Martin Reulecke
“Madame Lucifer”: Notes Concerning a Caroline-Epithet [*]
|183| Hardly a single text concerning Caroline Schlegel-Schelling (1763–1809) fails to mention the epithet “Madame Lucifer,” one with which several of Caroline’s own, sooner ill-disposed contemporaries remembered this Romantic lady at the beginning of the nineteenth century. [1] The philologist Ludwig Urlichs had barely reintroduced this epithet to the reading public in 1865, drawing it out of the obscurity of private correspondence in Charlotte von Schiller und ihre Freunde, [2] when the historian Georg Waitz published the first collection of Caroline’s letters — a collection that in its own turn quickly caused a considerable stir.
Two considerations seem to have contributed most to this designation being gratefully received and subsequently firmly anchored in the repertoire of what in the meantime has become over 130 years of Caroline scholarship and reception. First, the suspicion that its initiator might well have been “our great national writer Schiller.” [3] Second, the notion that the very concept of the “Luciferian” expresses particularly well the puzzling personality of Caroline Schlegel-Schelling, a personality allegedly oscillating between “good” and “evil.”
|184| In many of the pieces written about Caroline since the last third of the nineteenth century, the designation “Madame Lucifer” functions merely as a catchphrase; other texts focus more explicitly on which of Caroline’s personality or behavioral traits might have evoked this rather peculiar epithet in the first place. The literary historian Rudolf Haym, in his oft-cited standard work Die romantische Schule, provided a standard for all later interpretations when he stated apodictically and from an unmistakably negative perspective:
This brightly intelligent woman had a tongue that conceded nothing in the way of sharpness to her brother-in-law; moreover, she exhibited an inclination to coquettishness and intrigue that, while provoking the hatred of virtually all women, elicited from Schiller the titles “the Malady” and “Dame Lucifer.” [4]
Just a year later, however, Haym expressed himself anew concerning Caroline, this time in a considerably more favorable tone. [5] The reason for this transformation was that in the meantime, the previously mentioned collection of letters edited by Georg Waitz with the simple title Caroline had appeared and, moreover, spontaneously turned several rather renowned readers into ardent admirers of this long-deceased woman; Rudolf Haym, too, was unable to resist the effect of her letters. [6] In any case, a completely negative assessment or portrayal of this Romantic lady could afterward no longer be soundly supported. [7]
That this epistolary collection nonetheless — even among Caroline’s admirers — elicited more or less ambivalent reactions |185| can be explained, first, by the unusual and (such admiration notwithstanding) variously reproached path that Caroline’s life took and by the trenchantly contoured singularity of her personality, and, second, by what increasingly came to be assessed as her fulcral contribution to the alienation between the Jena Romantics and Friedrich Schiller. The designation “Madame Lucifer” was subsequently associated more strongly with this particular conflict and understood as Schiller’s derisive response to his literary rejection by Caroline and the rest of the Romantics:
Given the regnant tone in these circles, it comes as no surprise that Karoline Schlegel, too — one of the most intelligent and emancipated women in this free-spirited epoch so replete with wit and passion, later the spouse of the great philosopher Schelling, and baptized by Schiller himself as “Dame Lucifer” — not only critically took the tragedies of our great playwright so to task in her letters that they appeared utterly void of poetic value, but also insisted that after her initial reading of his “Lied von der Glocke” she almost died laughing and, as she herself relates, almost fell off her chair with laughter. [8]
That Schiller’s alleged derisiveness focused specifically on Caroline has been explained as a result of her own particularly pointed opposition toward him:
It was she who virtually summoned to life the Romantic school’s disinclination toward Schiller, and who instilled her own dislike and biased unfairness toward the great playwright into the two Schlegels and through them Schleiermacher, perhaps even Hardenberg, and finally, and indeed most decisively, Schelling. [9]
|186| Within literary-critical assessments of this field of tension, Caroline in the meantime even became known as the “feared ‘Madame Lucifer’ of the Schillerian circle,” whom Schiller would doubtless not have so designated “without at least some reason”: “He never forgave the Schlegels and their ‘clan’ for their sins against him.” [10]
Within the context of such interpretations, scholars generally utterly overlooked that it was by no means certain Schiller was indeed the initiator of the designation “Madame Lucifer.” [11] This particular shortcoming disappears in the introduction to the second, comprehensive collection of Caroline’s letters. Although its editor, the Germanist Erich Schmidt, like his predecessors, did also associate the origin of this derisive nickname directly with the literary quarrels between Schiller and the Schlegel brothers, he did not commit to any concrete, specific initiator, and took note of other aspects as well, especially of the extraordinarily tense relationship between Caroline Schlegel and Charlotte Schiller as representatives of two contrasting understandings of women:
With Schiller, who had a straightforward but short, quick path to traverse in his life and who insisted on unequivocal, upright relationships, things quickly went sour after an initial period of cordiality. In this matter, Caroline acted insincerely and then with one-sided ill will, agitating others against the writer and aesthetician: first her brother-in-law, whom Schiller had rejected with rather peremptory abruptness and who had initially entered into the relationship quite naively, and also her spouse, who at least externally was still trying to maneuver through the crisis. . . . In any event, her hostility was amply compensated in Schiller’s own household, where on the model of |187| a malicious marital invective made by the regent Philipp of Orléans, she became known as “Dame Lucifer” and “the Malady.” Indeed, from the very outset no genuinely cordial relationship was even really possible between the — in the best and worst sense — emancipated Romantic, on the one hand, and Frau Lotte, on the other, who had acquired the nickname “Madam Decency” because she — the “Dignity of Women” — was constantly asking: “Is that proper?” And yet despite her prejudice, Caroline does offer several quite legitimate and accurate literary judgments even amid her more malicious comments regarding Schiller’s dramas . . . [12]
Several years later, the author Margarete Susman focused entirely on the aspects of the epithet “Madame Lucifer” associated with women’s history, maintaining in this context that Charlotte Schiller, Schiller’s wife, was its initiator:
Charlotte Schiller’s appellation “Dame Lucifer” encompasses all her contemporaries’ negative judgments of her [Caroline] in the harshest form. And in general it was particularly women who became indignant toward her, toward the peculiar, crystalline unassailability of her being, thereafter judging her as hard, unfeeling, coquettish, and scheming. [13]
Since then, the origin of the designation “Madame Lucifer” has alternately been attributed to Friedrich Schiller, his wife, “Schiller’s household,” [14] or “Charlotte von Schiller’s circle.” [15] That one of the four women in whose contemporaneous letters this designation is found might be viewed as its initiator |188| has apparently not been considered more closely, nor is there any further evidence for such a view. [16]
One particular, significant piece of circumstantial evidence sooner supports the suspicion that the designation of Caroline as “Madame Lucifer” does indeed derive from the Schiller couple. Following up on Erich Schmidt’s casual reference to the “malicious marital invective made by the regent Philipp of Orléans,” the Germanist Norbert Oellers has provided a more precise account of how in 1805 a German translation of excerpts from the memoirs of the Duke of St. Simon (1675–1755) appeared containing among other things a chapter on the Duchess of Orléans, to whom her husband had given the nickname “Madame Lucifer.” The editor of this translation was none other than Friedrich Schiller, and at least the indirect connection with the recently coined derisive nickname for Caroline is unmistakable. [17]
Oellers, however, was concerned not with clarifying exactly who first transferred the designation “Madame Lucifer” to Caroline, but rather primarily with demonstrating that Schiller — whom he does in any case suspect was that person — did not understand the designation “solely in a derogatory, contemptuous, offended fashion,” notwithstanding his wife and “those concurring with her” used it exclusively in a pejorative meaning. Oellers adduces three arguments in support of this interpretation.
First, the term “Lucifer” is allegedly not to be used synonymously with “devil.” It was, after all, through a grand if presumptuous deed that Lucifer, the fallen angel, became a prince (of darkness) and as such was to be regarded as a noble criminal “before whom Schiller had all the more respect insofar as there was no need to acknowledge such publicly.” Schiller was, moreover, allegedly also familiar with the positive connotations of the term “Lucifer,” e.g., as an epithet for the morning star, |189| Venus. Second, Oellers points out that even in the house of Orléans, the epithet “Madame Lucifer” was already not understood in a purely negative fashion, for in the translation Schiller edited, one reads: “The Duke of Orléans, who often made fun of her pride, used to address her as Madame Lucifer; and she admitted that the name did not displease her.” Third, one can assume that Schiller was familiar with the work Lucifer, oder gereinigte Beyträge zur Geschichte der Französischen Revolution (1797/99) by the publicist Konrad Engelbert Oelsner, whose title, Oellers suggests, may have prompted Schiller to apply the epithet to Caroline: “This designation facilitated the allusion to her connection with the French Revolution, just as she was similarly to be addressed as, as it were, the successor to the Duchess of Orléans in her particular role as wife.”
As interesting as these considerations doubtless are, just as surely, on the other hand, are they anchored in the sphere of the hypothetical. They also completely disregard one obvious question, namely, whether it was less the topos “Lucifer” as such that prompted the application of the epithet to Caroline than the characterization of the Duchess of Orléans composed by the Duke of St. Simon and published by Schiller in a German translation. It seems worthwhile to cite this description (omitting purely physical aspects) and to compare it with statements made by those who either referred to Caroline as “Madame Lucifer” or likely knew her by this title.
Beneath the subtitle “Description of the Duchess of Orléans,” we read in the translation of the memoirs of the Duke of St. Simon:
She was quite as clever as her husband. In one respect she was superior to him: she could apply her view more steadily to one subject; she was, moreover, naturally eloquent, with a singularly happy knack of hitting off the right expression . . . She could say anything she wanted to say, and in exactly the rights words, with much charm and delicate wit; there was eloquence even in what she refrained from saying, |190| for she always contrived to express her meaning. . . . It seems hardly credible, but it is nevertheless the fact, that she believed she had done the Duke of Orléans a great honour by marrying him. She had sense enough to know that such a theory could not be sustained for a moment, but she could not repress it altogether; her real feeling betrayed itself continually by a thousand almost imperceptible touches. Nevertheless, she was mercilessly punctilious in exacting the respect due to the rank she had acquired by her marriage, even from her own brothers; and never forgot that she was a Granddaughter of France, even on her close-stool. The Duke of Orléans, who often made fun of her pride, used to address her as Madame Lucifer; and she admitted that the name did not displease her.
She was quite conscious of the advantages which the Duke or Orléans’ marriage had procured for him at the time of Monsieur’s death; and her displeasure at his infidelity arose, not from jealousy, but from a feeling of vexation at not being adored and respected as a divinity. At the same time, she never would make the smallest advances to him; she never tried to please him, or keep him at her side; nor would she alter her conduct in the slightest degree, even in things which she knew offended and alienated him. At no time during their married life did she show him any of the little attentions or familiarities which wives usually have for their husbands, when on good terms with them; his advances were always received with a sort of cold superiority. . . . It was this, more than anything, which alienated the Duke of Orléans from her, and made it more difficult to effect a reconciliation between them. From her Court — for so I must call her household and her circle of visitors — she expected not merely deference, but adoration; and I think I may say that the Duchess de Villeroy and I were the only two persons who never rendered it to her, but always spoke to her freely, and gave her such advice as we thought fit. [18]
|191| Thus the presentation of the Duke of St. Simon concerning Françoise Marie de Bourbon, Duchess of Orléans (1677–1749), who according to this portrayal was a brightly intellectual and rhetorically gifted woman with a pronounced desire for recognition and an inclination for condescending behavior (even toward her own husband).
To anticipate for a moment our conclusion: every single aspect of this portrayal can also be found in the observations Caroline’s adversaries from the Schillerian camp make concerning her a half-century later. First, as far as Caroline’s intellectual capacity was concerned, in addition to several positive remarks one also encounters quite a few negative ones as well, albeit ones that simultaneously betray that Caroline was generally viewed as being unequivocally smart and cultivated. For example, Dora Stock, sister-in-law of Schiller’s friend Christian Gottfried Körner, found Caroline’s demeanor thus lacking: “She came, and I found absolutely nothing remarkable, but rather something quite ordinary about her. Perhaps she did not intend to present herself in all her intellectual adornment because our reception was so cool.” [19] And Henriette von Hoven, the wife of Schiller’s early friend Friedrich Wilhelm von Hoven, wrote to the same addressee, Charlotte Schiller: “And yet for all her [Caroline’s] erudition, she often acts quite stupidly and incautiously.” [20]
With respect — second — to Caroline’s rhetorical gifts, one might adduce Friedrich Schiller’s testimony from the early period of his acquaintance with her. To Wilhelm von Humboldt, who had shortly before introduced Caroline to his friend Schiller as “an extremely cold but romantic and vain creature” (albeit without hitherto having met her), [21] Schiller remarks that Wilhelm Schlegel had already been there for two weeks with his wife, and that “the latter has considerable conversational talent, and one can get along very easily with her,” yet already adding even at this early date: |192| “now it depends on whether a lengthier acquaintance, particularly if such is to become more intimate, might not disclose some thorn or other.” [22]
Whereas — third — the Duchess of Orléans was alleged to have been so fixated on recognition that she “never forgot that she was a Granddaughter of France, even on her close-stool,” so similarly do Caroline’s adversaries backbite Caroline as the “crown of all women ,” the “virtuous house princess,” the “famous lady,” or the “leading lady.” [23] Friedrich Wilhelm von Hoven noted in hindsight that the reason no real relationship was quite able to emerge between his wife and Caroline was the following:
All the less, however, did a similar relationship develop between my wife and Schelling’s, who wanted to play the role of a lady. Just as Schelling was allegedly the first man at the university, so also did she want to be the first lady. She wanted to attend all the genteel social gatherings, to host such gatherings at her own home, and to shine in both as the foremost faculty wife of the foremost philosopher in Germany as well as, in her own capacity, as one of the most intelligent, cultivated, and learned women. . . . At the same time, however, because she was concerned not to distinguish herself in too ostentatious a manner in the presence of the wives of other professors, she wanted especially my wife to follow her example. [24]
And in the pastoral words of his spouse, directed to Charlotte Schiller, who in her own turn had requested that Madam von Hoven “write . . . exhaustively about this particular point”:
But she [Caroline] soon began to try to work me and to abuse my accommodating behavior. My courteous resistance only made her more brazen. She tried to impress me with her erudition; I paid no attention. She made herself up like a fifteen-year-old girl and showed me these splendors |193| with solemn mien; I acted as if I did not see it and continued to wear my usual clothes. She arranged to be picked up and driven for rides, insisting I accompany her; I excused myself. She laid lace and such and all sorts of other things out before me and added with a certain tone that I must buy and — have such things. I replied coldly that I had no desire to. She reproached my household furnishings; I smiled. She mocked this and that; I did not hear it, and naturally withdrew from her more and more. In spite of that, she played the schoolmistress with me, corrected me incessantly, borrowed various things from my household as if the things were there for her alone. When I was supposed to buy all sorts of things for future social gatherings in the apartment, and yet gave her the dry response that we never intended to host such gatherings, she became enraged, ran away, scolded me for being lethargic and miserly. — — — I calmly followed my own life plan and paid no attention to her radiant example. [25]
Fourth, with respect to the spousal relationship, a consideration of the date when the epithet “Madame Lucifer” emerged as applied to Caroline is in order. Hitherto the assumption has generally been that this designation emerged in connection with the alienation between the Schlegel brothers and Schiller (see discussion above), and thus was to be dated around 1800 or even earlier. [26] Focusing instead on the date of the publication of the text on the Duchess of Orléans (1805) and allowing one or two years for the translation work while also considering the dating of the epistolary evidence for the epithet “Madame Lucifer” (1804–5), it is certainly possible that this designation for Caroline did not arise until around 1803 and was thus in fact referring to the newlywed Madame Schelling. In any event, a striking similarly is discernible between the portrayal of the marital |194| relationship in the house of Orléans, on the one hand, and the assessments of the Schelling marriage by the Schillers and their friends, on the other. Indeed, the latter viewed the philosopher Schelling even more than the Duke of Orléans as the good-natured husband who had to suffer from the caprice and domineering personality of his spouse. Thus did Schiller write to Wilhelm von Humboldt in August 1803: “You will soon see Schelling in Rome with Madam Schlegel, whom he has married. You will doubtless find him of some interest, though he is to be lamented insofar as he has allowed himself to be so abominably put under the yoke.” [27] The widow Schiller strikes the same tone of voice when after Caroline’s death in 1809 she writes to Johann Friedrich Cotta: “I do indeed believe that he [Schelling] will grieve for her [Caroline], for he is one of the most humane and sensitive of souls. For his friends, however, it is as if a chained man were now freed.” [28] In the interim, Henriette von Hoven had formulated her own incomparably plastic (and naturally similar) perception:
In general, it seems to me that really no one counts for anything or has any real value for her [Caroline] except her own ego, not even her submissive spouse, even though she acts so very tender toward him, kissing his hands a thousand times over and, as Hoven relates, making eyes at him. He is an unhappy person. She will everywhere make his very existence more paltry. He is to be enormously lamented that she exerts such a powerful influence on him, even though she sometimes mistreats and tyrannizes him and yet then crawls on the ground. He will doubtless yet have a rude awakening. [29]
Overall, these remarks allow the conclusion that the designation “Madame Lucifer” as applied to Caroline was likely associated less with the topos “Lucifer” as such [30] than |195| with the description of the original “Madame Lucifer” and the latter’s various personality and behavioral traits that Caroline’s adversaries believed were discernible in Caroline as well. The question of exactly who first transferred the epithet “Madame Lucifer” from the Duchess of Orléans to Caroline must remain open as before; it was, however, almost certainly someone who — like the Schillers — contributed to or otherwise had an interest in the translation or publication of the memoirs of the Duke of St. Simon and who also knew Caroline personally and had a distanced relationship with her. [31]
In conclusion, the question arises concerning how Caroline herself dealt with this flood of imputations and incordialities dealt her by her adversaries in the Schillerian camp — from which this present article has reprinted only a small number. Even the rather severe Franz Xaver von Wegele, who as early as 1885 examined the so-called “Ladies’ War at the University of Würzburg,” found himself constrained to point out the following: “For the sake of fairness, it must, by the way, be explicitly emphasized that in her own, numerous letters from this period, Caroline never assumes as hostile a tone toward her adversaries as they toward her, especially Madam von Hoven.” [32] Although this statement is true enough, its background is that Caroline viewed it as beneath her to address more specifically her adversaries’ gossip or |196| to comment in detail on their affairs: “By the way, what I heard about Madam Paulus in Bamberg I would prefer to spare this sheet of paper,” or “Were we conversing in person, I would have several rather peculiar things to relate to you, things which are, however, of too ill a sort to relate in writing.” [33] When every now and again she did deviate from this rule, she did so in a (cunningly) witty fashion, e.g., in the following, sooner casually related anecdote for whose understanding the reader must be familiar with two bits of information: first, that “Professor Meyer” was Goethe’s longtime housemate, who for the purpose of getting married moved out precisely when Christiane Vulpius, Goethe’s “non-wife,” gave birth to a little girl; [34] and second, that Karoline Paulus’s lover’s last name was Marcus [Eng., “Mark”] [35] Caroline writes in this context:
Prof. Meyer is still not married, but Mlle Vulpius gave birth to a little girl, who did, however, quickly depart this world; and thus did heaven untie the knot.
When we see each other in person again, we can laugh a bit about a different knot, namely, whether the father of the little boy for whom Paulus [Eng., “Paul”] has to care and change diapers here is an apostle [Paul] or an evangelist [Mark]. [36]
Most of Caroline’s anecdotes are otherwise quite free of spite, and one can concur with the assessment of the Germanist Christa Bürger that Caroline’s wit is “rarely genuinely malicious, and where it is so, it comes across as peculiarly weightless, managing as it does to place quotidian concreteness at such a distance that it becomes discernible as the universally human.” [37]
Notes
[*] Original: “‘Madame Lucifer’ — Anmerkung zur Caroline-Rezeption.” Athenäum: Jahrbuch der Friedrich Schlegel-Gesellschaft 20 (2010), 183–96. — Translation by permission of author. Back.
[1] In many cases, this epithet itself is already incorporated into the title of the given text; see Martin Reulecke, Caroline Schlegel-Schelling: Virtuosin der Freiheit. Eine kommentierte Bibliographie. — Concerning the designation “Madame Lucifer,” see esp. the thorough examination by Norbert Oellers, “Caroline Schelling, gesch. Schlegel, verw. Böhmer, geb. Michaelis,” in Deutsche Dichter der Romantik: Ihr Leben und Werk, ed. Benno von Wiese, 2nd ed. (Berlin 1983), 168–96; idem, “Die Dame Lucifer zwischen Revolution und Literatur,” in Acta Universitatis Wratislaviensis 1115 (1990), 121–35. See also Franziska Meyer, “Die Konkurrenz der Biographen: Der Fall Caroline Michaelis-Böhmer-Schlegel-Schelling,” in Querelles. Jahrbuch für Frauenforschung 6 (2001), 85–102, esp. 87–89. Back.
[2] See Charlotte von Schiller und ihre Freunde, 3:182 (Rosine Eleonore Niethammer to Charlotte Schiller on 25 October 1804 [letter 387h]), 187–88 (Karoline Paulus to Charlotte Schiller on 11 March 1804 [letter 382e]), 275 (Henriette Hoven to Charlotte Schiller on 4 August 1804 [letter 385a]) (hereafter cited with letter number of present edition). Back.
[3] So Rudolf Gottschall, “Eine deutsche Professorstochter,” in Die Gartenlaube: Illustrirtes Familienblatt (1871), 597–601, here 599. Back.
[4] Die romantische Schule, 209. Back.
[5] Rudolf Haym, “Ein deutsches Frauenleben aus der Zeit unserer Litteraturblüthe,” Preussische Jahrbücher 28 (1871), 457–506 (see the translation on this site). Back.
[6] See Caroline Schlegel-Schelling: Virtuosin der Freiheit. Eine kommentierte Bibliographie, 18–34. Back.
[7] Though see, e.g., Johannes Janssen, “Aus dem Leben einer Culturdame und ihrer Gesellschaft. Zur Charakteristik der deutschen Aufklärungsperiode,” in Historisch-politische Blätter für das katholische Deutschland 72 (1873), 1–27, 112–25, 325–53, here 338: “[whom] Schiller justifiably called ‘Dame Lucifer’ or ‘the Malady’ . . . ” Back.
[8] Rudolf Gottschall, “Schiller und seine Gegner,” in Unsere Zeit. Deutsche Revue der Gegenwart. Monatsschrift zum Conversations-Lexikon 7 (1871) 2nd half, 721–37, here 723. Back.
[9] Rudolf Haym, “Ein deutsches Frauenleben aus der Zeit unserer Litteraturblüthe,” 485. Similarly also Rudolf Gottschall, “Eine deutsche Professorstochter,” 599f. See Michael Bernays, “Caroline (1871, December),” in Bernays, Schriften zur Kritik und Litteraturgeschichte, vol. 2 (Leipzig 1898), 283–311, here 306: “Through her own active influence, she doubtless contributed to the natural opposition between Schiller and the Romantics becoming unnecessarily aggravated.” Back.
[10] Franz Pfalz, “Madame Luzifer,” in Die Grenzboten. Zeitschrift für Politik, Literatur und Kunst 46 (1887), 128–38, 175–84, 223–34, here 129 and 225. Back.
[11] The few exceptions include Franz Xaver von Wegele, “Ein Frauenkrieg an der Universität Würzburg. Ein Vortrag, gehalten am 19. Februar 1885 zu Würzburg,” in Franz Xaver von Wegele. Vorträge und Abhandlungen, ed. Richard Du Moulin Eckart (Leipzig 1898), 291–309, here 301f. (supplementary appendix 387.1). — Although Rudolf Haym, Die romantische Schule, 209, did indeed take Schiller as initiator as his point of departure, he was at least correct in adducing as his source the “women’s letters” published by Urlichs in Charlotte von Schiller und ihre Freunde. Back.
[12] Erich Schmidt, (1913), 1:x–xi (see the translation of Schmidt’s introduction in this edition). Back.
[13] Margarete Susman, “Caroline,” in Susman, Frauen der Romantik (Jena 1929), 27–57, here 33. Back.
[14] E.g., Eckart Klessmann, Caroline. Das Leben der Caroline Michaelis-Böhmer-Schlegel-Schelling (Munich 1975), 156. Back.
[15] E.g., Vilma Lober, “Die Frauen der Romantik im Urteil ihrer Zeit” (PhD diss., Erlangen, 1947), 1–15. Back.
[16] The candidates are Karoline Paulus (to Charlotte Schiller on 11 March 1804 [letter 382e]), Henriette von Hoven (to Charlotte Schiller on 4 August 1804 [letter 385a]), Rosine Niethammer (to Charlotte Schiller on 25 October 1804 [letter 387h]), and Dorothea Schlegel (to Karoline Paulus on 3 June 1805 [letter 393e]). Back.
[17] Concerning this point and the following discussion, see Norbert Oellers, “Caroline Schelling, gesch. Schlegel, verw. Böhmer, geb. Michaelis,” 178f.; idem, “Die Dame Lucifer zwischen Revolution und Literatur,” 129–31. Back.
[18] Original French, Louis de Rouvroy, “Portrait historique de Madame la Duchesse d’Orléans, femme du Régent,” Mémoires de Monsieur le Duc de S. Simon, ou l’observateur véridique sur le règne de Louis XIV, & sur les premières époques des Règnes suivans, vol. 2 (London [i.e., Paris?] 1788), 2:116—23, here 2:116–20. — German translation, Louis de Rouvroy, Herzog von St. Simon, “Geheime Denkwürdigkeiten über die Regentschaft Philipps II. Herzogs von Orléans,” in Allgemeine Sammlung Historischer Memoires vom zwölften Jahrhundert bis auf die neuesten Zeiten durch mehrere Verfasser übersetzt mit den nöthigen Anmerkungen versehen, und jedesmal mit einer universalhistorischen Uebersicht begleitet. Zweyte Abtheilung. Acht und zwanzigster Band, ed. Friedrich Schiller (Jena 1805), book 1, 20–25, here 20–23. — English translation, Louis de Rouvroy Saint-Simon (duc de), Memoirs of the Duke de Saint-Simon: An abridged translation with notes, 6 vols., trans. Francis Arkwright (New York 1915–18), 5:138–53, here 5:138–39. — Here the Duchesse d’Orléans ca. 1690 in an oil by Pierre Gobert:
[19] Letter to Charlotte Schiller on 2 May 1797 (letter 181e); original from Charlotte von Schiller und ihre Freunde, 3:22. Back.
[20] Letter to Charlotte Schiller on 4 April 1804 (letter 383a); original from Charlotte von Schiller und ihre Freunde, 3:273. Back.
[21] Humboldt to Schiller on 25 August 1795 (see Caroline’s letter to Luise Gotter on 11 July 1796 [letter 165], note 5). Back.
[22] Letter to Humboldt on 22 July 1796 (see Caroline’s letter to Luise Gotter on 11 July 1796 [letter 165], note 5. Back.
[23] Henriette Hoven to Charlotte Schiller on 6 August 1807 (letter 424a); Henriette Hoven to Charlotte Schiller on 4 April 1804 (letter 383a); Rosine Eleonore Niethammer to Charlotte Schiller on 25 October 1804 (letter 387h). Back.
[24] Friedrich von Hoven, Biographie des Doctor Friedrich Wilhelm von Hoven: Von ihm selbst geschrieben und wenige Tage vor seinem Tode noch beendiget, ed. Andreas H. Merkel (Nürnberg 1840) 159–68 (supplementary appendix 382.1). Back.
[25] Henriette Hoven to Charlotte Schiller on 4 April 1804 (letter 383a). Back.
[26] See Brigitte Rossbeck, Zum Trotz glücklich. Caroline Schlegel-Schelling und die romantische Lebenskunst (Munich 2008), 152; Norber Oellers, “Die Dame Lucifer zwischen Revolution und Literatur,” 129; Eckart Klessmann, Caroline, 156. Back.
[27] Schiller to Humboldt on 18 August 1803 (Der Briefwechsel zwischen Friedrich Schiller und Wilhelm von Humboldt, ed. Albert Leitzmann, 3rd ed. [Stuttgart 1900], 300). Back.
[28] Charlotte Schiller to Cotta on 27 October 1809, cited in Briefwechsel zwischen Schiller und Cotta, ed. Wilhelm Vollmer (Stuttgart 1876), 563. Back.
[29] Henriette Hoven to Charlotte Schiller on 4 April 1804 (letter 383a). Back.
[30] It should be pointed out that this particular component is indeed found in certain letters. Cf., e.g., Karoline Paulus’s letter to Charlotte Schiller on 11 March 1804 (letter 382e), in which she speaks about the “evil influence of this Madam Lucifer,” remarking then how fortunate it was “that our apartment is separated from hers by a church, where according to Catholic custom they diligently burn incense.” And Dorothea Schlegel thought it in order to “exorcize the devil, or the legion of devils, out of Madame Lucifer so that they depart from her amid a grand stench” (to Karoline Paulus on 3 June 1805 [letter 393d]). Back.
[31] As an aside one might mention that Charlotte Schiller had a public persona not only as the poet’s wife, but also, among other things, as a translator from the French, and thus also as a possible translator (or translator’s consultant) of the memoirs of the Duke of St. Simon. See Christian Hain, “Louise Charlotte Antoinette von Schiller, geb. von Lengefeld (1766–1826), FrauenGestalten Weimar-Jena um 1800. Ein bio-bibliographisches Lexikon, ed. Stephanie Freyer (Heidelberg 2009), 297–302, here 299. Back.
[32] Franz Xaver von Wegele, “Ein Frauenkrieg an der Universität Würzburg,” 305 (supplementary appendix 387.1). Back.
[33] To Luise Wiedemann on 19 June 1803 (letter 380); to Luise Gotter on 4 January 1804 (letter 382). Back.
[34] See Rose Unterberger, Die Goethe-Chronik (Frankfurt and Leipzig 2002), 245. Back.
[35] See Katrin Horn, “Elisabeth Friederike Caroline Paulus, geb. Paulus (1767–1844),” in FrauenGestalten Weimar-Jena, ed. Stephanie Freyer, 252–56, here 253. Back.
[36] To Julie Gotter on 2 January 1803 (letter 374). Back.
[37] Christa Bürger, “Luziferische Rhapsodien. Carolines Briefwerk,” in Bürger, Leben Schreiben. Die Klassik, die Romantik und der Ort der Frauen (Stuttgart 1990), 81–107, here 89. Back.
Translation © 2012 Doug Stott