Henriette Louise de Waldner de Freundstein

Henriette Louise de Waldner de Freundstein (or Waldner de Freunstein), Baronne d'Oberkirch (5 June 1754 at Schweighouse-Près-Thann, in Alsace – 10 June 1803) is known for having written her Mémoires, which end in 1789.

Her parents were François Louis Waldner de Freundstein, Baron and later Count de Waldner and Wilhelmine Auguste Berckheim de Ribeauvillé. She married Baron Charles Frédéric Siegfried d'Oberkirch. They had a daughter, Marie-Philippine Frédérique Dorothée (1777-1827), who married in 1798 Count Louis Simon de Bernard de Montbrison. Their grandson edited and published the Mémoires in English in 1852 and in French in 1854.

The Baronness lived in and wrote about court society in her native Alsace, in Montbéliard, Stuttgart and (most importantly) in Paris and Versailles; her trips to the court of Louis XVI occurred in 1782, 1784, and 1786. She was a childhood friend of the Grand Duchess Maria Feodorovna (Sophie Dorothea of Württemberg), later the Empress of Russia, and of Goethe. The writer Jakob Michael Reinhold Lenz fall in love with her 1776 and wrote several works inspired by this love.

She offers great insight into high society during the end of the ancien régime.

References

This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the Saturday, March 26, 2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.