Therese of Mecklenburg

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Princess Therese, married Princess von Thurn und Taxis. Painting by François Gérard , around 1810

Therese Mathilde Amalia Duchess of Mecklenburg [-Strelitz] (born April 5, 1773 in Hanover , † February 12, 1839 at Taxis Castle near Dischingen ) was the wife of Prince Karl Alexander von Thurn and Taxis . Thanks to her initiative and her negotiating skills, after the mediatization of the Princely House of Thurn and Taxis as a result of the Reichsdeputationshauptschluss of 1803, the formation of the Rhine Confederation in 1806 and the associated end of the Imperial Postal Service, she was able to maintain the Thurn und Taxis postal company on a fief basis. Like her sister Queen Luise of Prussia, she failed in her negotiations with Napoleon , but was able to assert the interests of the House of Thurn and Taxis at the Congress of Vienna .

biography

Origin, youth, marriage, family

Therese (Mathilde Amalie), Duchess of Mecklenburg , was the third daughter from the first marriage of Charles II , Duke of Mecklenburg [-Strelitz] (1741–1816) with Friederike Caroline Luise of Hesse-Darmstadt. After her mother's death in 1782, she spent most of her youth with her sisters Charlotte , Luise and Friederike with her grandmother Marie Luise in Darmstadt .

During his educational trip through Europe, the Hereditary Prince Karl Alexander von Thurn und Taxis met the young Therese in the Darmstadt residence in 1786. Because of the family ties, a marriage with the British heir to the throne was actually planned. However, after Prince Karl Anselm von Thurn und Taxis stayed with Therese's aunt Sophie Charlotte , wife of the British King Georg III. , had asked for Therese's hand, the marriage to a Catholic was allowed on the condition that Therese could continue to practice her Protestant religion. As a safeguard, it was agreed that an oratorio for Therese should be installed in the Protestant Trinity Church in Regensburg below the organ gallery at the expense of the Thurn und Taxis family . After the approval of the House of Thurn and Taxis, Therese was married to the 19-year-old Karl Alexander von Thurn and Taxis in Neustrelitz on May 25, 1789 at the age of 16 .

View of the altar from the oratory of Therese von Thurn und Taxis in the Dreieinigkeitskirche

On the occasion of the celebrations, a singspiel with dance, Das Fest Germaniens by Georg Bernhard Leopold Zeller , was premiered. The marriage resulted in seven children between 1790 and 1805, three of whom died in childhood:

Political activities

Hereditary Princess Therese Mathilde von Thurn und Taxis. Carlo Restallino , oil on canvas, Regensburg around 1800

The couple initially resided (until 1797) in the Palais Thurn und Taxis in Frankfurt am Main . Therese took on representational tasks together with the young prince early on, as her father-in-law, the incumbent postmaster general and principal commissioner of the Perpetual Reichstag in Regensburg , was ailing. After his resignation, Therese's husband Karl Alexander became principal commissioner in 1797. Therese had already worked in the administration of the house and the lands, as well as the postal administration, and also devoted herself to art and literature. Poets and writers such as Jean Paul , Friedrich Rückert , Johann Caspar Lavater and Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock frequented her salon .

With the foreseeable demise of the Imperial Post Office , the Reichsdeputationshauptschluss of 1803, the mediatization of the Princely House of Thurn and Taxis and the loss of the Post Generalate in the time of Napoleon, she became politically active, especially after the death of her father-in-law in 1805. Since then she stepped up for the sovereignty of the House of Thurn und Taxis and traditional postal rights. In 1806 she negotiated with her brother-in-law, the Prussian King Friedrich Wilhelm III. , next to Karl Theodor von Dalberg , the former Elector of Mainz and Prince Primate in Regensburg, and for the first time in 1807 with Napoleon. She also negotiated with Maximilian I Joseph in Munich in order to dissuade him from the planned nationalization of the Thurn und Taxis feudal post. In 1808 she represented the House of Thurn and Taxis at the Erfurt Princely Congress . There was a secret meeting between Talleyrand and the Russian Tsar Alexander I in her salon.

After the negotiations in Erfurt were unsuccessful, she traveled to Paris at the end of 1809 to negotiate with Napoleon about the future status of the Thurn and Taxis house, the withdrawal of mediatization and the regaining of postal rights. An exchange of letters with her husband from this period has come down to us, in which he complained about the impoverishment of the Thurn und Taxis house and admonished Therese to be more frugal. During her negotiations with Napoleon, she offered to relocate the Thurn und Taxis house to Paris. However, the negotiations failed, perhaps also because the correspondence with her sister Queen Luise of Prussia had fallen into the hands of the French censors .

After Napoleon's defeat and exile, Princess Therese represented the House of Thurn and Taxis at the Congress of Vienna from 1814, with many political negotiations between Talleyrand, Tsar Alexander I, Prince Metternich and other political rulers taking place in her salon. Not least because of their efforts, Article 17 of the German Federal Act from 1815 stipulated the income of the former Thurn und Taxis post offices in several states of the German Confederation as legitimate claims. States that had set up their own postal system or intended to do so were obliged to pay appropriate compensation.

"Theresens Ruh" garden palace

The husband of Princess Therese, Karl Alexander von Thurn und Taxis , who did not stand up for the concerns of the Thurn und Taxis family because of his “political ineptitude and inaction”, chose a special way to honor his wife's successes. After the principality of Regensburg was dissolved under Prince-Primate Karl Theodor von Dalberg , Regensburg fell to Bavaria in 1810. Many plots of land owned by the prince have now been offered for sale, including plots in front of the southern city wall of Regensburg, east of the St. Emmeram monastery in front of the Peterstor . These properties were bought by Princess Therese's husband in 1813. Until 1809 the land was used by the Botanical Society and the Regensburg Academy of Natural Sciences, of which Kaspar Maria von Sternberg was president. Sternberg had set up a botanical garden there and had the master builder Herigoyen build a representative garden palace in the classicism style.

The gardens and the palace were badly damaged in the course of the Napoleonic wars in the fighting for the Peterstor in April 1809 and came into the ruin of the Thurn und Taxis family. According to the wishes of Princess Therese, her husband had the garden palace restored for 2,000 guilders and the inscription " Theresens Ruh " inscribed above the portico . The graceful building was intended to serve his highly acclaimed wife to furnish and use her large, 1,800-volume private library. The lending of travel reports, almanacs and women's pocket books in particular met with such great interest that library regulations had to be issued. In this romantic place, Princess Therese also found the opportunity to cultivate cultural contacts and to meet the works of the writers Klopstock , August Kotzebue , Johann Caspar Lavater , Rückert and Jean Paul , who wrote her longing letters after further encounters.

After the death of her youngest son Friedrich Wilhelm in 1825 and her husband in 1827, Princess Therese rarely stayed in Regensburg, but the garden palace in the princely palace garden under the name Theresienruhe remained a popular sight in the following decades. In March 1945 the castle was damaged in a bomb attack on the railway facilities. In its ruinous state it remained until 1949 and then, surprisingly for the Regensburg residents, it was completely demolished.

affair

Amalie von Krüdener . Painting by Joseph Karl Stieler in the Schönheitengalerie , 1828

Not least because of the “political ineptitude and inaction” of her husband, who was more interested in hunting than in the existential concerns of the Thurn und Taxis family, the marriage was in crisis. Therese had a long affair with the Bavarian diplomat Maximilian Emanuel Anton Johann Nepomuk Joseph, Count von Lerchenfeld on Köfering and Schönberg (born January 17, 1772 in Munich , † October 19, 1809 in Kassel ), which was not without consequences. In 1808 she gave birth to her daughter Amalie , who was entered in the Regensburg birth register as "Amalie Stargard ". The wife of Maximilian von Lerchenfeld, who had several children herself, Countess Maria Anna Philippine Walburga von Lerchenfeld-Köfering, née Groschlag (* July 21, 1775 in Dieburg , † June 17, 1854 in Vienna ), later adopted Amalie as a foster daughter , adopted her and raised her with her half-siblings, including half-brother Maximilian von Lerchenfeld-Köfering . From Therese's liaison with Maximilian, other children are known to have been given the addition of Stockau (from Groschlag's possession) or Straka (Czech and Slovak for “Elster”).

Activities as a widow

After the death of her husband on July 15, 1827, Princess Therese retired to the widow's residence at Schloss Taxis near Dischingen. She continued to advise her son Maximilian Karl , who, as his father's successor, had become head of the family, landlord and head of the private Thurn-und-Taxis-Post . As a widow, she devoted herself mainly to “her scientific and artistic interests”, expanding her graphic collection and library. Princess Therese died on February 12, 1839 at Taxis Castle and was buried in the crypt chapel of Regensburg Castle St. Emmeram .

After-effects in literature and art

Contemporary

  • Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock (1724–1803) dedicated his ode The Monument to her with the note The Hereditary Princess of Thurn and Taxis, bored Duchess of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, sent me a very beautiful miniature painting from Hermann's battle without naming herself . The choice of subject exceeded the painting, and both the accompanying letter.
  • Jean Paul dedicated his four-volume novel Titan Therese and her three sisters as the "incarnate goddesses Aphrodite, Aglaya, Euphrosyne and Thalia", the "four beautiful and noble sisters on the throne".
  • François Gérard portrayed her around 1810.

Ratings

In 1937, the postal historian Ludwig Kalmus compared the policies of the House of Thurn and Taxis at the time of the decline of the Imperial Postal Service and the loss of territory due to the Revolutionary Wars and the Napoleonic Conquests with a "ship in a storm with an incompetent captain and a drunken helmsman" at the top. He called Princess Therese “the only man in the house” and the “ spiritus rector of princely politics”, but criticized her moodiness, her sexual permissiveness, her “sinister influence”, her “delusion” and her “wastefulness”.

Max Piendl mainly described the unsuccessful negotiations with Napoleon on her trip to Paris in 1809.

In recent research, Therese's picture has been readjusted. Wolfgang Behringer called her an "energetic princess" mainly because of her work in the period after 1806 .

Martin Dallmeier and Martha Schad saw in Princess Therese "one of the great women of the Thurn and Taxis".

literature

  • Wolfgang Behringer: Thurn and Taxis. The history of your post office and your company . Munich / Zurich 1990, ISBN 3-492-03336-9 .
  • Martin Dallmeier, Martha Schad: The Princely House of Thurn and Taxis. 300 years of history in pictures . Verlag Friedrich Pustet, Regensburg 1996, ISBN 3-7917-1492-9 .
  • Ludwig Kalmus: World History of the Post . Publisher Amon Franz Göth, Vienna 1937.
  • Max Piendl: The Princely House of Thurn and Taxis. On the history of the house and the Thurn and Taxis Post . Verlag Friedrich Pustet, Regensburg 1981.
  • Rudolf Reiser: Mathilde Therese von Thurn and Taxis (1773–1839) . In: Journal for Bavarian Regional Studies . tape 38 , 1975, p. 739-748 .

Web links

Commons : Therese zu Mecklenburg  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Her first name was Therese, as she was always called in the family (cf. among other things letters from her sister Luise in her letter editions). In genealogical reference works, such as in the European Family Tables, Volume V, Table 130, she is called Therese Mathilde , which is probably due to an incorrect normalization of the name form.
  2. ↑ See entry in the German National Library .
  3. ↑ Ludwig Kalmus: World history of the post. Verlag Amon Franz Göth, Vienna 1937, p. 430f.
  4. ↑ Martin Dallmeier, Martha Schad: The Princely House of Thurn and Taxis, 300 years of history in pictures. Verlag Friedrich Pustet, Regensburg 1996, ISBN 3-7917-1492-9 , p. 90.
  5. ↑ Martin Dallmeier, Martha Schad: The Princely House of Thurn and Taxis, 300 years of history in pictures. Verlag Friedrich Pustet, Regensburg 1996, ISBN 3-7917-1492-9 , p. 78.
  6. ^ Max Piendl: The Princely House of Thurn and Taxis. On the history of the house and the Thurn and Taxis Post. Verlag Friedrich Pustet, Regensburg 1981, p. 85.
  7. ^ Max Piendl: The Princely House of Thurn and Taxis. On the history of the house and the Thurn and Taxis Post. Verlag Friedrich Pustet, Regensburg 1981, p. 85.
  8. ↑ Martin Dallmeier, Martha Schad: The Princely House of Thurn and Taxis, 300 years of history in pictures. Verlag Friedrich Pustet, Regensburg 1996, ISBN 3-7917-1492-9 , p. 79; Wording from Max Piendl: The Princely House of Thurn and Taxis. On the history of the house and the Thurn and Taxis Post. Verlag Friedrich Pustet, Regensburg 1981, p. 86.
  9. ^ A b Martin Dallmeier, Martha Schad: The Princely House of Thurn and Taxis. 300 years of history in pictures. Verlag Friedrich Pustet, Regensburg 1996, ISBN 3-7917-1492-9 , p. 78.
  10. ^ A b Karl Bauer: Regensburg Art, Culture and Everyday History . MZ-Buchverlag in H. Gietl Verlag & Publication Service, Regenstauf 2014, ISBN 978-3-86646-300-4 , p. 341, 342 .
  11. ^ Eberhard Dünninger: Therese von Thurn and Taxis and the poets. Literary interests of a princess at the turn of the 18th to the 19th century. In: Thurn and Taxis Studies. Vol. 20 Imperial City and Perpetual Diet (1663–1806). Verlag Michael Lassleben Kallmünz 2001, ISSN 0563-4970, ISBN 3-78471522-2 , pp. 109-115.
  12. ↑ Life data of Maximilian von and zu Lerchenfeld-Köfering on gedbas.genealogy.net , accessed on April 15, 2016
  13. ↑ Martin Dallmeier, Martha Schad: The Princely House of Thurn and Taxis, 300 years of history in pictures. Verlag Friedrich Pustet, Regensburg 1996, ISBN 3-7917-1492-9 , p. 86.
  14. ↑ Martin Dallmeier, Martha Schad: The Princely House of Thurn and Taxis, 300 years of history in pictures. Verlag Friedrich Pustet, Regensburg 1996, ISBN 3-7917-1492-9 , p. 96.
  15. ↑ text
  16. ↑ Note by Klopstock , see also Martin Dallmeier, Martha Schad: Das Fürstliches Haus Thurn und Taxis, 300 years of history in pictures. Verlag Friedrich Pustet, Regensburg 1996, ISBN 3-7917-1492-9 , p. 80.
  17. ↑ Martin Dallmeier, Martha Schad: The Princely House of Thurn and Taxis, 300 years of history in pictures. Verlag Friedrich Pustet, Regensburg 1996, ISBN 3-7917-1492-9 , p. 90.
  18. ↑ Ludwig Kalmus: World history of the post. Verlag Amon Franz Göth, Vienna 1937, p. 431.
  19. ↑ Ludwig Kalmus: World history of the post. Verlag Amon Franz Göth, Vienna 1937, p. 430.
  20. ↑ Ludwig Kalmus: World history of the post. Verlag Amon Franz Göth, Vienna 1937, pp. 440f.
  21. ^ Max Piendl: The Princely House of Thurn and Taxis. On the history of the house and the Thurn and Taxis Post. Verlag Friedrich Pustet, Regensburg, 1981, pp. 77, 85.
  22. ^ Wolfgang Behringer: Thurn and Taxis. The history of your post office and your company. Munich / Zurich 1990, ISBN 3-492-03336-9 , p. 229
  23. ↑ Martin Dallmeier, Martha Schad: The Princely House of Thurn and Taxis, 300 years of history in pictures. Verlag Friedrich Pustet, Regensburg 1996, ISBN 3-7917-1492-9 , p. 78.
personal data
SURNAME Therese of Mecklenburg
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Therese Mathilde Amalia of Mecklenburg
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Princess, born Duchess of Mecklenburg and wife of Prince Karl Alexander von Thurn und Taxis
DATE OF BIRTH April 5, 1773
PLACE OF BIRTH Hanover
DATE OF DEATH February 12, 1839
Place of death Taxis Castle near Dischingen