Princess Amalie Zephyrine of Salm-Kyrburg
Zephyrine Amalie of Salm- Kyrburg ( born March 6, 1760 Paris, † October 17, 1841 in Sigmaringen ) married 1782 the Crown Prince Anton Aloys of Hohenzollern- Sigmaringen and is considered the " savior of the Hohenzollerns ." She came from a German noble family, primarily engaged in environment of the court of King Louis XVI. lived.
Life
Amalie Zephyrine was born as the eighth child of Prince Philip Joseph of Salm- Kyrburg, First Prince of Salm- Kyrburg (1709-1779), and Maria Theresa of Hornes, eldest daughter of Prince Maximilian of Hornes, 1760 in Paris. She was baptized in the parish church of Saint- Sulpice. She grew up in Paris. However, the family seat of the von Salm- Kyrburg was Kirn on the Nahe River in present-day Rhineland- Palatinate. 1780 authorize her brother Prince Frederick III. Johann Otto Salm- Kyrburg (1745-1794, reign 1778-94 ), to whom she was very close, the Parisian architect Jacques Denis Antoine with building a wild and Rhine Count, baroque summer residence for Amalie Zephyrine below the ancestral castle of the family in Kirn. The residence received her honor the name of Amalienborg desire, however, was not entirely completed during her lifetime. Named after former ideas very modern and comfortable townhouse is how the house not far from lying, the Friedrich III. had built for himself and his wife Princess Johanna Franziska von Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen (1765-1790), largely preserved faithfully. Chic claims have been satisfied by a theater, which completed the Kirner ensemble.
Pursuant to the request of their parents was born on November 29, 1781 in Strasbourg, on the occasion of the marriage of Frederick III. with Jane, the engagement of Joan's brother, the Crown Prince Anton Aloys of Hohenzollern- Sigmaringen (1762-1831) announced by Amalie Zephyrine. 1782 was closed in Piarist Kirn, now the Town Hall building, the marriage of Zephyrine Amalie of Salm- Kyrburg. In five kilometers located on Castle Dhaun the wedding ceremony took place on August 13, 1782.
His first winter spent together the young couple in Paris. In 1784 Amalie Zephyrine for the first time to Sigmaringen, but felt the life in the small residential town on the Danube as " unbearably stifling ." Paris was already the end of the 18th century a large city, Sigmaringen, however, had barely 1,000 inhabitants. Just one year later, ten weeks after the birth of their son Karl, she fled disguised as a man from the Upper Swabian province to Kirn to her brother Frederick III. and his wife Johanna. Your son left her.
In Paris, her brother was the architect Pierre Rousseau 1782-1787 a noble palace, the Hôtel de Salm ( on the Rue de Lille and the Quai d' Orsay, since 1804 the palace and museum, founded in 1802 Legion of Honour ) and built by Antoine- François Peyre equip. The Parisian residence of the family of Salm- Kyrburg was soon a meeting of the high noble patricians of pre-revolutionary France.
However, when the French Revolution took its course, both Amalie Zephyrine brother Frederick III beat. as well as her lover Alexandre de Beauharnais to the side of the revolution. Both men sat a while the Jacobin Reign of Terror in prison Conciergerie and left her life in 1794 under the guillotine. Amalie Zephyrine himself survived the revolution, the death of her brother she employed, to judge from his correspondence, but very. In 1797 it acquired a secret treaty the cemetery Cimetière de Picpus on which her brother and her lover were buried in mass graves. They nevertheless used the best contacts with influential personalities of the revolution such as Charles -Maurice de Talleyrand -Périgord and Josephine, the widow of her former lover, who in 1796 had married Napoleon Bonaparte.
1799 came Helene d' isque, later Helene von Schatzberg († 1861), was born and lived from August 1800 to January 1824, the year of her marriage to Friedrich von Laßberg, in the household of the Princess. Rumors are not silent, and recent research suggests that Helene was the illegitimate daughter of the Princess from her extramarital relationship with the French colonel Charles de Voumard ( 1761-1841 ). Charles de Voumard, who later called himself Karl Heinrich Voumard of fortress had, the Princess IV appointed in 1797 tutor to her 8 -year-old orphaned nephew Friedrich von Salm- Kyrburg.
From the Congress of Rastatt in 1799 to the negotiation of the Act of Confederation, 1806 Amalie used its relations with the Napoleonic court to advocate in favor of her son Charles for the preservation of the Principality of Hohenzollern -Sigmaringen and its full sovereignty. She could finally turn away the threat of media coverage in favor of Württemberg or Baden both of Hohenzollern- Sigmaringen and Hohenzollern - Hechingen from. At the same time Amalie Zephyrine began for the newly created Principality of Salm, and represented its designated princes, her minor nephew Frederick IV of Salm- Kyrburg, as guardian.
As of 1806 they drove for political reasons, the marriage of Hohenzollern - house with the French nobility ahead. She arranged the closed in February 1808 wedding of her son Charles with Antoinette Murat, ward by Joachim Murat, Napoleon Bonaparte with the youngest sister, Caroline, was married and ascended to the Grand Duke of Berg and King of Naples.
1808, after twenty turbulent years in Paris, Amalie Zephyrine finally returned to Hohenzollern - Sigmaringen. At first they lived estranged together with the young couple from July 1808 still by Anton Aloys, in the castle of Krauchenwies. In nearby Inzigkofen it was directed from 1810 own a royal household. The former office building of the monastery secularized Inzigkofen was converted to a country chateau. 1811 she left Krauchenwies finally, to live henceforth in Inzigkofen. Towards the Danube they had in the same year a still existing landscape park in the English style to create. In the park they let her beloved brother put a monument. Later, and until her death she lived in what is now called the Old Prinzenbau in Sigmaringen, to her husband Anton Aloys in the years 1822 to 1825 had erected especially for them. Inzigkofen served her and her grandson Prince Karl Anton as a summer residence.
In the House of Hohenzollern, there were, unlike in other German noble houses, never a discussion about a possible divorce. Although you lived apart, Anton Aloys but she visited regularly and kept with her friendly correspondence. Even Anton Aloys was always on their bills.
Amalie Zephyrine died in 1841 age of 81 in Sigmaringen. Their subjects, they estimated as generous princess, the Amalie rock in Danube Valley bears, donated by her son Charles, her name and a memorial inscription and the alliance coat of arms ( Salm- Kyrburg and Hohenzollern -Sigmaringen ).