Wilhelm Ernst von Beaulieu-Marconnay

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Wilhelm Ernst Freiherr von Beaulieu-Marconnay

Wilhelm Ernst Freiherr von Beaulieu-Marconnay (born May 19, 1786 in Celle ; † June 30, 1859 in Oldenburg ) was an Oldenburg Privy Councilor and chairman of the Oldenburg State Ministry .

origin

Wilhelm Ernst Freiherr von Beaulieu-Marconnay came from the Hanoverian branch of the originally French noble family Beaulieu-Marconnay . When the Edict of Nantes was repealed in 1685, his ancestors were forced to leave their homeland and settle in Germany. The family provided officials and soldiers in several German principalities. His brother was the royal Hanoverian lieutenant general and forester Carl von Beaulieu-Marconnay (1777–1855).

life and career

Beaulieu received his first training at the Salzmannschule Schnepfenthal and in the high school in Hanover , then he studied law in Leipzig and Heidelberg . He also devoted himself to philosophical studies, as a result of which he developed a friendly relationship with his teacher Jakob Friedrich Fries . Then Beaulieu entered the Royal Hanoverian civil service as an auditor at the court in Hanover . When the Kingdom of Hanover was occupied by the French Empire in January 1808 , he took his leave. He then traveled to Rome with August Kestner and Adam Oehlenschläger , where he dealt with Italian art in contact with the artists Koch and the brothers Franz and Johannes Riepenhausen .

At the end of 1809, at the request of the Duke of Oldenburg, he entered the service of Oldenburg. At the end of 1810, Oldenburg was also occupied by the French and Beaulieu, together with his father-in-law Christoph Friedrich Mentz and Christian Ludwig Runde, took over the management of the cash assets of the Duke who had fled to Russia. From this fortune they organized the pension payments , since the actual pension funds had been confiscated by the French. Through this activity, he and Runde made themselves suspicious of the French occupiers and had to leave the country. Beaulieu therefore moved with his wife to his brother in Minden . The son Karl was born there on September 5, 1811.

After Napoleon's defeat , the family returned to Oldenburg, and Beaulieu was appointed to the provisional government commission in January 1814, which, as the provisional central authority of the country, oversaw the reorganization of the administration. In 1816 he was appointed government councilor and entrusted with foreign policy tasks. From 1822 to 1825 Beaulieu stayed in Berlin as an authorized representative for the negotiations on the Kniphausen rule . After the defeat of Napoleon and a brief Russian occupation from December 1813, the rule was subject to a provisional administration by Oldenburg. This condition was ended by the Berlin Agreement on June 8, 1825 and the Kniphausen rule gained limited sovereignty . In January 1826, Beaulieu stayed in Saint Petersburg as a special ambassador for Nicholas I's accession to the throne, and during this time he also led the negotiations that led to the Russian inheritance claims over the rule of Jever being transferred to Oldenburg. At the wedding of Duchess Amalie von Oldenburg to the Greek King Otto I in 1836, it was Beaulieu's job to draw up the marriage contract . In 1830 he was appointed to the State Council and took on the handling of relations with the German Confederation and the other German states as well as customs matters. In the same year he led the negotiations in Berlin on the incorporation of the Principality of Birkenfeld into the Prussian Customs Union and at the same time concluded a shipping agreement with Prussia. From 1830, Beaulieu was a member of the State Ministry as a secret cabinet councilor. From 1843 he was chairman of the Privy Council and in July 1844 he was awarded the title of Minister of State and Cabinet. In August 1848, Beaulieu retired due to the 1848 Revolution , which he was extremely critical of as a downright conservative. Before that, he had not succeeded in mediating between the Oldenburg ruling house and the revolutionaries, who also called for a democratic constitution for the Grand Duchy of Oldenburg , because he rejected both a state constitution and a representation of the people demanded by the German Confederation . Under his successor, the moderate liberal Johann Heinrich Jakob Schloifer , the Oldenburg constitution was finally passed. In 1851 he accompanied Peter, the Hereditary Grand Duke of Oldenburg, on a long journey through Italy , Greece and Turkey . Beaulieu died in 1859 at the age of 73.

Beaulieu was interested in art in many ways, through this and through his diplomatic work he came into contact with many important personalities of his time. He exchanged letters with August and Georg Kestner , Clemens August von Weichs , Heinrich von Struve , Alexander von Volborth , Ludwig Stieglitz , Johannes von Muralt, Karl Robert von Nesselrode , Ivan F. Kruzenstern , Jakob Friedrich Fries, Amandus Augustus Abendroth , Carl Anton Ferdinand von Bentinck , Karl Bernhard von Sachsen-Weimar-Eisenach , Otto von Bray-Steinburg , Sigismund von Reitzenstein , Friedrich von Blittersdorf , Johannes Tischbein , Georg Moller and probably also with Johann Wolfgang von Goethe .

family

Beaulieu was married twice. First, on May 19, 1810, he married Johanna (1793–1850), the daughter of the Vice Chamber Director and later District President Christoph Friedrich Mentz (1765–1832). The couple had six children. After the death of his wife and his return from Turkey, he married Isabelle von Förster (1816–1908), the daughter of the Brunswick major Maximilian von Förster and Isabelle Marquise de Montebello, on November 12, 1851 . Of his six sons from his first marriage, Karl von Beaulieu-Marconnay (1811–1889) also initially served in Oldenburg and later became court marshal in the Grand Duchy of Saxony-Weimar-Eisenach . His son Eugen von Beaulieu-Marconnay (1815-1889) was President of the Oldenburg Higher Regional Court.

literature

Individual evidence

  1. Conversations Lexicon of the Present, Volume 3 . FA Brockhaus, Leipzig 1838. Pages 399–400
  2. ^ Baron Carl von Beaulieu-MarconnayRound, Christian Ludwig . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 29, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1889, pp. 674-677.
  3. Jump up ↑ Beaulieu-Marconnay, Wilhelm von (1786-1859) detailed information and manuscripts. In: Kalliope Verbund - Information system for bequests and autographs. Retrieved May 19, 2016 .