Marianne von der Leyen

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Marianne von der Leyen: painting (unknown painter, around 1770)

Marianne von der Leyen (born March 31, 1745 in Mainz as Maria Anna Helene Josephina Freiin von Dalberg ; † July 10, 1804 in Frankfurt am Main ) was a German Countess and from 1775 to 1793 the regent of her son Philipp von der Leyen Hohengeroldseck .

origin

Marianne von der Leyen was the daughter of the Electorate Mainz Councilor Franz Heinrich von Dalberg and the Countess Maria Sophia von Eltz-Kempenich . Thus Marianne was the sister of the last Mainz Elector and Archbishop Karl Theodor von Dalberg , the Mannheim theater director Wolfgang Heribert von Dalberg and the canon and musicologist Johann Friedrich Hugo von Dalberg .

family

On September 13, 1765 she married Franz Karl von der Leyen (* August 26, 1736, † September 26, 1775). They are said to have met on the occasion of the coronation of Emperor Joseph II in Frankfurt in 1765. From the marriage emerged:

  • Philipp (* 1766 in Koblenz )
  • Charlotte Maria Anna (* 1768 in Koblenz)
  • Maria Sophia Antonetta (* 1769 in Koblenz)

The family initially lived in Koblenz in the Von der Leyenschen Hof there . In 1773 she moved her farm to Blieskastel Castle . The motive for this was on the one hand the mercantilist approach that the economic added value of the court should remain in one's own country. In addition, there is said to have been a precedent dispute between Marianne and a Countess Metternich at the Electoral Trier court in Koblenz . In the style of enlightened absolutism , Count Franz Karl aimed to advance his county economically and socially. However, he died of blood poisoning as early as 1775 .

Regency

Blieskastel Castle

Since the hereditary count, Philipp, was only nine years old when his father died, his mother, Marianne, took over the reign. Since adulthood did not come of age until the age of 25 and the heir did not show any great interest in government business afterwards, his mother ruled until 1793, when the French revolutionary army effectively expropriated the part of the property on the left bank of the Rhine.

Marianne continued her husband's policy and took care of the country's economic development. In 1786 she lifted serfdom . For a short time there was a factory for earthenware . She took care of social and cultural institutions and introduced compulsory schooling for elementary schools in 1775 . A Wittiben and orphan fund was set up and a printing house in which the Blieskasteller weekly was published. However, the regent always defined what was the general national interest and what was good for the subjects. But they often saw things differently and felt that the regent's interventions by the authorities to restore order were a violation of their traditional rights. The climax of these disputes was the St. Ingbert forest dispute . In 1789, after the last instance, the Reich Chamber of Commerce , the regent was right. The community of St. Ingbert, encouraged by the French Revolution that had broken out in nearby France , sought support from other communities. On September 17, 1789, 19 of the 38 municipalities of the Blieskastel District Office met for a landscape assembly in Ommersheim , at which 25 points of complaint were formulated and presented to the regent on September 19. The regent now obtained an execution against the revolting communities. This was carried out by troops from the Electorate of the Palatinate and Kurmeinz , 326 men with two guns, who occupied the rebellious towns on December 6, 1789. The communities were charged the execution costs and had to sign a declaration of submission. With regard to the objections, Marianne von der Leyen only waived the payments to be made by those affected because of the waiver of serfdom "out of undeserved grace and forbearance, with the exception of other ordinances" "evil" and judged this attempt by the subjects to influence their government policy as "delusional".

Philippsburg , Niederwürzbach (reconstruction)

Marianne had a number of buildings erected: the castle church in Blieskastel , various castles and country houses in Niederwürzbach and a castle in Rilchingen intended as a retirement home . The Philippsburg in Niederwürzbach was a very early example of neo-Gothic . All of this resulted in extremely tight financial conditions in the county.

The circle around Marianne included the writer Johann Heinrich Jung-Stilling and the painter and architect Johann Christian von Mannlich . Friedrich Ludwig Sckell worked for them.

Exile and death

When the French revolutionary troops occupied Blieskastel, Marianne von der Leyen initially stayed in the castle there, but had prepared for an escape by no longer using her bedroom, but another room in the castle and hiding a dress there, like it did Maids carried. This enabled her to escape through a window on May 15, 1793, after the French commissioner had already told her that he should bring her to Paris. However, she had forgotten to take cash with her. After a ten-day odyssey through the villages of her rule and with the help of numerous subjects, she managed to cross the French lines and to get to safety with the Prussian military.

She recorded this adventurous escape in a report she wrote herself in French .

Castle church in Blieskastel

In 1804 she died in Frankfurt am Main “of a gout disease and an additional stick flow” and was first buried in the crypt of the Church of St. Cäcilia in Heusenstamm . On August 28, 1981, her remains were transferred to the castle church of Blieskastel.

reception

Due to the report she wrote about her flight from the French and the basic attitude in Germany, which in the 19th century was more against France, she left a picture of romanticism that was very transfigured. From today's perspective, she was certainly a well-meaning and hard-working ruler, but, like many of her peers, did not notice the change away from enlightened absolutism towards a political system with more participation and the bourgeois age, such as her behavior in the St. Ingbert forest dispute shows.

literature

Own works

  • Marianne von der Leyen: Journal of my accidents ...: A handwritten record of her escape from the French revolutionaries in May 1793 . Edition Europa, Walsheim 2001, ISBN 978-3-931773-30-4

Secondary literature

in alphabetical order by authors / editors

  • Friedrich Battenberg : Dalberg documents. Regesta on the documents of the treasurers of Worms called von Dalberg and the barons of Dalberg 1165–1843 Volume 14/3: Corrigenda, indices and family tables (by Dalberg and Ulner von Dieburg) = Repertories of the Hessian State Archives Darmstadt 14/3. Darmstadt 1987. ISBN 3-88443-238-9
  • Winfried Dotzauer : Countess Marianne von der Leyen . In: Saarland pictures of life . Vol. 3. Saarbrücken 1986. pp. 67-86.
  • Winfried Dotzauer:  Marianne (Maria Anna) Countess von der Leyen, born Freiin von Dalberg. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 16, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1990, ISBN 3-428-00197-4 , pp. 209 f. ( Digitized version ).
  • Ludwig Eid : Marianne von der Leyen, b. von Dalberg, the great Countess of the Westrich. Memorial sheets . Ruppert, Zweibrücken 1896.
  • Kurt Legrum: Introduction. Imperial Countess Marianne von der Leyen . In: Marianne von der Leyen: Journal of my misfortunes ...: A handwritten record of her escape from the French revolutionaries in May 1793 . Edition Europa, Walsheim 2001. ISBN 978-3-931773-30-4
  • Saarpfalz-Kreis (Ed.): Marianne von der Leyen on the 200th anniversary of her death , special issue of the Saarpfalz. Sheets for history and folklore . Saarpfalz district, Homburg 2007.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Legrum: Introduction , p. 8.
  2. ^ Legrum: Introduction , p. 21.
  3. ^ Battenberg: Repertories 14/3, Plate X.
  4. ^ Legrum: Introduction , p. 8.
  5. ^ Legrum: Introduction , p. 9.
  6. ^ Legrum: Introduction , p. 9.
  7. ^ Legrum: Introduction , p. 10.
  8. ^ Legrum: Introduction , p. 11.
  9. ^ Legrum: Introduction , p. 14.
  10. ^ Legrum: Introduction , p. 13.
  11. ^ Legrum: Introduction , p. 14.
  12. ^ Legrum: Introduction , p. 13.
  13. ↑ Hans-Walter Herrmann (Ed.): The French Revolution and the Saar. Exhibition catalog . St. Ingbert 1989. ISBN 3-924555-41-9 , pp. 102-106.
  14. ↑ Legrum: Introduction , p. 18.
  15. ^ Legrum: Introduction , p. 14.
  16. ↑ Marianne von der Leyen: Journal of my accidents .
  17. ^ Legrum: Introduction , p. 21.
  18. ^ Legrum: Introduction , pp. 21f.
personal data
SURNAME Leyen, Marianne von der
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Chamberlain of Worms called von Dalberg, Maria Anna Helene Josephina (maiden name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German countess and regent of Blieskastel
DATE OF BIRTH March 31, 1745
PLACE OF BIRTH Mainz
DATE OF DEATH July 10, 1804
Place of death Frankfurt am Main