Countess Louise Auguste Henriette of Stolberg-Stolberg

Louise Auguste Henriette (13 January 1799 - 15 August 1875), was a German noblewoman member of the House of Stolberg by both birth and marriage. She was also a notorious Lyric poetess, translator and editor.

Born in Stolberg, she was the only child born from the first marriage of Frederick Charles August Alexander, Hereditary Count of Stolberg-Stolberg with Countess Marianne Diderica Frederica Wilhelmine von der Marck, an illegitimate daughter of King Frederick William II of Prussia.

Early Life

After the divorce of her parents, who took place in the year of her birth, Louise moved with her father to Denmark, where he contracted a second marriage with Constanze, Countess Knuth and Lehnsgräfin der Grafschaft Gyldensteen on 4 March 1800. One year later (14 March 1801), Louise's mother also remarried, with the Polish Baron Kaspar von Miaskowski.

In Copenhagen was born her only paternal half-sister, Isidora Alexandria Mathilde (13 June 1802 - Plön, 3 March 1830), who became in the grandmother of the so-called "Sea-Devil", Count Felix von Luckner. But this second marriage also ended in divorce in the spring of 1804, and shortly after Louise's father married again, with Countess Henriette of Jett in the city of Regensburg on 22 March 1804. Twenty-one months later, on 23 December 1805, the Hereditary Count died in Darmstadt.

After a long stay in Funen, Louise finally reunited with her mother (who also married for a third time with the French Etienne de Thierry) and her three maternal half-sisters, Josephine von Miaskowski, Eugenie and Sophie de Thierry in Paris, where she attended to a Pension Collegue.

With fifteen years (1814), Louise came to the court of King Frederick William III of Prussia, where she and her ​​cousin, the Crown Prince (future King Frederick William IV) became close friends. After he ascended the throne in 1840, Louise became an staunch royalist.

After her father's death, his youngest brother Joseph Christian Ernest Louis (21 June 1771 - 27 December 1839), became in the new Hereditary Count of Stolberg-Stolberg, and assumed the Comital title after his father's death on 2 August 1815. Three years later, on 22 May 1819, he married with his niece Louise in Charlottenburg.

She apparently suffered for her tumultuous family relationships: "All my relationships with my stepmothers are so cold!" she confessed in 1841 to Karl August Varnhagen von Ense, as he noted in his diary. For the rest of her life, she kept a portrait of her mother and a small bust of her grandmother, the famous Countess of Lichtenau.

Countess of Stolberg

After her marriage, Louise and her husband settled at Stolberg Castle and spent every summer at their country estate in Rottleberode, where she developed her skills in writting. She gave birth five children:

1. Alfred (Stolberg, 23 November 1820 - Rottleberode, 24 January 1903), Count and since 22 March 1893 Prince of Stolberg.
2. Mathilde (Stolberg, 23 March 1823 - Villa Ingenheim, Potsdam, 13 May 1873).
3. Elisabeth (Stolberg, 28 October 1825 - Hirschberg, 10 January 1907), married on 23 May 1861 to Julius, Count of Ingenheim.
4. Marie Agnes (Stolberg 14 October 1832 - Stolberg, 18 April 1883).
5. Louise (Stolberg, 15 December 1835 - Leipzig, 25 March 1872).

After the death of her husband (27 December 1839), Louise took over the guardianship and administration of his domains, until her son reached the formal majority of age. The years of her long widowhood -except for a few trips to Berlin to visit her maternal half-sister, Josephine Josephine von Miaskowski, by marriage Countess of Königsmarck (d. 1867), whom she appears had a close relationship- spent entirely in Stolberg.

"She provides all the best efforts," Varnhagen wrote, "to holds a high degree and culture, she mediated, exhilarated, and practices the most beautiful human business destined to females, whorthy of her presence, by word and meaning, if the writting is not enough".

Literary Activity

Initially Louise published her works anonymously, but later under her variously spelled versiones of her name , she primarily published poems who expressed her political beliefs. She was convinced of the divinity of the King, and profess to him unreserved devotion. Three collections of poems where dedicated to him under the title of "King Songs" (German: Königslieder). The March Revolution of 1848-49 was condemned by her in the strongest possible terms. As the request of the Democrats in the Second Chamber of the Prussian National Assembly, the Cadet Corps wanted to convert to civilian schools, she wrote to her old friend, the king, a letter of protest. In addition, she occasionally wrote for the ultraconservative Kreuzzeitung.

With their beliefs they stand in irreconcilable contrast to the freedom aspirations of the poet of the pre-March and the boys in Germany, she-received as a reader. Travel reports of Heinrich Laube she read with enthusiasm, with other authors she sought the polemic. So she took in the band Psychorama a sham dead satirical verses and epigrams against Heine and Georg Herwegh on. Other contemporaries such as Alexander von Humboldt , Friedrich Rückert , George Sand and Rahel Varnhagen she devotes poetic tributes.

With Rückert Stolberg also joined the interest in the poetry of Persia and operational language studies to translate from Persian can. A series of essays that should have been in her estate must be considered as lost.

Letters

Detailed correspondence led Louise of Stolberg with many contemporary authors, including Bettina von Arnim, Karl August Varnhagen, Friedrich von Bodenstedtstraße, Countess Hahn-Hahn. The schriftstellernde Hohenzollern Prince Georg of Prussia used her his dramatic manuscripts submitted for review. The once 38 volumes ordered collection of letters must largely be considered as lost today. Parts are kept in archives and private collections; occasionally dip individual pieces to trade in autographs.

Last Years

After the death of Frederick William IV., They transferred the dedication of the King songs to his widow Elizabeth . The reign of his successor, the future Emperor William I and the work of Bismarck brought against less interest. The publication of the diaries Varnhagen by his niece Ludmilla Assing , the predominantly political events and statements documented in their selection, they looked at a brochure to thwart, allegedly "suppressed leaves", in reality transcripts, which they had made ​​of loaned records contained ,

After they showed a weakened health in the spring of 1875, Louise died of Stolberg in the 76th year on 15 August of the same year.

Work

• Königslieder, Stolberg am Harz, Leipzig 1841.
• Psychorama eines Scheintodten, Leipzig 1847.
• Königslieder. Zweite Reihe, Berlin 1858.
• (ed.) Varnhagen von Ense in Stolberg. Unterdrückte Blätter aus seinem Tagebuch, o. O., ca. 1862.
• Die grüne Stube, Berlin 1865.
• Zum Gedächtniß König Friedrich Wilhelms IV. von Preußen. Aeltere und neuere Königslieder, Berlin 1867.

References

• Feodor von Wehl: Psychorama eines Scheintodten. in: Telegraph für Deutschland. vol. 11 (1848), Nr. 23, pp. 757–764.
• Karl August Varnhagen von Ense: Psychorama eines Scheintodten. in: Denkwürdigkeiten und Vermischte Schriften. vol. 8, Leipzig 1859, S. 421–424.
• O. W. Gerlach: Trauerrede, gesprochen am 19. August 1875 am Sarge Ihrer Erlaucht, der verwitweten, regierenden Gräfin-Mutter, Frau Louise, Auguste, Henriette zu Stolberg-Stolberg, Stolberg am Harz 1875.
• Elise von Hohenhausen: König Friedrich Wilhelm IV. und Gräfin Stolberg. Ein Erinnerungsbild. In: Deutsches Tageblatt, 1 January 1886.
• Pfitzner: Stolberg-Stolberg, Luise Gräfin zu. in: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB)., vol. 36, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1893, pp. 370–372.
• Stolberg-Stolberg, Gräfin Luise zu. in: Sophie Pataky (ed.): Lexikon deutscher Frauen der Feder. vol. 2. ed. Carl Pataky, Berlin 1898, p. 340 (http://www.literature.at/viewer.alo?objid=19249&page=338&viewmode=fullscreen online) [retrieved 7 November 2014].
• Paul Kahl: "Sollte jetzt, unvorbereitet, plötzlich dieser Dämon bei uns ausbrechen …“ Zwischen Konstitution und Gottesgnadentum. Aus den Briefen von Karl August Varnhagen von Ense an Louise Gräfin zu Stolberg-Stolberg". In: Schiller-Jahrbuch 47 (2003), pp. 11–37.