Main Currents in Nineteenth Century Literature - 3. The Reaction in FranceBrandes, Georg
History
Main Currents in Nineteenth Century Literature - 3. The Reaction in France
Brandes, Georg
Literature, Modern -- 19th century -- History and criticism; Naturalism in literature; Romanticism
Such was Madame de Krüdener's state of mind when, travelling once more
in the autumn of 1806, she met and became intimate with Queen Louisa
of Prussia. It was not long after the battle of Jena. The Queen, in
her deep dejection, was peculiarly open to the persuasion of Madame de
Krüdener's glowing religious eloquence, and Madame de Krüdener gained
great influence over her, and through her over the King. We have proof
of this in a letter from the Queen written some time afterwards. "I
owe to your kind heart a confession which I am certain will cause you
to shed tears of joy. It is that you have made me better than I was.
Your straightforward words when we talked together on the subject of
religion and Christianity have made the deepest impression upon me."
Madame de Krüdener went to Karlsruhe on purpose to see Jung-Stilling.
Jung-Stilling had made a literary reputation for himself by the book
in which he gave an account of his early life as a pious journeyman
tailor. As a medical student at Strasburg he had associated with Goethe
and won his favour. After practising successfully as an oculist, and
holding a professorship of political economy, he had become a kind of
prophet among the Pietists of South Germany, and was honoured as a
saint by the pious court-circle and nobility of Baden. His character
was not strong enough to stand such adulation, and he had degenerated
into a vain and unreliable old twaddler, who boasted of his knowledge
of the other world and revealed the hidden mysteries and designs of
God by means of interpretations of the Revelation of St. John. To
Jung-Stilling Madame de Krüdener now did homage as her master and
guide. He had a weakness for the admiration of great ladies, and a
close friendship sprang up between them. The venerable ghost-seer
was at this time writing his _Theorie der Geisterkunde_ (Theory of
Spirits). Madame de Krüdener was firmly persuaded of the truth of one
of his wise predictions, namely, that the millennium was to begin in
the year 1816, or 1819 at latest.
Not long after this visit to Karlsruhe she met Queen Hortense, who
was so fascinated by her that she gave her a private audience every
morning. But it would seem that Madame de Krüdener ingratiated herself
in this case chiefly by reading to the Queen the manuscript of a novel
she was writing, _Othilde_ by name, the pious moral of which did not
prevent its being a "truly delicious" love-story.
She was now a pattern of every kind of Christian humility. When at
Karlsruhe she climbed up to the dirtiest garrets to do deeds of
charity. One day when she found a servant-girl crying in the street
because she had been sent out to sweep, the great lady took the broom
and swept the pavement herself.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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