• 148. Caroline to Franz Oberthür in Göttingen: Gotha, 21 September 1794
Gotha, 21 September 1794
|352| One of your remarks concerning me to my friend Madam Gotter makes it necessary for me to say a few words to you, honorable sir, to justify myself.
You are about to perform a service for me once again [1] — I could not accept it tranquilly were I to think you doubted my heart for even a single moment. You would, indeed, however, have good cause to do so were it true that I ever arrogantly neglected unequivocal friendship. —
After arriving here, I did not visit all those who had admittedly formerly been among my closest acquaintances, namely, the two sisters Gelbke and Grabstich. [2] I did not do so because, given the situation at the time, it was for all practical purposes impossible. I knew that in the first house, they feared my visit and had already earlier expressed embarrassment in that regard — I knew that Madam Gelbke, motivated by I know not which impulses, had made the following statement right in the face of my best friends in a public gathering upon hearing the initial rumor of the accident that befell me — “It serves her right; why did she bring it on herself?”
What hope could such words allow me to entertain, uttered as they were at a time when my situation could not but elicit sympathy in even the most indifferent person? And what else, without denying myself a justified sense of self and without denying discretion and tact, |353| could I do than treat those whom my misfortune had frightened away as if they were not present?
In truth, it was only out of consideration for her sister that I did not see Madam Grabstich, about whom, by the way, I myself have absolutely no complaints. In the larger sense, I left it to each individual who was yet favorably inclined toward me to give me a sign to that effect, something certainly easy enough to do. That anyone could fear I might impose myself on the hospitality of others was merely one more proof of how little people really did know me. At the time, people were relieved not to have to deal with the issue of such hospitality by my decision to remain in the background in any event — and if those same people are now speaking differently, it is presumably because they are beginning to feel a bit ashamed.
Be it at all possible, however, I do not intend to leave Gotha before having reconciled, to whatever extent I am able, with these companions of former times as well.
May these lines simultaneously remind you of your gracious promise, of which I would still like to take advantage insofar as even after sincere consideration my decision remains the same. Please give my regards to your dear hosts [3] and, in company with them, be assured of my most sincere gratitude.
Caroline Böhmer
Notes
[1] Uncertain reference; Caroline mentions this “promise” again at the conclusion to the letter. Back.
[2] “The two sisters Gelbke and Grabstich” are also mentioned in Caroline’s letters to Friedrich Ludwig Wilhelm Meyer on 16 March, 10 May, and 30–31 August 1794 (letters 143, 144, 147) (Leipziger Taschenbuch für Frauenzimmer zum Nutzen und Vergnügen auf das Jahr 1798; Inhaltsverzeichnis deutscher Almanache, Theodor Springmann Stiftung):
Concerning the qualification “formerly . . . among my closest acquaintances”: Caroline had last been in Gotha during October 1791 with her sister Luise, i.e., before leaving for Mainz. It was during that visit that Josias Friedrich Löffler had made Caroline’s acquaintance and, albeit indirectly through the family of Friedrich Wilhelm Gotter, made a proposal of marriage. The Gelbkes, who, like Löffler, were associated with the church administration in Gotha, likely met her at one of those gatherings; Johann Heinrich Gelbke himself had been in Gotha since 1779. Löffler’s high esteem for Caroline even after such a short acquaintance might well have influenced the Gelbkes if Caroline herself had not already done so. In the meantime, however, Caroline had been in Mainz and Königstein, and rumors about her pregnancy had doubtless also reached Gotha.
Concerning her reputation at the time, see her letter to Friedrich Ludwig Wilhelm Meyer on 7 June 1794 (letter 145), note 13. Back.
[3] Waitz (1882), 27, adds the footnote:
The reference is probably to the elder Eichhorn, with whom Oberthür was close friends from as early as the latter’s own early Jena period. Eichhorn’s extremely numerous letters to Oberthür are one of the most interesting parts of the epistolary collections in the Würzburg library (personal communication from Franz Xaver von Wegele [1823–97]).
Concerning just what Oberthür, a Catholic theologian from Würzburg, was doing in Jena (and Göttingen) with the Protestant Johann Gottfried Eichhorn (Eichhorn had been in Göttingen since 1788), see Franz X. von Wegele, “Franz O. Oberthür,” Vorträge und Abhandlungen, ed. R. Graf Du Moulin Eckart (Leipzig 1898), 233–41, here 237:
One can certainly understand that since Oberthür found so little understanding for his work [as an Enlightenment theologian] at home [Würzburg], he was all the more assiduous in cultivating connections he had made in northern Germany. Jena, Weimar, Gotha, and Göttingen were the places where such connections extended; men such as especially the elder Eichhorn, then also Meiners, Böttiger, etc. were the ones with whom he corresponded most frequently, though his correspondents also included Karoline Böhmer and later even the constitutional bishop Gregoire.
But he also established closer connections with the Münster circle, Princess Gallitzin, the Domdechant Spiegel von Desenberg, and others. Moreover, he visited the aforementioned towns repeatedly.
If, as has been intimated, Oberthür’s vanity may have played a bit of a role in this regard, and though he in fact may have quite fancied the role of establishing cordial connections between the North and South, Protestants and Catholics, such would probably be the least of the weaknesses with which one might charge him and certainly also not an isolated instance at that time.
Oberthür was in fact an intimate family friend of the Eichhorns. See Oberbibliothekar Kerler, Würzburg, “Zur Lebensgeschichte Karl Friedrich Eichhorns. Mittheilungen aus ungedruckten Briefen,” Zeitschrift der Savigny-Stiftung für Rechtsgeschichte, vol. 3 = vol. xvi of Zeitschrift für Rechtsgeschichte, Germanistische Abtheilung (Weimar 1882), 177–96, here 178–79, in a preface to several letters the elder Eichhorn (father of Karl Friedrich Eichhorn) wrote to Oberthür:
They [the letters] discuss things of such an intimate nature that the addressee had to have stood in an extremely close relationship with the Eichhorn family in Göttingen. And such was indeed the case. Dr. Franz Oberthür — for it is to him that these letters are addressed — an ecclesiastical Rath and canon as well as professor of dogmatics at the university in Würzburg — had already been closely associated with Johann Gottfried Eichhorn for many years through the bonds of friendship, taking an active interest in both the weal and woe of his friend and the latter’s family, always ready to help and bring joy.
Although he was not really a scholar, notwithstanding he did actively publish in various fields, he was an educated and cultivated man receptive to the entire breadth of intellectual impressions, a true representative of the Enlightenment period in the Catholic sphere, full of zeal for the practical goals of humanitarian striving in both narrower and broader contexts.
And he had connections in every direction: at the Weimar court as well as in Vienna or tiny Wetzlar, in Italy just as in the Protestant universities in northern Germany. This busy cleric cultivated these connections and patronages through an unusually broad correspondence as well as annual journeys. Eichhorn had corresponded with him since 1780; indeed, nothing happened in the family without the friend in Würzburg immediately receiving the news, who then, as just mentioned, never tarried in expressing his heartfelt concern. Back.
Translation © 2011 Doug Stott