Barbara Juliana, Baroness von Krüdener
Encyclopedia
Baroness Barbara Juliane von Krüdener (November 22, 1764 – December 25, 1824) was a Baltic German religious mystic
and author.
Von Krüdener was born in Riga
, Governorate of Livonia. Her father, Otto Hermann von Vietinghoff-Scheel, who had fought as a colonel in Catherine II
's wars, was one of the two councillors for Livonia and a man of immense wealth. He was a man of rationalistic views and a leading freemason. Her mother, the Countess Anna Ulrika von Münnich, was a granddaughter of the celebrated field marshal
and a strict Lutheran.
spelling, deportment and sewing. At an early age, Barbe-Julie began learning French and German. The former allowed her access to the writings of the great philosophies such as the works by Voltaire and the Encyclopedists. It also allowed her access to French culture, which her parents, along with other nobles, attempted to emulate and imitate. The importance importance of French ideals and culture seem to have replaced a need for religious studies, and because both of her parents were of German background, it still remains unclear as to whether-or-not the Wietinghoff family were of Orthodox or Lutheran faith.
Seeing no way out of her situation, the young baroness first starting conversing with God. She begged him to save her from this horrid situation. He answered her with a case of the measles that left her less attractive (at least temporarily), which became, at least a part of, the baron’s incentive to politely decline the marriage proposal. As a result, Barbe-Julie began to believe that she personally had a divine connection with God.
However, when Baron Bourkhardt-Alexis-Constantine Krudener, a widower sixteen years her senior. He was a well educated (he attending the University of Leipsic), and a well-traveled man, who, like her father, was in favor with Catherine II, sought her hand, she had no such qualms. However, The baron, a diplomatist of distinction, was cold and reserved, while the baroness was frivolous, pleasure-loving, and possessed of an insatiable thirst for attention and flattery; and the strained relations due to this incompatibility of temper were embittered by her limitless extravagance, which constantly involved herself and her husband in financial difficulties. At first all went well. This was due to the fact that despite having an older husband who she did not possess any passionate feelings for, his title and position in society were such that he could provide her whatever she might desire. At the same time she endowed him with an even higher social status because of the social standing of her own family. However, this socially advantageous exchanged left, for the baroness, much to be desired. Despite being materially pleased she was romantically unstatisfied. Her “earliest griefs arose from the fact, that, in her youthful inexperience, having chosen with her head, she expected at the same time to satisfy the longings of a singularly romantic heart,” . First she would pretend that her husband was something that he was not: a lover. This is especially evident in her description of him in her book. “The glowing description of the Count in Valérie represents Baron Krudener more as his wife’s ardent imagination loved to picture him, than as he really was. The truth is, he did not lend himself readily to the role of a hero of romance." These notions, as well as the separation between her real husband and her fictional husband helped lead to marital instability and to the eventual love affairs she had with others.
On January 31, 1784 a son was born to them, named Paul after the grand-duke Paul
(afterwards emperor), who acted as god-father. The same year Baron Krüdener became ambassador at Venice
, later (1786) at Munich
where he remained until transferred to Copenhagen
in 1787.
In 1787 the birth of a daughter (Juliette) aggravated the nervous disorders from which the baroness had for some time been suffering, and it was decided that she must go to the south for her health; she accordingly left, with her infant daughter and her stepdaughter Sophie. In 1789 she was at Paris
when the Estates General
met; a year later, at Montpellier
, she met a young cavalry captain, Charles Louis de Frégeville, and a passionate attachment sprang up between them. They returned together to Copenhagen, where the baroness told her husband that her heart could no longer be his. The baron was coldly kind; he refused to hear of a divorce and attempted to arrange a modus vivendi, which was facilitated by the departure of de Frégeville for the war. All was useless; Juliana refused to remain at Copenhagen, and, setting out on her travels, visited Riga, St. Petersburg where her father had become a senator of Berlin
, Leipzig
and Switzerland
. In 1794 her husband became ambassador at Madrid. In 1800 her husband became ambassador at Berlin, and she joined him there. But the stiff court society of Prussia
was irksome to her; money difficulties continued; and by way of climax, the murder of the tsar Paul, in whose favor Baron Krüdener had stood high, made the position of the ambassador extremely precarious. The baroness seized the occasion to leave for the baths of Teplitz, whence she wrote to her husband that the doctors had ordered her to winter in the south. He died on June 14, 1802, without ever having seen her again.
and of Paris. She was now thirty-six; her charms were fading, but her passion for admiration survived. She had tried the effect of the shawl dance, in imitation of Emma, Lady Hamilton
; she now sought fame in literature, and in 1803, after consulting Chateaubriand
and other writers of distinction, published her Valérie, a sentimental romance, of which under a thin veil of anonymity she herself was the heroine. In January 1804 she returned to Riga, Livonia.
At Riga occurred her conversion. A gentleman of her acquaintance when about to salute her fell dying at her feet. The shock overset her not-too-well-balanced mind; she sought for consolation, and found it in the ministrations of her shoemaker, an ardent disciple of the Moravian Brethren. Though she had found peace, however, the disorder of her nerves continued and she was ordered by her doctor to the baths of Wiesbaden
. At Königsberg
she had an interview with Queen Louise
, and, more important still, with one Adam Müller, a rough peasant, to whom God had supposedly revealed a prophetic mission to King Frederick William III
. Chiliasm was in the air. Napoleon
was evidently Antichrist
; and the latter days were about to be accomplished. Under the influence of the pietistic movement the belief was widely spread, in royal courts, in country parsonages, in peasant novels: a man would be raised up from the north from the rising of the sun (Isa. xli. 25); Antichrist would be overthrown, and Christ
would come to reign a thousand years upon the earth. The interview determined the direction of the baroness's religious development. A short visit to the Moravians at Herrnhut
followed; then she went, via Dresden
, to Karlsruhe
, to sit at the feet of Heinrich Jung-Stilling
, the high priest of occult
ist pietism, whose influence was supreme at the court of Baden and infected those of Stockholm
and St. Petersburg. By him she was instructed in the chiliastic faith and in the mysteries of the supernatural world. Then, hearing that a certain pastor in the Vosges
, Jean Frédéric Fontaines, was prophesying and working miracles, she determined to go to him. On June 5, 1801, accordingly, she arrived at the Protestant parsonage of Sainte-Marie-aux-Mines
, accompanied by her daughter Juliette, her stepdaughter Sophie and a Russian valet.
This remained for two years her headquarters. Fontaines, half-charlatan, half-dupe, had introduced into his household a prophetess named Marie Gottliebin Kummer, whose visions, carefully calculated for her own purposes, became the oracle
of the divine mysteries for the baroness. Under this influence she believed more firmly than ever in the approaching millennium and her own mission to proclaim it. Her rank, her reckless charities, and her exuberant eloquence produced a great effect on the simple country folk; and when, in 1809, it was decided to found a colony of the elect in order to wait for the coming of the Lord, many wretched peasants sold or distributed all they possessed and followed the baroness and Fontaines into Württemberg
, where the settlement was established at Catharinenplaisir and the château of Bonnigheim
, only to be dispersed (May 1) by an unsympathetic government.
Further wanderings followed: to Lichtenthal near Baden; to Karlsruhe and the congenial society of pietistic princesses; to Riga, where she was present at the deathbed of her mother (January 24, 1811); then back to Karlsruhe. The influence of Fontaines, to whom she had been "spiritually married" (Madame Fontaines being content with the part of Martha in the household, so long as the baroness's funds lasted), had now waned, and she had fallen under that of Johann Kaspar Wegelin (1766–1833), a pious linen-draper of Strasbourg
, who taught her the sweetness of complete annihilation of the will and mystic death. Her preaching and her indiscriminate charities now began to attract curious crowds from afar; and her appearance everywhere was accompanied by an epidemic of visions and prophesyings, which culminated in the appearance in 1811 of the comet
, a sure sign of the approaching end.
In 1812 she was at Strassburg, whence she paid more than one visit to J. F. Oberlin
, the famous pastor of Waldbach
in Steinthal (Ban de la Roche), and where she had the glory of converting her host, Adrien de Lazay-Marnesia, the prefect. In 1813 she was at Geneva
, where she established the faith of a band of young pietists in revolt against the Calvinist
Church authorities notably Henri Louis Empeytaz, afterwards the companion of her crowning evangelistic triumph. In September 1814 she was again at Waldbach, where Empeytaz had preceded her; and at Strassburg, where the party was joined by Franz Karl von Berckheim, whom she afterward married. She had been condemned some years previously in Württemberg to the pillory and three years imprisonment as a swindler (Betrugerin), on her own confession. Her curious history is given in detail by M. Muhlenbeck.
In 1809 it was obviously inconvenient to have people proclaiming Napoleon as the Beast. At the end of the year she returned with her daughters and Empeytaz to Baden, a fateful migration.
The empress Elizabeth of Russia was now at Karlsruhe; and she and the pietist ladies of her entourage hoped that the emperor Alexander
might find at the hands of Madame de Krüdener the peace which an interview with Jung-Stilling had failed to bring him. The baroness herself wrote urgent letters to Roxandre de Stourdza, sister of Alexandre Stourdza
the tsar's Romania
n secretary, begging her to procure an interview. There seemed to be no result; but the correspondence paved the way for the opportunity which a strange chance was to give her of realizing her ambition.
, a Baden enclave in Württemberg, busy persuading the peasants to sell all and fly from the wrath to come. Near this, at Heilbronn
, the emperor Alexander established his headquarters on June 4. That very night the baroness sought and obtained an interview. To the tsar, who had been brooding alone over an open Bible
, her sudden arrival seemed an answer to his prayers; for three hours the prophetess preached her strange gospel, while the most powerful man in Europe
sat, his face buried in his hands, sobbing like a child; until at last he declared that he had found peace. At the tsar's request she followed him to Heidelberg
and later to Paris, where she was lodged at the Hotel Montchenu, next door to the imperial headquarters in the Élysée Palace
. A private door connected the establishments, and every evening the emperor went to take part in the prayer-meetings conducted by the baroness and Empeytaz. Chiliasm seemed to have found an entrance into the high councils of Europe, and the baroness von Krüdener had become a political force to be reckoned with. Admission to her religious gatherings was sought by a crowd of people celebrated in the intellectual and social world; Chateaubriand came, and Benjamin Constant
, Madame Recamier
, the duchesse de Bourbon, and Madame de Duras. The fame of the wonderful conversion, moreover, attracted other members of the chilastic fraternity, among them Fontaines, who brought with him the prophetess Marie Kummer.
In this religious forcing-house the idea of the Holy Alliance
germinated and grew to rapid maturity. On September 26 the portentous proclamation, which was to herald the opening of a new age of peace and goodwill on earth, was signed by the sovereigns of Russia, Austria and Prussia. Its authorship has ever been a matter of dispute. Madame de Krüdener herself claimed that she had suggested the idea, and that Alexander had submitted the draft for her approval. This is probably correct, though the tsar later, when he had recovered his mental equilibrium, reproved her for her indiscretion in talking of the matter. His eyes, indeed, had begun to be opened before he left Paris, and Marie Kummer was the unintentional cause. At the very first séance the prophetess, whose revelations had been praised by the baroness in extravagant terms, had the evil inspiration to announce in her trance to the emperor that it was God's will that he should endow the religious colony to which she belonged! Alexander merely remarked that he had received too many such revelations before to be impressed. The baroness's influence was shaken but not destroyed, and before he left Paris Alexander gave her a passport to Russia. She was not to see him again.
She left Paris on October 22, 1815, intending to travel to St. Petersburg by way of Switzerland. The tsar, however, offended by her indiscretions and sensible of the ridicule which his relations with her had brought upon him, showed little disposition to hurry her arrival. She remained in Switzerland, where she presently fell under the influence of an unscrupulous adventurer named J. G. Kellner. For months Empeytaz, an honest enthusiast, struggled to save her from this man's clutches but in vain. Kellner too well knew how to flatter the baroness's inordinate vanity: the author of the Holy Alliance
could be none other than the "woman clothed with the sun" of Revelations
. Meanwhile, Berckheim had been French commissioner of police in Mainz
and had abandoned his post in 1813.
She wandered with Kellner from place to place, proclaiming her mission, working miracles, persuading her converts to sell all and follow her. Crowds of beggars and rapscallions of every description gathered wherever she went, supported by the charities squandered from the common fund. She became a nuisance to the authorities and a menace to the peace; Württemberg had expelled her, and the example was followed by every Swiss
canton she entered in turn. At last, in May 1818, she set out for her estate in Kosse, Livonia (now Viitina, Estonia
), accompanied by Kellner and a remnant of the elect.
The emperor Alexander having opened the Crimea
to German and Swiss chiliasts in search of a land of promise, the baroness's son-in-law Berckheim and his wife now went there to help establish the new colonies. In November 1820 the baroness at last went herself to St. Petersburg, where Berckheim was lying ill. She was there when the news arrived of Ypsilanti's invasion of the Danubian
principalities, which opened the war of Greek
independence. She at once proclaimed the divine mission of the tsar to take up arms on behalf of Christendom. Alexander, however, had long since exchanged her influence for that of Metternich, and he was far from anxious to be forced into even a holy war. To the baroness's overtures he replied in a long and polite letter, the gist of which was that she must leave St. Petersburg at once. In 1823 the death of Kellner, whom to the last she regarded as a saint, was a severe blow to her. Her health was failing, but she allowed herself to be persuaded by Princess Galitzine
to accompany her to the Crimea, where she had established a Swiss colony. Here, at Karasubazar
, she died on December 25, 1824.
However, Mme. de Krudener, as we shall see, preserved a certain magnetic attraction up to the very last years of her life. Added to this she possess an extreme gracefulness of carriage and lightness of motion, which, together with her fair curling hair that fell in soft ringlets around her face, lent an air of unusual youthfulness to her appearance,”
Sainte-Beuve said of Madame de Krüdener: "Elle avait un immense besoin que le monde s'occupât d'elle . . . ; l'amour propre, toujours l'amour propre . . ." A kindlier epitaph might, perhaps, be written in her own words, uttered after the revelation of the misery of the Crimean colonists had at last opened her eyes: "The good that I have done will endure; the evil that I have done (for how often have I not mistaken for the voice of God that which was no more than the result of my imagination and my pride) the mercy of God will blot out".
, was long the standard life and contains much material, but is far from authoritative. In English appeared the Life and Letters of Madame de Krüdener, by Clarence Ford (London, 1893). The most authoritative study, based on a wealth of original research, is E. Mühlenbeck's Étude sur les origines de la Sainte-Alliance (Paris, 1909), in which numerous references are given.
Mysticism
Mysticism is the knowledge of, and especially the personal experience of, states of consciousness, i.e. levels of being, beyond normal human perception, including experience and even communion with a supreme being.-Classical origins:...
and author.
Von Krüdener was born in Riga
Riga
Riga is the capital and largest city of Latvia. With 702,891 inhabitants Riga is the largest city of the Baltic states, one of the largest cities in Northern Europe and home to more than one third of Latvia's population. The city is an important seaport and a major industrial, commercial,...
, Governorate of Livonia. Her father, Otto Hermann von Vietinghoff-Scheel, who had fought as a colonel in Catherine II
Catherine II of Russia
Catherine II, also known as Catherine the Great , Empress of Russia, was born in Stettin, Pomerania, Prussia on as Sophie Friederike Auguste von Anhalt-Zerbst-Dornburg...
's wars, was one of the two councillors for Livonia and a man of immense wealth. He was a man of rationalistic views and a leading freemason. Her mother, the Countess Anna Ulrika von Münnich, was a granddaughter of the celebrated field marshal
Burkhard Christoph von Munnich
Count Burkhard Christoph von Münnich was a Danish-born German soldier-engineer who became a field marshal and political figure in the Russian Empire. He was the major Russian Army reformer and founder of several elite military formations during the reign of Anna of Russia. As a statesman, he is...
and a strict Lutheran.
Family Background
Barbe-Julie de Wietinghoff, better known as Madame von Krudener (Mme. de Krudener) later in life, but, as a child, referred to as Juliana, was one of five children born into the wealthy Wietinghoff family.Father
Her Father, M. de Wietinghoff, had started accruing his wealth from a young age, for as a young man, he proved to possess a knack for business. With his high ambitions, he entered into commercial enterprises that became highly successful. Some of his treasures included grand properties in Kosse and Marienberg, as well as his grandiose townhouse in Riga (which included the attached private theatre) where Barbe-Julie was born. Although he was never assigned an official title, he enjoyed the official rank as a privy counselor and as a senator and “would exclaim with pride ‘I am Wietinghoff,’ and behave with all the arrogance of a great noble,”Mother
Barbe-Julie’s mom, Mme. de Wietinghoff, was herself born into nobility. Her father, the famed Marshal Münnich, despite having been exiled for many years in Siberia, had lead many prosperous campaigns against the Tartars and the Turks. He was also favored by Catherine II, although, sometimes the favor was unstable. Mme. de Wietinghoff mirrored her father’s success in her own household, as a mother of five (she bore two sons and three daughters), she was extremely dedicated, despite the infant death of her first son, and her physically handicapped eldest daughter who was both mute and deaf, and whom the family eventually placed in an appropriate mental asylum in 1777.Education
Her education, according to her own account, consisted of lessons in FrenchFrench language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
spelling, deportment and sewing. At an early age, Barbe-Julie began learning French and German. The former allowed her access to the writings of the great philosophies such as the works by Voltaire and the Encyclopedists. It also allowed her access to French culture, which her parents, along with other nobles, attempted to emulate and imitate. The importance importance of French ideals and culture seem to have replaced a need for religious studies, and because both of her parents were of German background, it still remains unclear as to whether-or-not the Wietinghoff family were of Orthodox or Lutheran faith.
Marriage
Although Barbe-Julie “was still an overgrown, undeveloped, silent girl, with a rather large nose and an uncertain complexion, [she possessed] ample promises of future beautify in her big blue eyes and curling chestnut hair, and in her singularly well-shaped hand and arms,” . Her potentially beauty, as well as being the heir to her parents’ wealth, resulted in an onslaught of marriage proposals. Her parents arranged for her to be married to the local neighborhood baron despite Barbe-Julie’s incessant protesting.Seeing no way out of her situation, the young baroness first starting conversing with God. She begged him to save her from this horrid situation. He answered her with a case of the measles that left her less attractive (at least temporarily), which became, at least a part of, the baron’s incentive to politely decline the marriage proposal. As a result, Barbe-Julie began to believe that she personally had a divine connection with God.
However, when Baron Bourkhardt-Alexis-Constantine Krudener, a widower sixteen years her senior. He was a well educated (he attending the University of Leipsic), and a well-traveled man, who, like her father, was in favor with Catherine II, sought her hand, she had no such qualms. However, The baron, a diplomatist of distinction, was cold and reserved, while the baroness was frivolous, pleasure-loving, and possessed of an insatiable thirst for attention and flattery; and the strained relations due to this incompatibility of temper were embittered by her limitless extravagance, which constantly involved herself and her husband in financial difficulties. At first all went well. This was due to the fact that despite having an older husband who she did not possess any passionate feelings for, his title and position in society were such that he could provide her whatever she might desire. At the same time she endowed him with an even higher social status because of the social standing of her own family. However, this socially advantageous exchanged left, for the baroness, much to be desired. Despite being materially pleased she was romantically unstatisfied. Her “earliest griefs arose from the fact, that, in her youthful inexperience, having chosen with her head, she expected at the same time to satisfy the longings of a singularly romantic heart,” . First she would pretend that her husband was something that he was not: a lover. This is especially evident in her description of him in her book. “The glowing description of the Count in Valérie represents Baron Krudener more as his wife’s ardent imagination loved to picture him, than as he really was. The truth is, he did not lend himself readily to the role of a hero of romance." These notions, as well as the separation between her real husband and her fictional husband helped lead to marital instability and to the eventual love affairs she had with others.
On January 31, 1784 a son was born to them, named Paul after the grand-duke Paul
Paul I of Russia
Paul I was the Emperor of Russia between 1796 and 1801. He also was the 72nd Prince and Grand Master of the Order of Malta .-Childhood:...
(afterwards emperor), who acted as god-father. The same year Baron Krüdener became ambassador at Venice
Venice
Venice is a city in northern Italy which is renowned for the beauty of its setting, its architecture and its artworks. It is the capital of the Veneto region...
, later (1786) at Munich
Munich
Munich The city's motto is "" . Before 2006, it was "Weltstadt mit Herz" . Its native name, , is derived from the Old High German Munichen, meaning "by the monks' place". The city's name derives from the monks of the Benedictine order who founded the city; hence the monk depicted on the city's coat...
where he remained until transferred to Copenhagen
Copenhagen
Copenhagen is the capital and largest city of Denmark, with an urban population of 1,199,224 and a metropolitan population of 1,930,260 . With the completion of the transnational Øresund Bridge in 2000, Copenhagen has become the centre of the increasingly integrating Øresund Region...
in 1787.
In 1787 the birth of a daughter (Juliette) aggravated the nervous disorders from which the baroness had for some time been suffering, and it was decided that she must go to the south for her health; she accordingly left, with her infant daughter and her stepdaughter Sophie. In 1789 she was at Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
when the Estates General
Estates-General of 1789
The Estates-General of 1789 was the first meeting since 1614 of the French Estates-General, a general assembly representing the French estates of the realm: the nobility, the Church, and the common people...
met; a year later, at Montpellier
Montpellier
-Neighbourhoods:Since 2001, Montpellier has been divided into seven official neighbourhoods, themselves divided into sub-neighbourhoods. Each of them possesses a neighbourhood council....
, she met a young cavalry captain, Charles Louis de Frégeville, and a passionate attachment sprang up between them. They returned together to Copenhagen, where the baroness told her husband that her heart could no longer be his. The baron was coldly kind; he refused to hear of a divorce and attempted to arrange a modus vivendi, which was facilitated by the departure of de Frégeville for the war. All was useless; Juliana refused to remain at Copenhagen, and, setting out on her travels, visited Riga, St. Petersburg where her father had become a senator of Berlin
Berlin
Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...
, Leipzig
Leipzig
Leipzig Leipzig has always been a trade city, situated during the time of the Holy Roman Empire at the intersection of the Via Regia and Via Imperii, two important trade routes. At one time, Leipzig was one of the major European centres of learning and culture in fields such as music and publishing...
and Switzerland
Switzerland
Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....
. In 1794 her husband became ambassador at Madrid. In 1800 her husband became ambassador at Berlin, and she joined him there. But the stiff court society of Prussia
Prussia
Prussia was a German kingdom and historic state originating out of the Duchy of Prussia and the Margraviate of Brandenburg. For centuries, the House of Hohenzollern ruled Prussia, successfully expanding its size by way of an unusually well-organized and effective army. Prussia shaped the history...
was irksome to her; money difficulties continued; and by way of climax, the murder of the tsar Paul, in whose favor Baron Krüdener had stood high, made the position of the ambassador extremely precarious. The baroness seized the occasion to leave for the baths of Teplitz, whence she wrote to her husband that the doctors had ordered her to winter in the south. He died on June 14, 1802, without ever having seen her again.
Religious Development
Meanwhile the baroness had been revelling in the intellectual society of CoppetCoppet
Coppet is a municipality in the district of Nyon in the canton of Vaud in Switzerland.-History:Coppet is first mentioned in 1294 as Copetum. In 1347 it was mentioned as Copet.-Geography:...
and of Paris. She was now thirty-six; her charms were fading, but her passion for admiration survived. She had tried the effect of the shawl dance, in imitation of Emma, Lady Hamilton
Emma, Lady Hamilton
Emma, Lady Hamilton is best remembered as the mistress of Lord Nelson and as the muse of George Romney. She was born Amy Lyon in Ness near Neston, Cheshire, England, the daughter of a blacksmith, Henry Lyon, who died when she was two months old...
; she now sought fame in literature, and in 1803, after consulting Chateaubriand
François-René de Chateaubriand
François-René, vicomte de Chateaubriand was a French writer, politician, diplomat and historian. He is considered the founder of Romanticism in French literature.-Early life and exile:...
and other writers of distinction, published her Valérie, a sentimental romance, of which under a thin veil of anonymity she herself was the heroine. In January 1804 she returned to Riga, Livonia.
At Riga occurred her conversion. A gentleman of her acquaintance when about to salute her fell dying at her feet. The shock overset her not-too-well-balanced mind; she sought for consolation, and found it in the ministrations of her shoemaker, an ardent disciple of the Moravian Brethren. Though she had found peace, however, the disorder of her nerves continued and she was ordered by her doctor to the baths of Wiesbaden
Wiesbaden
Wiesbaden is a city in southwest Germany and the capital of the federal state of Hesse. It has about 275,400 inhabitants, plus approximately 10,000 United States citizens...
. At Königsberg
Königsberg
Königsberg was the capital of East Prussia from the Late Middle Ages until 1945 as well as the northernmost and easternmost German city with 286,666 inhabitants . Due to the multicultural society in and around the city, there are several local names for it...
she had an interview with Queen Louise
Louise of Mecklenburg-Strelitz
Duchess Louise of Mecklenburg-Strelitz was Queen consort of Prussia as the wife of King Frederick William III...
, and, more important still, with one Adam Müller, a rough peasant, to whom God had supposedly revealed a prophetic mission to King Frederick William III
Frederick William III of Prussia
Frederick William III was king of Prussia from 1797 to 1840. He was in personal union the sovereign prince of the Principality of Neuchâtel .-Early life:...
. Chiliasm was in the air. Napoleon
Napoleon I of France
Napoleon Bonaparte was a French military and political leader during the latter stages of the French Revolution.As Napoleon I, he was Emperor of the French from 1804 to 1815...
was evidently Antichrist
Antichrist
The term or title antichrist, in Christian theology, refers to a leader who fulfills Biblical prophecies concerning an adversary of Christ, while resembling him in a deceptive manner...
; and the latter days were about to be accomplished. Under the influence of the pietistic movement the belief was widely spread, in royal courts, in country parsonages, in peasant novels: a man would be raised up from the north from the rising of the sun (Isa. xli. 25); Antichrist would be overthrown, and Christ
Christ
Christ is the English term for the Greek meaning "the anointed one". It is a translation of the Hebrew , usually transliterated into English as Messiah or Mashiach...
would come to reign a thousand years upon the earth. The interview determined the direction of the baroness's religious development. A short visit to the Moravians at Herrnhut
Herrnhut
Herrnhut is a municipality in the district of Görlitz, in the Free State of Saxony, Germany.It has access to Bundesstraße 178 between Löbau and Zittau...
followed; then she went, via Dresden
Dresden
Dresden is the capital city of the Free State of Saxony in Germany. It is situated in a valley on the River Elbe, near the Czech border. The Dresden conurbation is part of the Saxon Triangle metropolitan area....
, to Karlsruhe
Karlsruhe
The City of Karlsruhe is a city in the southwest of Germany, in the state of Baden-Württemberg, located near the French-German border.Karlsruhe was founded in 1715 as Karlsruhe Palace, when Germany was a series of principalities and city states...
, to sit at the feet of Heinrich Jung-Stilling
Johann Heinrich Jung
Johann Heinrich Jung , best known by his assumed name of Heinrich Stilling, was a German author.-Life:He was born in the village of Grund in Westphalia...
, the high priest of occult
Occult
The word occult comes from the Latin word occultus , referring to "knowledge of the hidden". In the medical sense it is used to refer to a structure or process that is hidden, e.g...
ist pietism, whose influence was supreme at the court of Baden and infected those of Stockholm
Stockholm
Stockholm is the capital and the largest city of Sweden and constitutes the most populated urban area in Scandinavia. Stockholm is the most populous city in Sweden, with a population of 851,155 in the municipality , 1.37 million in the urban area , and around 2.1 million in the metropolitan area...
and St. Petersburg. By him she was instructed in the chiliastic faith and in the mysteries of the supernatural world. Then, hearing that a certain pastor in the Vosges
Vosges
Vosges is a French department, named after the local mountain range. It contains the hometown of Joan of Arc, Domrémy.-History:The Vosges department is one of the original 83 departments of France, created on February 9, 1790 during the French Revolution. It was made of territories that had been...
, Jean Frédéric Fontaines, was prophesying and working miracles, she determined to go to him. On June 5, 1801, accordingly, she arrived at the Protestant parsonage of Sainte-Marie-aux-Mines
Sainte-Marie-aux-Mines
Sainte-Marie-aux-Mines is a commune in the Haut-Rhin department in Alsace in north-eastern France.-Geography:Sainte-Marie-aux-Mines nestles in the massif of the Vosges Mountains, where it occupies the beautiful V-shaped valley of the Lièpvrette...
, accompanied by her daughter Juliette, her stepdaughter Sophie and a Russian valet.
This remained for two years her headquarters. Fontaines, half-charlatan, half-dupe, had introduced into his household a prophetess named Marie Gottliebin Kummer, whose visions, carefully calculated for her own purposes, became the oracle
Oracle
In Classical Antiquity, an oracle was a person or agency considered to be a source of wise counsel or prophetic predictions or precognition of the future, inspired by the gods. As such it is a form of divination....
of the divine mysteries for the baroness. Under this influence she believed more firmly than ever in the approaching millennium and her own mission to proclaim it. Her rank, her reckless charities, and her exuberant eloquence produced a great effect on the simple country folk; and when, in 1809, it was decided to found a colony of the elect in order to wait for the coming of the Lord, many wretched peasants sold or distributed all they possessed and followed the baroness and Fontaines into Württemberg
Württemberg
Württemberg , formerly known as Wirtemberg or Wurtemberg, is an area and a former state in southwestern Germany, including parts of the regions Swabia and Franconia....
, where the settlement was established at Catharinenplaisir and the château of Bonnigheim
Bönnigheim
Bönnigheim is a town in the German administrative district of Ludwigsburg which lies at the edge of the areas known as Stromberg and Zabergäu. The nearest large towns are Ludwigsburg and Heilbronn.- Geography :Districts of the town...
, only to be dispersed (May 1) by an unsympathetic government.
Further wanderings followed: to Lichtenthal near Baden; to Karlsruhe and the congenial society of pietistic princesses; to Riga, where she was present at the deathbed of her mother (January 24, 1811); then back to Karlsruhe. The influence of Fontaines, to whom she had been "spiritually married" (Madame Fontaines being content with the part of Martha in the household, so long as the baroness's funds lasted), had now waned, and she had fallen under that of Johann Kaspar Wegelin (1766–1833), a pious linen-draper of Strasbourg
Strasbourg
Strasbourg is the capital and principal city of the Alsace region in eastern France and is the official seat of the European Parliament. Located close to the border with Germany, it is the capital of the Bas-Rhin département. The city and the region of Alsace are historically German-speaking,...
, who taught her the sweetness of complete annihilation of the will and mystic death. Her preaching and her indiscriminate charities now began to attract curious crowds from afar; and her appearance everywhere was accompanied by an epidemic of visions and prophesyings, which culminated in the appearance in 1811 of the comet
Comet
A comet is an icy small Solar System body that, when close enough to the Sun, displays a visible coma and sometimes also a tail. These phenomena are both due to the effects of solar radiation and the solar wind upon the nucleus of the comet...
, a sure sign of the approaching end.
In 1812 she was at Strassburg, whence she paid more than one visit to J. F. Oberlin
Jean Frédéric Oberlin
J. F. Oberlin was an Alsatian pastor and philanthropist. He has been known as John Frederic Oberlin in English, Jean-Frédéric Oberlin in French, and Johann Friedrich Oberlin in German....
, the famous pastor of Waldbach
Waldbach
Waldbach is a municipality in the district of Hartberg in Styria, Austria. There is also a Waldbach in Baden-Württemberg, Germany....
in Steinthal (Ban de la Roche), and where she had the glory of converting her host, Adrien de Lazay-Marnesia, the prefect. In 1813 she was at Geneva
Geneva
Geneva In the national languages of Switzerland the city is known as Genf , Ginevra and Genevra is the second-most-populous city in Switzerland and is the most populous city of Romandie, the French-speaking part of Switzerland...
, where she established the faith of a band of young pietists in revolt against the Calvinist
Calvinism
Calvinism is a Protestant theological system and an approach to the Christian life...
Church authorities notably Henri Louis Empeytaz, afterwards the companion of her crowning evangelistic triumph. In September 1814 she was again at Waldbach, where Empeytaz had preceded her; and at Strassburg, where the party was joined by Franz Karl von Berckheim, whom she afterward married. She had been condemned some years previously in Württemberg to the pillory and three years imprisonment as a swindler (Betrugerin), on her own confession. Her curious history is given in detail by M. Muhlenbeck.
In 1809 it was obviously inconvenient to have people proclaiming Napoleon as the Beast. At the end of the year she returned with her daughters and Empeytaz to Baden, a fateful migration.
The empress Elizabeth of Russia was now at Karlsruhe; and she and the pietist ladies of her entourage hoped that the emperor Alexander
Alexander I of Russia
Alexander I of Russia , served as Emperor of Russia from 23 March 1801 to 1 December 1825 and the first Russian King of Poland from 1815 to 1825. He was also the first Russian Grand Duke of Finland and Lithuania....
might find at the hands of Madame de Krüdener the peace which an interview with Jung-Stilling had failed to bring him. The baroness herself wrote urgent letters to Roxandre de Stourdza, sister of Alexandre Stourdza
Alexandru Sturdza
Alexandru Sturdza was a Russian publicist and diplomat of Romanian origin. In his writings, he referred to himself with a French rendition of his name, Alexandre Stourdza.-Life:...
the tsar's Romania
Romania
Romania is a country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeastern Europe, on the Lower Danube, within and outside the Carpathian arch, bordering on the Black Sea...
n secretary, begging her to procure an interview. There seemed to be no result; but the correspondence paved the way for the opportunity which a strange chance was to give her of realizing her ambition.
The Baroness and the Tsar
In the spring of 1815 the baroness was settled at SchlüchternSchlüchtern
Schlüchtern is a town in the Main-Kinzig district, in Hessen, Germany. It is located on the river Kinzig at the southwest of a hill called Landrücken, approx. 30 km southwest of Fulda.-History:...
, a Baden enclave in Württemberg, busy persuading the peasants to sell all and fly from the wrath to come. Near this, at Heilbronn
Heilbronn
Heilbronn is a city in northern Baden-Württemberg, Germany. It is completely surrounded by Heilbronn County and with approximately 123.000 residents, it is the sixth-largest city in the state....
, the emperor Alexander established his headquarters on June 4. That very night the baroness sought and obtained an interview. To the tsar, who had been brooding alone over an open Bible
Bible
The Bible refers to any one of the collections of the primary religious texts of Judaism and Christianity. There is no common version of the Bible, as the individual books , their contents and their order vary among denominations...
, her sudden arrival seemed an answer to his prayers; for three hours the prophetess preached her strange gospel, while the most powerful man in Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
sat, his face buried in his hands, sobbing like a child; until at last he declared that he had found peace. At the tsar's request she followed him to Heidelberg
Heidelberg
-Early history:Between 600,000 and 200,000 years ago, "Heidelberg Man" died at nearby Mauer. His jaw bone was discovered in 1907; with scientific dating, his remains were determined to be the earliest evidence of human life in Europe. In the 5th century BC, a Celtic fortress of refuge and place of...
and later to Paris, where she was lodged at the Hotel Montchenu, next door to the imperial headquarters in the Élysée Palace
Élysée Palace
The Élysée Palace is the official residence of the President of the French Republic, containing his office, and is where the Council of Ministers meets. It is located near the Champs-Élysées in Paris....
. A private door connected the establishments, and every evening the emperor went to take part in the prayer-meetings conducted by the baroness and Empeytaz. Chiliasm seemed to have found an entrance into the high councils of Europe, and the baroness von Krüdener had become a political force to be reckoned with. Admission to her religious gatherings was sought by a crowd of people celebrated in the intellectual and social world; Chateaubriand came, and Benjamin Constant
Benjamin Constant
Henri-Benjamin Constant de Rebecque was a Swiss-born French nobleman, thinker, writer and politician.-Biography:...
, Madame Recamier
Jeanne Françoise Julie Adélaïde Récamier
Jeanne-Françoise Julie Adélaïde Bernard Récamier , known as Juliette, was a French society leader, whose salon drew Parisians from the leading literary and political circles of the early 19th century.-Biography:...
, the duchesse de Bourbon, and Madame de Duras. The fame of the wonderful conversion, moreover, attracted other members of the chilastic fraternity, among them Fontaines, who brought with him the prophetess Marie Kummer.
In this religious forcing-house the idea of the Holy Alliance
Holy Alliance
The Holy Alliance was a coalition of Russia, Austria and Prussia created in 1815 at the behest of Czar Alexander I of Russia, signed by the three powers in Paris on September 26, 1815, in the Congress of Vienna after the defeat of Napoleon.Ostensibly it was to instill the Christian values of...
germinated and grew to rapid maturity. On September 26 the portentous proclamation, which was to herald the opening of a new age of peace and goodwill on earth, was signed by the sovereigns of Russia, Austria and Prussia. Its authorship has ever been a matter of dispute. Madame de Krüdener herself claimed that she had suggested the idea, and that Alexander had submitted the draft for her approval. This is probably correct, though the tsar later, when he had recovered his mental equilibrium, reproved her for her indiscretion in talking of the matter. His eyes, indeed, had begun to be opened before he left Paris, and Marie Kummer was the unintentional cause. At the very first séance the prophetess, whose revelations had been praised by the baroness in extravagant terms, had the evil inspiration to announce in her trance to the emperor that it was God's will that he should endow the religious colony to which she belonged! Alexander merely remarked that he had received too many such revelations before to be impressed. The baroness's influence was shaken but not destroyed, and before he left Paris Alexander gave her a passport to Russia. She was not to see him again.
She left Paris on October 22, 1815, intending to travel to St. Petersburg by way of Switzerland. The tsar, however, offended by her indiscretions and sensible of the ridicule which his relations with her had brought upon him, showed little disposition to hurry her arrival. She remained in Switzerland, where she presently fell under the influence of an unscrupulous adventurer named J. G. Kellner. For months Empeytaz, an honest enthusiast, struggled to save her from this man's clutches but in vain. Kellner too well knew how to flatter the baroness's inordinate vanity: the author of the Holy Alliance
Holy Alliance
The Holy Alliance was a coalition of Russia, Austria and Prussia created in 1815 at the behest of Czar Alexander I of Russia, signed by the three powers in Paris on September 26, 1815, in the Congress of Vienna after the defeat of Napoleon.Ostensibly it was to instill the Christian values of...
could be none other than the "woman clothed with the sun" of Revelations
Book of Revelation
The Book of Revelation is the final book of the New Testament. The title came into usage from the first word of the book in Koine Greek: apokalupsis, meaning "unveiling" or "revelation"...
. Meanwhile, Berckheim had been French commissioner of police in Mainz
Mainz
Mainz under the Holy Roman Empire, and previously was a Roman fort city which commanded the west bank of the Rhine and formed part of the northernmost frontier of the Roman Empire...
and had abandoned his post in 1813.
She wandered with Kellner from place to place, proclaiming her mission, working miracles, persuading her converts to sell all and follow her. Crowds of beggars and rapscallions of every description gathered wherever she went, supported by the charities squandered from the common fund. She became a nuisance to the authorities and a menace to the peace; Württemberg had expelled her, and the example was followed by every Swiss
Switzerland
Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....
canton she entered in turn. At last, in May 1818, she set out for her estate in Kosse, Livonia (now Viitina, Estonia
Estonia
Estonia , officially the Republic of Estonia , is a state in the Baltic region of Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by the Gulf of Finland, to the west by the Baltic Sea, to the south by Latvia , and to the east by Lake Peipsi and the Russian Federation . Across the Baltic Sea lies...
), accompanied by Kellner and a remnant of the elect.
The emperor Alexander having opened the Crimea
Crimea
Crimea , or the Autonomous Republic of Crimea , is a sub-national unit, an autonomous republic, of Ukraine. It is located on the northern coast of the Black Sea, occupying a peninsula of the same name...
to German and Swiss chiliasts in search of a land of promise, the baroness's son-in-law Berckheim and his wife now went there to help establish the new colonies. In November 1820 the baroness at last went herself to St. Petersburg, where Berckheim was lying ill. She was there when the news arrived of Ypsilanti's invasion of the Danubian
Danube
The Danube is a river in the Central Europe and the Europe's second longest river after the Volga. It is classified as an international waterway....
principalities, which opened the war of Greek
Greece
Greece , officially the Hellenic Republic , and historically Hellas or the Republic of Greece in English, is a country in southeastern Europe....
independence. She at once proclaimed the divine mission of the tsar to take up arms on behalf of Christendom. Alexander, however, had long since exchanged her influence for that of Metternich, and he was far from anxious to be forced into even a holy war. To the baroness's overtures he replied in a long and polite letter, the gist of which was that she must leave St. Petersburg at once. In 1823 the death of Kellner, whom to the last she regarded as a saint, was a severe blow to her. Her health was failing, but she allowed herself to be persuaded by Princess Galitzine
Galitzine
For Orthodox clergyman and theologian, see Alexander Golitzin.The Galitzines are one of the largest and noblest princely houses of Russia. Since the extinction of the Korecki family in the 17th century, the Golitsyns have claimed dynastic seniority in the House of Gediminas...
to accompany her to the Crimea, where she had established a Swiss colony. Here, at Karasubazar
Bilohirsk
Bilohirsk , formerly Karasubazar is a town in Crimea, Ukraine, situated 25 miles east-northeast of Simferopol on the Biyuk Karasu river. Both Russian and Ukrainian names mean "white mountains", and original Crimean Tatar name Qarasuvbazar means "bazaar on the Karasu river".The site is low, but...
, she died on December 25, 1824.
However, Mme. de Krudener, as we shall see, preserved a certain magnetic attraction up to the very last years of her life. Added to this she possess an extreme gracefulness of carriage and lightness of motion, which, together with her fair curling hair that fell in soft ringlets around her face, lent an air of unusual youthfulness to her appearance,”
Sainte-Beuve said of Madame de Krüdener: "Elle avait un immense besoin que le monde s'occupât d'elle . . . ; l'amour propre, toujours l'amour propre . . ." A kindlier epitaph might, perhaps, be written in her own words, uttered after the revelation of the misery of the Crimean colonists had at last opened her eyes: "The good that I have done will endure; the evil that I have done (for how often have I not mistaken for the voice of God that which was no more than the result of my imagination and my pride) the mercy of God will blot out".
Further reading
Much information about Madame de Krüdener, colored by the author's views, is to be found in H. L. Empeytaz's Notice sur Alexandre, empereur de Russie (2nd ed., Paris, 1840). The Vie de Madame de Krüdener (2 vols., Paris, 1849), by the Swiss banker and Philhellene J. G. EynardJean-Gabriel Eynard
Jean-Gabriel Eynard was a Swiss banker.-Biography:Jean-Gabriel Eynard although belonging to a family who had settled in Switzerland since the 17th century was actually born in Lyon France - where his father owned a business - on December 28 1775...
, was long the standard life and contains much material, but is far from authoritative. In English appeared the Life and Letters of Madame de Krüdener, by Clarence Ford (London, 1893). The most authoritative study, based on a wealth of original research, is E. Mühlenbeck's Étude sur les origines de la Sainte-Alliance (Paris, 1909), in which numerous references are given.