Marie Baroness of Bernus

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Marie Freifrau von Bernus, née du Fay (1819–1887) by Philipp Veit

Marie Baroness von Bernus (Marie Cornelie Magdalen baroness of Bernus), nee du Fay (* 13 July 1819 in Frankfurt am Main , † 6. October 1887 ), came from a wealthy patrician Frankfurt family of Calvinist influenced ancestors from Valenciennes in Hainault close Antwerp in what is now Belgium . Among other things, her family was related to Cornelia Goethe , the sister of Johann Wolfgang Goethe .

Life

husband

In 1836, at the age of 17, she married Franz Alfred Jakob Bernus (1808–1884), 11 years her senior . His family's ancestors were also religious refugees who once moved from Italy via the Netherlands, first to the reformed Hanau and then already wealthy to the Lutheran free imperial city of Frankfurt am Main . He was an extensively educated businessman, politician, art collector, patron and senator of the Free City of Frankfurt with strong Imperial-Austrian education.

In 1839, three years after their wedding, he had his then 20-year-old wife portrayed by the then 46-year-old Philipp Veit (1793–1877). This small portrait, only 97 × 129 cm in size, became world-famous and now hangs in the Städel art collection in Frankfurt . At that time, Veit was an art professor and director of the Städel art collection in Frankfurt and a frequent guest in her house, as did Eduard von Steinle , Moritz von Schwind and the composer Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy .

In 1863 her husband became the organizer of the Frankfurt Fürstentag . The Assembly of German Princes, initiated by the Austrian Emperor and convened from August 17 to September 1, 1863, was supposed to determine the reform of the German Federal Constitution. With difficulty, Bismarck persuaded the Prussian King Wilhelm I to stay away from the Princely Congress and thus to work the result to the disadvantage of Austria. In the same year , her husband and his family were given the status of hereditary barons by the Austrian Emperor Franz Joseph I in recognition of the problem-free course of the ultimately unsuccessful Fürstentag .

On July 16, 1866, Prussian troops under General Eduard Vogel von Falckenstein occupied the city. As a loyal supporter of the Austrian imperial family and an avowed “Prussian hater”, her husband Freiherr von Bernus and another Senator Speltz were temporarily imprisoned in the main guard. The senators Bernus, Müller and Speltz were taken hostage to the Cologne fortress , but were allowed to return to Frankfurt on July 19 against pledge of their word of honor. Deeply disappointed, Bernus resigned all honorary posts in Frankfurt and retired to private life. From then on he went on long journeys with his family.

Marie von Bernus lived for a long time with her husband in the Neuburg Abbey near Heidelberg, which at the time belonged to Sophie Schlosser, née du Fay , a relative of hers. Sophie was the widowed wife of her husband Johann Friedrich Heinrich Schlosser (1780–1851), who had died in 1851, and who bought this secularized monastery grounds in 1825 as his family's summer residence. This widow Sophie bequeathed this property to her son Friedrich Alexander von Bernus (1838–1908) and to her sister Helene du Fay, wife of Friedrich Alexander Freiherr von Bernus, after the death of her niece Marias Baron von Bernus, born du Fay.

children

  • Daughter Maria von Bernus (NN- 1925) took the family name Münch through her marriage.
  • Daughter Johanna von Bernus married Bavarian Mayors August Grashey. Their second child Alexander, born on February 6, 1880 in Aeschach near Lindau, was adopted as an infant by her brother Friedrich Alexander Freiherr von Bernus (1838–1908) and his wife Helene, whose marriage were childless.
  • Son Friedrich Alexander Freiherr von Bernus (1838–1908) and his wife Helene were childless and adopted their nephew Alexander (born February 6, 1880 in Aeschach near Lindau; March 6, 1965 at Donaumünster Castle in Donaumünster near Tapfheim near Donauwörth ) as an infant .
  • Daughter Caroline von Bernus (* 1843 Frankfurt am Main † 1918 Ingelheim) married on October 10, 1859, just seventeen years old, the lawyer and banker of Wilhelm Hermann Carl von Erlanger (1835-1909).

literature

Web links

  • Exchange Association of the German Book Trade. Historical Commission: Archives for the History of the Book Industry, Volume 30 . Walter de Gruyter, 1988 ( full text in the Google book search).

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Marie Kornelia Magdalena du Fay ( Memento of the original from October 6, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . Entry in the family tree database of the German nobility. Online at Stammreihen.de. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.stammreihen.de
personal data
SURNAME Bernus, Marie Freifrau von
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Bernus, Marie Cornelie Magdalen Baroness of; Fay, Marie Cornelie Magdalen you (maiden name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Wife of Franz Jakob Alfred Bernus
DATE OF BIRTH July 13, 1819
PLACE OF BIRTH Frankfurt am Main
DATE OF DEATH October 6, 1887