Marthe de Roucoulle

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Marthe de Roucoulle , around 1735 - The painting from the school of the court painter Antoine Pesne , today the Prussian Palaces and Gardens Foundation Berlin-Brandenburg , hung for a long time in the Berlin Palace and later in the Hohenzollern Museum .

Marthe de Roucoulle , also de Rocoulle and other spellings (* 1659 in Alençon , Normandy , as Marthe du Val or Duval ; † October 2, 1741 in Berlin ), was a governess at the court of Frederick I and Frederick William I , kings in Prussia . She achieved historical importance above all as the educator of Frederick the Great , who owed her his excellent knowledge of the French language as a gateway to the French culture of his time and who remained closely connected to her for her maternal affection until her death.

Life

Marthe de Roucoulle, eldest daughter of Jean Duval, Seigneur des Alneaux , and his wife Marthe Rouïllon, came from a noble Huguenot family . In Alençon she had married the French Lieutenant Colonel Ésaïe Dumas (Du Matz) de Montbail in her first marriage. Because of the religious persecution to which she and her family were exposed as a result of the revocation of the Edict of Nantes by the Edict of Fontainebleau , she emigrated with the family first to England and after the death of her first husband with her two daughters to Brandenburg-Prussia , which had offered the Huguenots free and secure settlement in Brandenburg as well as privileges through the Edict of Potsdam . There they found themselves as possessorless Calvinist refugees - réfugiés - at the court of Frederick I, whose wife Sophie Charlotte - probably after the intercession of her lady-in-waiting Marguerite Françoise Amproux du Matz de Montmartin (1646–1732), Marthe's sister-in-law - not only her daughters as ladies-in-waiting accepted, but in 1692 also transferred the supervision of the then five-year-old Crown Prince Friedrich Wilhelm to her, so that he could adopt the French language required in royal circles as a toddler. As Madame de Montbail she learned in the milieu of the Huguenots in Berlin the Captain and later Supreme Jacques de Pelet, Seigneur de Roucoulle (1652-1698), know that among the companies of the Grands Mousquetaires was on duty, an old Prussian military unit consisting of French refugees duration. She married him in her second marriage. This marriage remained childless.

After the marriage of her protégé Friedrich Wilhelm with the Princess Sophie Dorothea of ​​Hanover in 1706 she rose to the position of chief stewardess . Friedrich Wilhelm entrusted her with raising his children. Her designation patent for "governess auprès du prince et les princesses royales", which Wilhelm Heinrich Thulemeyer , secret secretary in the State Chancellery, had designed, dated May 2, 1714, when her most important pupil, Crown Prince Friedrich, was already two years old. Marthe de Roucoulle, who spoke with the children entrusted to her exclusively in French, so that they took up this language as their second mother tongue , was under the supervision of the governess Sophie von Kameke , née von Brünnow (1675–1749). For the upbringing of the Crown Prince and Princesses Wilhelmine and Friederike Luise , they were given royal instructions to “always be with the Prince and Princesses without leaving them and to carefully observe them in all their activities so that they can correct them when they behave unworthily ”. As a control authority for the contact of the royal children with the social environment at court, they had to ensure "that not all the world is accepted without distinction by the prince and the princesses". Rather, they had to make a selection “among those with whom the conversation could be useful”. And because “parental devotion is one of the first articles of piety, the governess should not fail to make the princes and princesses understand that she always has respect for us [= the king] and Her Majesty the Queen and testify to submission. ”Despite these instructions, she and the queen formed an opposition to the paternal educational principles and introduced Friedrich and the other royal children not only to the French language in such a way that it became their colloquial, educational and written language, but also laid the foundations for their broad musical and cultural interest.

Marthe de Roucoulle , black and white illustration of a painting in the Swedish National Museum

Marthe de Roucoulle remained Crown Prince Friedrich's most important reference person until at least around 1716, when Jacques Égide Duhan de Jandun , also a French-speaking Huguenot, began to lead the Crown Prince's education. With Marthe de Roucoulle, who held the office of governess until 1719, Friedrich remained closely connected until her death in 1741. He was in correspondence with her and her daughter, Mademoiselle Marthe de Montbail (1678–1752), who had helped her mother raise the princesses Wilhelmine and Philippine Charlotte . He also frequently visited his foster mother's salon in Berlin, where high-ranking members of the court used to meet for evening parties. In a letter dated November 23, 1737, which Friedrich wrote at Rheinsberg Castle , he even referred to her as a “mother”, after his parents as the person to whom he “felt the greatest obligation”.

Marthe de Roucoulle was buried on October 5, 1741 in the cemetery of the Dorotheenstädtischen and Friedrichswerder parishes . In the comedy Die Schlacht bei Mollwitz , published in 1869, the theater writer Gustav Gans zu Putlitz received her as the wife of Rocoulle , in whose Berlin apartment the first scene took place in 1741.

literature

  • Madame de Rocoulle . In: Karl Heinrich Siegfried Rödenbeck (Ed.): Contributions to the enrichment and explanation of the life descriptions of Friedrich Wilhelm I and Frederick the Great, Kings of Prussia, together with an appendix . Verlag der Plahnschen Buchhandlung, Volume 2, Berlin 1838, Appendix, p. 56, footnote ( digitized version ).
  • Ernst zur Lippe-Weißenfeld : Madame de Rocoulles . In: Wochenblatt der Johanniter-Ordens-Balley Brandenburg , Volume 8, Issue No. 4 of January 23, 1867, pp. 20 ff. ( Google Books ).
  • Madame de Rocoulle . In: Corina Petersilka: The bilingualism of Frederick the Great. A linguistic portrait . Supplements to the journal for Romance philology, Max Niemeyer Verlag, Tübingen 2005, ISBN 3-484-52331-X , p. 55 f. ( Google Books ).

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Correspondence de Frédéric avec Madame de Rocoulle (23 November 1737 - June 1740) . In: Johann David Erdmann Preuß : Correspondence de Frédéric II Roy de Prusse . Volume 1, Rodolphe Decker, Berlin 1850, p. XX ( Google Books )
  2. ↑ K. Friedrich Reiche: Friedrich the Great and his time . Christian Ernst Kollmann Verlag, Leipzig 1840, p. 516 ( Google Books )
  3. ↑ Reinhold Koser : Frederick the Great as Crown Prince . 2nd edition, JG Cotta, Stuttgart 1901, p. 228 (footnote on page 4, digitized version )
  4. ^ Corina Petersilka: The bilingualism of Frederick the Great. A linguistic portrait . Supplements to the journal for Romance philology, Max Niemeyer Verlag, Tübingen 2005, ISBN 3-484-52331-X , p. 56 ( Google Books )
  5. ↑ Uwe A. Oster: His life was the saddest in the world. Friedrich II. And the fight with his father . Piper Verlag, Munich 2011, ISBN 978-3-492-95382-5 ( Google Books )
  6. ^ General German real encyclopedia for the educated classes (Conversations-Lexicon.) Volume 4, FA Brockhaus, Leipzig 1827, p. 420 ( Google Books )
  7. ^ Ernst zur Lippe-Weißenfeld : Madame de Rocoulles . In: Wochenblatt der Johanniter-Ordens-Balley Brandenburg , Volume 8, Issue No. 4 from January 23, 1867, pp. 20 ff. ( Google Books )
  8. ↑ Karl Friedrich Müchler (Ed.): Friedrich the Great. For the proper appreciation of his heart and mind . 2nd edition, Naucksche Buchhandlung, Berlin 1837, p. 19 ( Google Books )
  9. ↑ Marthe Duval de Rocoulle , website in the findagrave.com portal , accessed on September 1, 2018
  10. ↑ The Battle of Mollwitz . In: Gustav Gans zu Putlitz : Lustspiele. New episode . Volume 3, Berlin 1869
personal data
SURNAME Roucoulle, Marthe de
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Val, Marthe du (maiden name); Roucoulle, Marthe; Duval, Marthe de Montbail
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Governess at the court of Friedrich I and Friedrich Wilhelm I, kings in Prussia
DATE OF BIRTH 1659
PLACE OF BIRTH Alençon , Normandy
DATE OF DEATH October 2, 1741
Place of death Berlin