Finally she went to the door, opened it a little and called to her husband: “Jott father, what's that supposed to be! You know, I can't see any Dodten! "

Madame du Titre visited the market. Next to her, a well-dressed lady had all kinds of eels in her hand, complained about the size of the eels. Madame du Titre felt sorry for the sales force and spoke to the elegant lady. Madamekin, Madamekin, Aalekins are not Nillekins, no matter how often you can hold them in your hand, they don't grow .... (I have no idea whether this anecdote is protected or not. I have adopted it as a Berliner.)

Aftermath

In 1897 the Berliner Lokal-Anzeiger opened a series on Berlin originals with a tribute to Madame Du Titre. The author expressed the wish that someone would bring the material to the stage. A writer named Ludwig Makowski then wrote “Madame Dutitre - Comedy in one act”, printed in Reclam's universal library as no. 3849. The play contains a small part of the stories that have become known and was premiered in 1898 in the New Royal Opera House in Berlin .

The descendants of Madame Du Titre were not very pleased with the newspaper series and the play. A granddaughter wrote down some corrections and interesting details from her grandmother's life and published them in the National newspaper .

Web links

• A collection of sources by Dr. Hermann Kügler on Madame Du Titre on her 175th birthday on January 27, 1923

literature

Hermann Kügler: Madame du Titre. A happy Berliner from Biedermeier days. A contribution to the folklore of Berlin, special print from the Berlinische Blätter für Geschichte und Heimatkunde Vol. 8, Berlin 1937.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Gerhard Flügge: Series Berliner Originale (III) in the category "Berliner ABC", Berliner Zeitung , 1971
2. ^ Felix Eberty: Memories of the youth of an old Berliner. Berlin 1925, p. 233 f.
3. ↑ A granddaughter writes about her grandmother Madame Du Titre  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.