Diana Rabe von Pappenheim

Diana Rabe von Pappenheim (also Diana von Pappenheim, born January 25, 1788 at Ollwiller Castle at Wuenheim in Alsace, † December 18, 1844 in Weimar) was temporarily mistress of King Jérôme Bonaparte of Westphalia.

Origin

Diana's father was the Baron Gottfried Waldner of friend Stone (1757-1818), an artillery officer, member of the General Council of the Upper Rhine knighthood and the imperial knights in the Ortenau and the Wetterau, son of Count Franz Ludwig Waldner of friend Stone (1710-1788), Mr. to Schmieheim, and his wife Wilhelmine Auguste Sophie Eleonore of Berckheim to Rappoltsweiler. Her mother was Friederike from stone to North and Ostheim (1767-1797), daughter of Baron Dietrich Philip Augustus from stone to North and Ostheim (1741-1803) and his wife Maria Elisabeth Wilhelmine Susanne from and to the Thann. Diana grew up (1789-1880) and the sisters Isabelle, Cecile and Adele with her brothers Theodor (1786-1864) and Eduard. Her brother Edward Waldner friend of Stone (Edouard de Waldner Friend stone) was under Napoleon lieutenant general and senator. Henriette von Oberkirch (1754-1803) was a sister of her father.

Life

Youth

As a result of the French Revolution, the family lost most of their possessions and their resulting income. In order to ensure the future supply of the daughters, they were after they reached the appropriate age and the necessary education had attained, ladies in princely homes. Diana and her sister Isabelle first went to Kassel in 1802, two years later roof Weimar. Isabelle was maid of honor of the Duchess Luise (1757-1830), the now 16 -year-old Diana at the Princess Beatrice and Tsar 's daughter Maria Pavlovna.

First marriage

In Weimar, the pretty and vivacious Diana learned over 20 years his senior chamberlain Wilhelm Maximilian Rabe von Pappenheim ( 1764-1815 ), who fell in love and married her in Jahre1806. A year later, their son Gottfried was born. 1808, Diana was expecting her second child, the couple had to return in the meantime, created by Napoleon for his youngest brother Jérôme Kingdom of Westphalia, to avoid being expropriated: Jérôme's edict was that all living in " foreign ", " Westphalen " under penalty of confiscation their goods had to return to the country. Gentry had himself or herself at court.

King's mistress

Shortly after the birth of her second son Alfred in September 1808, the couple Rabe von Pappenheim went to the royal court in Kassel. Diana was maid of Queen Catherine, her husband Chamberlain Jérôme. The marriage of the two was problematic, not only because of the considerable age difference, but also because William nerve ailment that forced him to say goodbye to the Electorate of Hesse Military years ago. While he therefore relief in various spas sought, and their two sons Gottfried and Alfred were added to a priest in the resin board, Diana enjoyed life at the court of " King Funny". They apparently had a particularly close relationship with Jerome's favorites, Pierre Alexandre le Camus: in August 1809, listed the Paris envoy in Kassel, Karl Friedrich Reinhard that Le Camus had separated because of his marriage with the Countess Adelaide von Hardenberg of Mrs. Pappenheim. Since Le Camus had raved about the king from her, she had awakened Jerome's interest, but his advances initially resisted well as Reinhard suggestively wrote in a note dated 10 August 1809. However, in March 1810, she traveled with the royal couple to the wedding of Napoleon to Marie -Louise of Austria to Paris; her husband did not travel with.

On September 7, 1811 Diana gave birth to a daughter. Jérôme even held her at the baptism, and she received the name Jeromée Catharina. She became known as Jenny from Gustedt (1811-1890), grandmother of women's rights activist and writer Lily Braun ( 1865-1916 ). Since the marriage of Diana with William Rabe von Pappenheim still existed, he recognized the child as his legitimate daughter.

Almost three months later, on November 30, 1811, was raised to the rank of count Westphalian Wilhelm Rabe von Pappenheim. This helped him become the first chamberlain and master of ceremonies, but obviously not to deal with the public and scandalous breakdown of his marriage. He withdrew more and more from the back yard, fell increasingly into depression and finally collapsed. After an unsuccessful treatment in the Paris Hôpital de la Salpêtrière mental hospital, he returned to his castle back strains, there dawned to himself and died two years later, on January 3, 1815.

It is not known where Diana was staying at that time to the death of her husband. Certainly, however, that they continued to enjoy Jerome's attentions. On 4 October 1813 in the last days of the Kingdom of Westphalia - Kassel on September 30 / 1 Been taken in October of Cossacks of the Russian General Tschernyschow - she gave birth Schonfeld castle in Kassel another daughter, who was given the name Marie Pauline von Schönfeld after its birthplace. The child was soon brought it secretly to Paris to the convent of Notre Dame des Oiseaux and grew up there and in Diana's relatives in Alsace. 1832 Marie Pauline appeared as a nun with the name Marie de la Croix in this monastery, became superior of the convent, and died there in 1873.

Second Marriage

Diana went to her husband's death in 1815 with her daughter Jenny back to Weimar, where she was shooting with her sister Isabelle, who had married in the meantime the General August Karl of Egloffstein. Since the Hereditary Princess Maria Pavlovna she resumed with open arms, their position was secured in the weimar society. In the fall of 1815, she met the widowed since 1811 Privy Councillor, diplomats, and later Minister of State Ernst Christian August von Gersdorff ( 1781-1852 ), who had led the Saxe-Weimar- Eisenach delegation at the Congress of Vienna and had just returned to Weimar. The two married on January 20, 1816. Marriage lasted 28 years and seems to have been happy. Gersdorff took Diana's daughter Jenny to himself, just as the two sons Gottfried and Alfred Rabe von Pappenheim as comrades of his own son Charles from his first marriage to Amalie of Damnitz. In 1821 their daughter Cécile to the world. Diana devoted himself entirely to their large family.

Illness and death

She suffered from a chronic and ever -worsening gall bladder and therefore took from 1830 mineral water treatments in Carlsbad or Bad Kissingen. The disease Angang of the 1840s worsened considerably, but refused an operation from Diana. She died on December 18, 1844 at the age of 56 years. Your life later worked with the material for a novel.