Maria Aurora von Königsmarck

Aurora Königsmarck

Countess Maria Aurora of Königsmarck (b. Stade, 28 August 1662 – d. Quedlinburg, 16 February 1728), was a Swedish noblewoman and mistress of Augustus the Strong, Elector of Saxony and King of Poland.

Life

Aurora was the second child but eldest daughter of the Count Kurt Christophof Königsmarck and his wife, Maria Christina of Wrangel. Her older brother, Karl Johann, was Maltese Knight and a famous adventurer; her two younger siblings were Amalia Wilhelmine -by marriage of Lewenhaupt- and Philip Christoph, who was the lover of the princess Sophia of Celle, wife of the later King Georg I of Great Britain.

She spend his childhood in the Schloss Agathenburg. When her father died on 1673, was her mother Maria Christina who took the place of chief of the family. Since 1677, she began to travel with her family and visit the family properties in Sweden and Germany.

In Sweden, she and her sister Amalia were the most celebrated beauties at the Royal court, often performed as amateur actresses in the theatrical performances by noble youths encouraged by the queen, and she herself belonged to the intellectual circle around the salon-hostess Sophia Elisabet Brenner. When her mother died (1691), Aurora left Sweden.

Aurora and her sister passed some years at Hamburg, where she attracted attention both by her beauty and her talents. In 1694 she went to Dresden, to make inquiries about her brother Philip Christoph von Königsmarck, who had suddenly and mysteriously disappeared from Hanover. She solicited the help of the Elector Frederick Augustus I to find Philip and, in case he was certainty dead, to resolved the possession over his inheritance.

Shortly after, the Elector made her his first official mistress. On 28 October 1696, in the city of Goslar, she gave birth a son, Maurice, afterwards the famous marshal de Saxe.

However, the Elector quickly tired of Aurora, who then spent her time in efforts to secure the position of abbess of Quedlinburg, an office which carried with it the dignity of a princess of the Holy Roman Empire, and to recover the lost inheritance of her family in Sweden. In January 1698 she was made coadjutor abbess and two years later (1700) lady-provost (Propstin) of Quedlinburg, but lived mainly in Berlin, Dresden and Hamburg.

In 1702 she went on a diplomatic errand to Charles XII of Sweden on behalf of Augustus, but her adventurous journey ended in failure. The countess, who was described by Voltaire as "the most famous woman of two centuries", died at Quedlinburg, aged sixty-five. Her namesake and great-great-granddaughter, Aurore Dupin, became the French novelist George Sand.

References

• F. Cramer, Denkwürdigkeiten der Gräfin M. A. Königsmark (Leipzig, 1836); and Biographische Nachrichten van der Gräfin M. A. Königsmark (Quedlinburg, 1833)
• W. F. Palmblad, Aurora Königsmark und ihre Verwandte (Leipzig, 1848-1853)
• C. L. de Pollnitz, La Saxe galante (Amsterdam, 1734)
• O. J. B. von Corvin-Wiersbitzki, Maria Aurora, Gräfin von Königsmark (Rudolstadt, 1902).

• This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. {{cite encyclopedia}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)