121a. Therese Forster to Christian Gottlob Heyne in Göttingen: St. Aubin, Switzerland, 22 March 1793 [*]
St. Aubin [Albin], 22 March 1793
I was profoundly aggrieved to learn through Forster that through what for me is an incomprehensible bit of chance you have been informed of a matter about which you should in fact learn only through your children, [1] for Forster will eternally remain your child as well as the most respected man, one to whom my gratitude and life belong in every regard. But chance has misinformed you. My kind, noble friend writes that he immediately informed you of the real state of affairs, but now hear me out as well.
Nature has not created us to be marital partners sensually, and my own faulty thinking probably drew on precisely this irreconcilability in leading me astray. [2] Although I have always respected Forster as a person and friend above all else, every other demand he quite justifiably made on me utterly and completely repulsed me. His infinite goodness sought to unite things in our marriage that cannot be united, for a woman must not, cannot be one man’s wife and another’s love. [3]
It was not wrong that I loved, nor was it the result of an idle heart made of fire, as is my own. But that I tolerated his overly kind tendency to yield instead of sundering every bond from the very outset that held my heart and senses more than this noble man, was unpardonably wrong and unfair of me. But it happened because Forster erred out of goodness, and I out of weakness. Although Meyer did indeed sweep me up, he never turned me away from Forster —
Meyer was a bad person who wanted to corrupt me, but he never succeeded. Since then, however, I have been infinitely unhappy. Huber never turned me away from my duties, never harmed Forster, has always respected Forster’s infinite worth, and corrected a way of thinking in me that was hostile toward people and prevented me from committing suicide only through dark volition.
But he saw the impossibility of living happily with Forster, saw how my forced dissimulation degraded Forster himself. But we never had any notion of uniting. We hoped time would render tolerable all the passion within us, and that, were we but friends, Forster would then also be happy. I can sacredly attest that I fulfilled all my sacred duties as both wife and mother.
It was in this state of mind that two years ago I waited four months for the slow death an illness promised me, an illness into which solely my unspeakable grief had plunged me and that for years prevented me from reconciling my love and my duty. When the French arrived, and Huber departed, we had not been entertaining any other ideas. [4]
My own departure came about quite by chance [5] — the circumstances surrounding us caused everything in me to be in turmoil. It was only in Strasbourg that my and Huber’s ideas began to develop; we now saw the possibility of a divorce, which I consider to be a matter of conscience when a woman no longer wants to belong to a man.
Out of anxiety and agitation, and in order not to act alone, I went to Rougement, and in the period when I was still considering things Forster was noble enough to ask me for a declaration. [6] I have no more secrets from him. For the first time since I have been married, I am enjoying the happiness of being able to give him, with full, pure trust, what I always gladly gave him but which he never accepted with satisfaction — my respectful friendship. He forgives my unfaithfulness, which was never a secret to him, with infinite magnanimity; he wants to be my friend.
This piece of good fortune touches me more profoundly even than the peace of mind the end of my five years of dissimulation gave me. My entire future must be used to show to Forster and the world that my own ill-considered choice misled me into erring, but that I do have the character to be a demure, upright woman; and that is my plan for my life. Since our declaration freed Forster’s character from all the abominable torments that I, with a despairing heart, saw this beloved man suffer, and indeed which I inflicted on him, he has demonstrated a nobility of character and kind wisdom that fill me with reverence.
He has allowed me to keep Kläre and is allowing me to raise Röse until he calls for her. He shall never regret this show of trust. I am hoping to see him become increasingly peaceful and to continue to earn his friendship.
I do feel the censure of the world. Forster’s pain is tearing me apart, but since I was no longer able to be his good wife, I must be honest. My heart would break had I not felt I had the strength to make all this good again through an upright life in my new circumstances. This strength supports me and makes me bold enough to remain close to Forster in a completely open and frank friendship. It has only been since our declaration that our relationship has been true.
I can tell you nothing about Huber except that I love and respect him, and that I hope to maintain both his love and his respect. [7] Three years of the most precise observation, a period in which we shared every mood, every situation, cannot but have removed every element of deception from our passion. [8] We will not always love as we do now, for my own 29 years have only made me more lively, but we will respect each other, for respect is what has kept us one for the other in a relationship that otherwise exhibited all the signs of coming to an early end.
He was the resident Saxon representative in Mainz. [9] The Prussian court made him suspicious to his superior, drawing criticisms that justified his request for dismissal. [10] He made me known to his parents, explained our relationship to them, [11] and prompted them to make me and Forster’s children his heir in case of his death in order to protect us from want. He has entered into a contract with a publisher [12] ensuring him a moderate income until the end of the war allows him to pursue a different path, one his obligation to his prince now prohibits, or until luck provides a position for him. Forster concurs with me that we must soon become united; Huber will be coming here in May if nothing unexpected prevents him, and everything else depends on the will and arrangements of our magnanimous friend. [13]
My own thinking concerning Forster’s political career is totally independent of my love and my own error. [14] I never made plans. Had I been able to dissimulate and plan, I would have been able to reconcile my love with my marriage. I was false, but I could never help myself with lies. You and their dear father may lament my sweet, deceased children [15] — otherwise I would have demanded a divorce.
Forster will be happy — His extraordinarily tempestuous senses need no love with a different woman, and instead of a wretched, fettered woman, he has made a creature his own through the bonds of the most sacred gratitude. I am hoping one day to see this dear father of my children happy again [16] — may it be in the country to which he belongs, and to which my entire manner of thinking belong! [17]
I must not add anything else, my dear father! I did wrong, but I never debased myself. My promise to be good I make to myself, not to you, and also to Forster — and I cannot but keep it, for it was only such circumstances that could make me transgress. My morality is untainted, I was a chaste wife and a faithful mother. By forgiving me you would be giving me both happiness and serenity; I infinitely respect and love you. You will see Forster satisfied with my intimate friendship; you will see Röse and Klara well brought up; you will respect Huber. My dear, old, poor father, please do not deny yourself and my bleeding heart the happiness of loving your daughter.
Notes
[*] Sources: Ludwig Geiger, “Aus Therese Hubers Herzensleben,” Westermanns illustrierte deutsche Monatshefte 94 (1903), 679–80; Therese Huber Briefe 1:266–69 (notes 1:624–25). — Concerning Therese Forster’s itinerary during this period, see Caroline’s letter to Friedrich Ludwig Wilhelm Meyer on 17 December 1792 (letter 119), note 5.
This letter arguably exemplifies Therese Forster’s capacity for remaining disarmingly disingenuous while excusing her past behavior and shifting blame to others through verbal sleights of hand, feigned innocence, and embellishment of the truth (Goettinger Taschen Calender für das Jahr 1791; Inhaltsverzeichnis deutscher Almanache, Theodor Springmann Stiftung):
[1] Therese’s anticipated divorce from Georg Forster. Concerning rumors of a connection between Forster and Caroline, see Samuel Thomas Sömmerring to Christian Gottlob Heyne on 19 March 1793 (text see supplementary appendix 119.2). Back.
[2] Concerning intimacy problems between Therese and Georg Forster, see Therese’s letter to Caroline on 25 February 1794 (letter 142). Back.
[3] Therese is now speaking about her earlier intimate relationship with Friedrich Ludwig Wilhelm Meyer. Back.
[4] French troops occupied Mainz on 21 October 1792 under the command of General Adam Philippe de Custine; Huber departed Mainz on 22 or 23 October 1792 for Frankfurt in order to secure the legation archives from Mainz there, his intimate contacts with the Forster household, moreover, having compromised his diplomatic position. He left Frankfurt on 27 February 1793 for Leipzig, traveling on the Dresden in mid-April 1793. At the end of June he would arrive in Neuchâtel, Switzerland, whither Therese and her children would then soon also move. Back.
[5] Therese Forster left Mainz on 7 December 1792 with her two children and servants, going first to Strasbourg, then, on 5 January 1793, to Basel. Back.
[6] Concering a divorce. Back.
[7] In a letter to Charlotte Schiller from Dresden four days earlier, on 18 March 1793, Dora Stock, whom Huber had abandoned in what was essentially a relationship of betrothal, did not speak as highly of him (Fritz Jonas, Christian Gottfried Körner: Biographische Nachrichten über ihn und sein Haus [Berlin 1882], 147–49):
. . . I so yearn to hear from you how Huber behaved when he visited; do write me everything, for I can now endure hearing about him without my heart suffering; indeed, soon the entire story will seem like someone else’s. He himself has contributed most to my cure. Great God! Who could have believed that I would one day be constrained to despise him! But unfortunately, I must! An essay to his parents from his own hand containing the entire story of his love has brought this about.
I thought I would find all sorts of sophistry in this essay, a relating of the circumstances that might excuse their [Huber and Therese Forster’s] behavior to a certain extent, or perhaps make it seem pardonable — but nothing of the sort! Nothing but shallow declamations about the “omnipotence of love” that had “bound their hearts together for eternity,” along with descriptions of their worth, and how they “deserved the respect and love of the entire world.” At first they allegedly had intended to wait until Forster’s death (how noble!), but then what for them were the so fortuitous events in Mainz made their union possible even now.
Then I anticipated that at least a small cloak of some sort would come to conceal her [Therese’s] dreadful comportment toward her husband. But the entire excuse was that she was able to feel only “friendship” for her husband, since her entire heart in fact belonged to Huber, and that her husband needed love, hence her separation from him would sooner make him happy.
And then came a passage that secured my peace of mind forever and proved to me that I lost nothing in him, for there he says that his love for her has been steadfast for three years already! Great God! is it possible that a person can possess such a depraved heart? What letters he composed to me during precisely that period! And yet he was able to read mine without being moved or disturbed even a single time by the fact that he himself had earlier resolved to be truthful toward a person who loved him so limitlessly for so many years through the sacrifice of every conceivable happiness that offered itself to her?
No, truly, I have lost nothing in him; and what would such a man not have been capable of who for three years had carried through such intentional hypocrisy and dissimulation toward both friend and beloved alike despite having been presented with so many opportunities to be truthful! Had such become too difficult for him toward us, then he needed only be open toward Kunze during the latter’s visit with him.
But forgive me, my dear Lotte, for coming to you with this story, which cannot but make you indignant; but I needed to have my say about it, thereafter to bury it in eternal forgetfulness. He is expected here [Dresden; concerning Huber’s business there, see Caroline’s letter to Luise Gotter on 24 January 1793 (letter 120), note 2]; while he is here, however, I will be a prisoner, for I do not really want to see him. . . . Back.
[8] Huber had lived with the Forsters in Mainz since late 1790. Concerning the residences of Caroline and the Forsters in Mainz, see Caroline’s letter to Luise Gotter on 20 April 1792 (letter 112), note 6. Back.
[9] Huber had been the Saxon legation secretary at the Mainz court. Back.
[10] Huber requested dismissal in April 1793, receiving it in June; he then seems to have arrived in Neuchâtel in late June or early July. Back.
[11] See note 7 above concerning Huber’s letter to his parents from the perspective of Dora Stock. Back.
[12] Christian Friedrich Voss in Berlin, editor of the Vossische Zeitung; Huber would become editor of the journal Friedens-Präliminarien (Berlin 1793–96). Back.
[13] The “friend” being Georg Forster, who intended to request the divorce himself. He died before the stipulated waiting period for divorces had elapsed, enabling Therese and Huber to marry on 10 April 1794. Back.
[14] “After joining the Mainz Jacobin Club on 5 November 1792, he became head of two committees, and from 1 till 31 January 1793 club president. He was also one of nine members of the administrative council and deputy president of the general administration (to Anton Joseph Dorsch) that had replaced the prince-electoral Mainz administration” (Therese Huber Briefe 1:625n82). Back.
[15] Louise Forster (died 17 November 1791) and Georg Forster (died 23 or 24 July 1792). Back.
[16] The implied reference, of course, is to Georg Forster, but see Caroline’s letter to Meta Liebeskind from Würzburg on 19 August 1804 (letter 386), responding to the news of Adele Huber’s death on 4 August 1804 (yet another child, Clemence Huber, born 29 April 1804, had already died on 28 May 1804 and Huber himself would die on 24 December 1804.):
At every new death among these children, I cannot help recalling the words Forster either spoke or wrote to me when discussing whether he [Forster] ought to let her [Therese] keep custody of Claire — yes, he would do it, since Huber’s children had not survived and he did not want to rob her of all children, one saw that in Georg and Louise [see note 15 above].
That is, Huber seems to have been the father of Georg and Louise Forster. Back.
[17] France; Therese, however, later declined to move there. Back.
Translation © 2011 Doug Stott