Élie-Salomon-François Reverdil

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Élie-Salomon-François Reverdil

Élie-Salomon-François Reverdil (born May 19, 1732 in Nyon , Switzerland, † August 4, 1808 in Geneva ) was a Swiss scholar. From 1760 to 1767 he was court master of the Danish Crown Prince and King Christian VII.

Life

Reverdil was born in Nyon in the canton of Vaud in 1732, the second of seven children and the first son of the Secretary of Justice Urbain Reverdil and Henriette Merseille. From 1747 he studied Evangelical Reformed theology and mathematics in Geneva and Lausanne . In 1755 he finished his studies and was ordained a pastor, but felt no inclination to practice this profession. On the recommendation of his cousin André Roger (1721–1759), who had lived as a Swiss diplomat and private secretary to Johann Hartwig Ernst von Bernstorff in Copenhagen since 1752 , he came to Denmark in 1757 and in 1758 became a teacher of French and mathematics at the Royal Danish Academy of Art in Copenhagen . In the first year of his stay in Denmark he published his letters together with André Roger's brother Urbain Roger on the current state of Denmark , in which they - although a republican - declared on the first page the Danish government as “one of the most moderate and gentle governments of the world »praised. In 1764 he published a second volume of the letters alone. He also supported his friend Paul-Henri Mallet, who was also based in Copenhagen, with the publication of the French Mercure danois .

Mallet taught the Crown Prince since 1755 and his half-brother Friedrich since 1758 in French and Danish history. Reverdil supported him as an assistant teacher. When Mallet returned to Switzerland in 1760, Reverdil was hired by King Friedrich V as a teacher for the Crown Prince. He quickly won the confidence of his pupil and tried to shape him in the spirit of enlightenment and to awaken responsibility for his country. In this way he formed a counterbalance to the strict tutor Detlev von Reventlow , whose insistence was to keep the future king from government business.

As in Switzerland, Reverdil was one of the circles inclined towards the Enlightenment in Copenhagen. He was a member of the economic societies in Copenhagen and Bern , was friends with Voltaire and Madame de Staël , and he was also personally acquainted with Klopstock .

When Christian became king in 1766 at the age of 16, Reverdil was appointed reader and cabinet secretary, a little later to the budget council and on March 30, 1767 to the judicial council. He kept an apartment in the castle and ate at the royal table. Reverdil used his influence to draw Christian VII's attention to grievances in his empire, especially the situation of the serf peasants. On October 27, 1767, a commission was set up, including Reverdil, which was supposed to deal with these abuses and work out reforms. But in the following years the young king came more and more under the influence of court marshal Conrad Holck . This worked out that Reverdil was released on November 21, 1767. As a farewell, the king gave him 10,000 thalers. In addition to Holck's personal reasons, reasons of state also played a role in Reverdil's dismissal: Denmark sought an agreement with the Russian Tsarina Catherine II on the Duchy of Holstein-Gottorf . Reverdil was seen as a hindrance by Russian diplomats, namely Caspar von Saldern . Above all, however, he made himself unpopular with the nobility with his proposals for the liberation of the peasants . Reverdil returned to his homeland. The contact to Denmark, u. a. to Klopstock, but remained.

In 1768 King Christian VII undertook a trip to Europe , on which the enlightened doctor Johann Friedrich Struensee accompanied him. Struensee won the king's trust and re-awakened Reverdil's interest in reforms. In autumn 1770 Struensee gained more and more power in Denmark. At the same time, the king's mental illness became increasingly evident. Enevold von Brandt , whom Struensee had brought to court to entertain the king, was increasingly overwhelmed. In the summer of 1771, Struensee therefore convinced Reverdil to take care of his former pupil again. Reverdil came and supported the reforms of Struensee. By contrast, he was repulsed by Struensee's personality, as he later wrote in his memoirs. After Struensee's fall in January 1772, Reverdil was also expelled from the country.

He returned to Switzerland. From 1772 to 1787 he was an assessor at the Vogteigericht. In 1788 he became governor of the governor of his hometown, Karl Viktor von Bonstetten , in 1801 a member of the Helvetic Grand Council , in 1802 of the cantonal assembly and 1803 of the Vaudois Grand Council . He was in contact with many important contemporaries such as Madame de Stael and the pedagogue Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi , whose works he translated.

His marriage to Elisabeth Julie Nicole (* 1758 in Nyon; † 1806 there), which he entered into in 1785, remained childless. From the end of 1804 he was deaf.

Autobiography

In his autobiography he described the events at the Danish court during his stay there. Reverdil intended to publish his accounts of his time in Denmark only after King Christian's death, because his fate was important to him until the end of his life. Reverdil only survived Christian VII by a few months and was already seriously ill. His memoirs stayed where they were for the time being. It was not until 1858 that his nephew Alexandre Roger had it printed in Geneva. The following year the work was translated into Danish. Reverdil's assessment of the events and the people involved is also decisive for today's historiography.

Works

  • with Urbain Roger: Lettres sur le Dannemarc. Geneva 1757 (German version: Letters about the current state of Denmark. Roth, Copenhagen 1758 digital-sammlungen.de ).
  • Alexandre Roger (Ed.): Struensée et la cour de Copenhague 1760–1772: Mémoires de Reverdil […]. Précédés d'une courte notice sur l'auteur et suivis de lettres inédites. Meyrueis, Paris 1858 ( mdz-nbn-resolving.de ); Danish edition: Struensee og hoffet i Kjøbenhavn 1760–1772, optegnelser af Reverdil […]. Indledede med nogle Bemærkninger om Forfatteren and ledsagede af nogle hidtil utrykte Breve. FH Eibes, Copenhagen 1859 ( books.google.de ).

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Reverdil. In: Conversations-Lexicon . Copenhagen 1821, volume 13, p. 37.
  2. ↑ Henrik Horstbøll: Defending Monarchism in Denmark-Norway in the Eighteenth Century. In: John Christian Laursen, Luisa Simonutti, Hans W. Blom: Monarchisms in the Age of Enlightenment: Liberty, Patriotism, and the Common Good. Toronto 2007, pp. 175-193, 177.
  3. ↑ Urbain Roger (1726–1791) took over his brother's position in Denmark and in 1760 brokered a loan of 1,500,000 pounds to the Danish king, of which the Danish state bought the Antilles islands of St. Thomas, St. John and St. Croix acquired. In 1780 he gave Denmark a second loan from Swiss citizens ( list of the Swiss involved in the slave trade ).
  4. ↑ Swiss traces in Copenhagen. Tyskforlaget.
  5. ↑ Élie-Salomon-François Reverdil, Urbain Roger: Letters on the current state of Denmark. Roth, Copenhagen 1758, p. 1.
  6. ↑ Ulrik Langen: Den afmægtige. En biografi om Christian 7. Udgivet af Jyllands-Postens, Copenhagen 2008.
  7. ↑ a b c Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock : Works and letters. Letters 1773–1775. Volume 2: Apparatus / Commentary / Appendix. Walter de Gruyter, Berlin / New York 2001, p. 642.
  8. ^ Eduard Maria Oettinger : History of the Danish court. Vol. 5 and 6. Hoffmann and Campe, Hamburg 1857, p. 206 f.
  9. ↑ a b Karl Viktor von Bonstetten to Friederike Brun on August 14, 1803. In: Letter correspondences Karl Viktor von Bonstetten and his circle Volume IX / 2, p. 539.
  10. ^ Letter correspondence of Karl Viktor von Bonstetten and his circle Volume IX / 2, p. 842.
  11. ^ Obituary in the Jenaische Allgemeine Literatur-Zeitung . Volume 25, Col. 706.
  12. ↑ Alexandre Roger was the son of Urbain Roger, who in 1777 married Reverdil's younger sister Henriette (1738-1828) ( Urbain Roger at Geneanet ).
personal data
SURNAME Reverdil, Élie-Salomon-François
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Swiss scholar
DATE OF BIRTH May 19, 1732
PLACE OF BIRTH Nyon , Switzerland
DATE OF DEATH 4th August 1808
Place of death Geneva