• 83. Caroline to Lotte Michaelis: Clausthal, before Christmas 1787
[Clausthal] Monday 7:00
[1787 before Christmas]
|166| [(Written at approximately the same time): Auguste looks like an angel today, in a white dress with a dark purple sash (actually, I had her blue one dyed), with cheeks, eyes, and hair making her look like the most promising blonde.] [1]
Heaven knows what is making me wake up each morning now as early as the wife of some bailiff who has to have made her daily ronde through the stalls even before daybreak; I am wide awake at 5 a.m. and at 7 a.m. am already sitting h[ere] at breakfast with my two children, an hour that is in fact quite pleasant. [2] Auguste is already getting up after I do, for she is getting all grown-up and smart and is now sleeping longer.
Since the evening of the day before yesterday I have admittedly indeed known what is bothering me. — Perhaps all of you intentionally did not want to tell me anything about what happened to our poor brother, or perhaps it was presented to you as being a not very serious [illness(?)] . . .
Apropos, Knigge’s novel, at least in my opinion, is probably the best thing he has written, and |167| he is Philo, as Trebra — who doubtless has it from a reliable source — tells us. [3] Böhmer thought so as soon as he read Knigge’s version of the development of the Illuminati system; I objected because I did not really find any of Knigge’s style in Philo’s letters, but it is certain.
Please assure me that for my Christmas pleasure you will send me the Amtmannin von Hohenweiler, and more as well, indeed as much as possible, for I will perhaps be spending those three, boring, do-nothing days being quite lonely; [4] I do not want to work and am too ashamed to beg. Because all of you there will be having your pickenik, you will not be doing much reading, and given the free time I will have, I can certainly send things back the very next week.
Now to the matters of concern. We are quite literally of one mind concerning the cursed fashion accoutrements, which, like love, plague us both when we have them and when we do not. . . .
You probably have not seen Madam Böhmer, or? I fear she does not have much longer, given the description of her condition she herself has given with the most serene courage and hope. Böhmer says absolutely nothing can be done for her; her treatments are merely helping her get through this time. It seems to me that only few in the family really recognize the danger she is in. [5] Nor, I imagine, is Pine, [6] that disobliging squat, probably really caring for her in the tender, gentle spirit of proper final care.
The Niepers are coming Christmas. [7] Ah, if I could spend but a single day there with all of you! My respects to your intimate friends and amis of the soul. Behave yourself, fulfill all my wishes and expectations. Greetings to Mother, Louise, Philipp. Now I wish that Philipp could travel to Marburg. [8] May heaven grant us genuinely good news from there for Christmas.
Ever, ever yours,
Caroline
Notes
[1] Concerning Auguste’s appearance, see the gallery of portraits, which includes images of persons she is said to have resembled.
Otherwise, Auguste was now almost two years and eight months old, and her appearance during these early years likely approximated that of the young girls in the following illustrations ([1] frontispiece to Flora: Teutschlands Töchtern geweiht von Freunden und Freundinnen des schönen Geschlechts [1795]; [2] Johann Friedrich Cotta’s Taschenbuch für Damen auf das Jahr 1800; Inhaltsverzeichnis deutscher Almanache, Theodor Springmann Stiftung):
[2] Representative illustration: Daniel Nikolaus Chodowiecki, Kupfersammlung zu J[ohann] B[ernhard] Basedows Elementarwerke für die Jugend und ihre Freunde: Erste Lieferung in 53 Tafeln. Zweyte Lieferung in 47 Tafeln von L bis XCVI (Leipzig, Dessau, Berlin 1774), plate I:
[3] Caroline is referring to two different pieces by Adolf von Knigge, namely, first, the novel about “a philosopher’s erring path,” Die Verirrungen des Philosophen, oder Geschichte Ludwigs von Seelberg, 2 vols. (Frankfurt/Main 1787) (here the frontispieces):
The second piece is Knigge’s response to his disenchantment with the Freemason group into which he had been initiated as “Philo” and which he eventually left, namely, Philos endliche Erklärung und Antwort auf verschiedene Anforderungen und Fragen, die an ihn ergangen, seine Verbindung mit den Illuminaten betreffend (Hannover 1788). Back.
[4] Benedikte Naubert, Die Amtmannin von Hohenweiler. Eine wirkliche Geschichte aus Familienpapieren gezogen, vom Verfasser d[es] Walter v[on] Montbarry (Leipzig 1787) (here the frontispieces to vols. 1 and 2 of the edition of 1791, and to the edition Hohenzollern 1797):
As the title indicates, the same author had already published Walter von Montbarry, Grossmeister des Tempelordens (also variously cited as Templerordens, Tempelherrordens), 2 vols. (Leipzig 1786) (Eng. trans. Walter de Monbary, Grand Master of the Knights Templars. An Historical Romance, 4 cols. [London, 1803]), involving the Catholic military order of the Knights Templar, founded in the early 12th century and generally associated with the Crusades. Here the frontispiece to vol. 1 of the the 1786 German edition (vol. 2 had no frontispiece) and an illustration of the original Knights Templar uniform from the Historisch Genealogischer Calender auf das Jahr 1790; Inhaltsverzeichnis deutscher Almanache, Theodor Springmann Stiftung:
Naubert’s works were published anonymously until 1817. Back.
[5] Henriette Philippine Elisabeth Böhmer, Caroline’s mother-in-law, would live until 1796, her husband, Georg Ludwig Böhmer, until 1797. Back.
[6] Presumably a domestic. Back.
[7] Georg Heinrich and Charlotte (née Böhmer) Nieper (title vignette to Heinrich Beck, Das Herz behält seine Rechte [Berlin 1788]):
For Caroline’s description of Christmas 1787 in Clausthal, see her letter to Lotte on 27 December 1787 (letter 84), though she makes no mention of the Niepers there. Back.
[8] Caroline’s elder (half-)brother, Christian Friedrich Michaelis, had been appointed professor of medicine in Marburg at Easter 1786, and her younger brother, Gottfried Philipp, would continue his own medical studies there, registering as a student on 13 October 1788 (Post Karte Durch ganz Deutschland, ed. J. Walch [Augsburg 1795])
Translation © 2011 Doug Stott