#wittmoldt

I often go on and on about how fascinated I am by the time the La Fayette’s and the Noialles’ spend in exile at the estates Wittmoldt and Lehmkuhlen. Many modern books and publications cover this episode only sparsely – and to be honest, at first glance, events like the American and French Revolution for example appear to be the more interesting, more important and more dramatic chapters in La Fayette’s life. I would like to make the point, that the families time in exile should not be underestimated and that many things happen there, that profoundly influenced the La Fayette’s and their kin. This episode is also a fine example of the family interacting with people outside their usual sphere. People from a different country, a different culture, often with different perceptions.

The other day I was reading a book about Wittmoldt, both the Wittmoldt estate as well as the small village by the same name nearby. The book was written by the head teacher of the local school and a large part of his book deals with the school, its pupils and former teachers throughout time. The book mentions a former head teacher, Detlef Ludwig Petersen, who lived at the Wittmoldt estate during a time where Wittmoldt had many different owners and inhabitants – Madame de Tessé, Adrienne de La Fayette’s aunt, among them.

Now, what is so special about Petersen? He and his wife had four children. Three of them were born in Güsdorf, a neighbouring village, before the Petersen’s moved to Wittmoldt. While living at the Wittmoldt estate they had one last child, a daughter named Adrienne Pauline. My interest was immediately peaked since the name was not only very French – in contrast to the very German names of the first three children, but also the names of the French inhabitants of Wittmoldt at the time.

La Fayette’s wife and her aunt were both named Adrienne and there was also a younger sister, La Fayette’s sister-in-law, who stayed at Wittmoldt and that was named Pauline. This could hardly be a coincidence! I had a look at the archival records and found the entry of Adrienne Pauline’s baptism.

Landeskirchliches Archiv der Evang.-Luth. Kirche, Kirchenkreis Plön-Segeberg, Plön, Taufen 1764-1800, p. 247.

The child was born on April 23, 1800 and baptised four days later on April 27.

But wait! That is not all!

While going through the records, I found a second child with a name too extraordinary to be a coincidence.

Landeskirchliches Archiv der Evang.-Luth. Kirche, Kirchenkreis Plön-Segeberg, Plön, Taufen 1764-1800, p. 203.

Pauline Adrienne Alexandrine was born on September 23, 1797, and baptised on September 29. Not only is her name a direct reference to the two sisters and their aunt, but the record also reveals that both Madame de Tessé, as well as Pauline, Marquise de Montague were witnesses to the proceedings.

The name of Pauline Adrienne Alexandrine’s father does not ring a bell for me, but her mother’s maiden name was Petersen. Now, Petersen is and always has been a very, very common German surname and therefor this could be two different Petersen-families. But Wittmoldt is still a very small village with few inhabitants and things were not looking any different at the turn of the 19th century. It is therefore entirely possible (and in my opinion quite likely) that not one, but two couples in the Petersen-family decided to name their daughter after Adrienne and Pauline.

(I think that the Adrienne, Madame de Tessé, played a bigger role here then Adrienne, Marquise de La Fayette since de Tessé owned Wittmoldt, lived there longer than her niece and was directly referred by name in the records of the 1797 baptism.)

The Emkendorfer Kreis (the Emkendorf Circle) was a Danish-German intellectual society that focused mainly on literature, music and theological discussions. It was formed around Friederike Juliane Gräfin von Reventlow (Countess of Reventlow, pictured below.) The circle counted such luminaires like Matthias Claudius, Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock, Matthias Claudius, Heinrich Christian Boie, Johann Heinrich Voß and Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi as its members. It was sometimes also referred to as the Weimar des Nordes (the Weimar of the North.)

The name of the group derived from the manor “Emkendorf” (pictured above) that was and to this day still is owned by the von Reventlow family. The von Reventlow family is a noble family with great influence in both Denmark and Germany. Several members of the family were diplomats and held high offices while also having significant influence on the academic and artistic landscape of their day. Although the influence of the family has diminished over the last two centuries, the family still has considerable holdings in northern Germany, is well connected and engaged in local politics. Gut Emkendorf in particular is often the venue for cultural or musical presentations, special markets were craftspeople can sell their goods as well as guided tours that touch on the regional as well as on the family history.

Gut Wittmold and Gut Lehmkuhlen, the two mansions where La Fayette and his family stayed during their exile in Danish-Holstein, are close by and the La Fayette’s as well as friends and other family members were guests at Gut Emkendorf and occasionally present when the Emkendorfer Kreis met. The relationship between the von Reventlow's and the La Fayette’s in particular was rather cold and reserved. I wrote in this post here about Friederike Juliane’s opinion on Adrienne and her sister Pauline, but there was far more to the matter.

Überhaupt hat der Aufenthalt all dieser Fremdlinge in Emkendorf dazu beigetragen, sich über die Ereignisse der Französischen Revolution genauer zu unterrichten, keineswegs aber das Urteil darüber zu mildern. Hier, wo ohnehin die alte ständische Gliederung als einzig wahre Staatsform betrachtet und deutscher Geisteskultur der Vorrang vor jeder anderen, besonders der französischen, gegeben wurde, konnten jene liberalen französischen Royalisten bei allem Mitgefühl für ihr Schicksal doch nicht auf volle Übereinstimmung mit ihren Zielen rechnen. Ein Mann wie Lafayette, der Holstein ebenfalls zu seinem Asyl für kurze Zeit erkor, ist in Emkendorf als unmittelbarer Mitschuldiger an den blutigen Anfängen der Revolution mit eisiger Kälte empfangen und wieder entlassen worden (…)

Otto Brandt, Geistesleben und Politik in Schleswig-Holstein um die Wende des 18. Jahrhunderts, Outlook Verlag GmbH, Frankfurt, 2022, original reprint from 1925, pp. 150-151.

My translation:

In general, the stay of all these foreigners in Emkendorf helped the people in Emkendorf to learn more about the events of the French Revolution, but in no way did it softened their judgment. Here, where the old system of goverment was regarded as the only true form of government and German intellectual culture was given priority over any other, especially French intellectual culture, those liberal French royalists, with all the sympathy for their fate, could not count on full agreement with their ideals. A man like Lafayette, who also chose Holstein as his asylum for a short time, was received in Emkendorf, as a direct accomplice in the bloody beginnings of the revolution, with icy coldness (...)

The next passage partly quotes a letter from Friedrich “Fritz“ Karl Graf von Reventlow (left, Friederike Juliane’s husband) to his brother Cay Friedrich Graf von Reventlow (right) from June 1, 1798

Übrigens war man in Emkendorf überzeugt, dass Lafayette bei „seinem stillen und eingezogenen Wesen“ sich nicht „als Werkzeug brauchen lasse“ und nicht „kleine niedrige Künste und Ränke“ anwende um „den Geist der Revolution auch im Norden zu erregen“.

Otto Brandt, Geistesleben und Politik in Schleswig-Holstein um die Wende des 18. Jahrhunderts, Outlook Verlag GmbH, Frankfurt, 2022, original reprint from 1925, pp. 151.

My translation:

People in Emkendorf were convinced that Lafayette, with “his quiet and withdrawn nature”, would not let anyone “use him as a tool” and would not use “small low arts and intrigues” to “excite the spirit of the revolution in the north as well”.

Dear @mxtallmadge,

yes, I do know by chance where the La Fayette’s stayed in exile before returning to France. Thank you for the question, this is actually one of my favourite episodes in La Fayette’s life.

They first went to a place called Gut Wittmoldt (the family often used slightly different spellings) that was located on the banks of the Plöner See. Madame de Tessé, Adrienne’s aunt, had rented the property and several emigrees lived there or in the surround area. La Fayette’s daughter Virginie wrote in her book:

At last on the 10th of October 1797 we arrived at Witmold a property Mme de Tessé had bought in a peninsula on lake Ploën. (…) At Witmold, my mother recovered her strength, and found repose of body and mind. My father found his friends. He was fond of Mme de Tessé, and had with her on every point complete community of opinions. His political life had met with her constant approbation, and you may fancy what charm five years of silence at Olmütz added to Mme de Tessé’s lively, animated and piquante conversation.

Mme de Lasteyrie, Life of Madame de Lafayette, L. Techener, London, 1872, pp. 372-373.

For the winter months of 1797/98, La Fayette rented Gut Lehmkuhlen, close by Wittmold. There were several reasons for the move. The family wanted to have a place of their own – and not everybody was as much in perfect agreement with La Fayette’s political opinions and actions as Madame de Tessé was. Virginie wrote:

Mme de Maisonneuve came to see her brother and joined us at Lhemkulen, a large castle in Holstein, near Witmold, which my father had hired for the winter. Shortly afterwards my brother arrived from Mount Vernon. Under General Washington’s paternal care he had become a man. My mother was happy and so were her children.

Mme de Lasteyrie, Life of Madame de Lafayette, L. Techener, London, 1872, p. 374.

After the winter months, the family moved back to Wittmoldt. It was then and there that Anastasie married. After the wedding, the family moved to Vianen, near Utrecht. Again turning to Virginie:

After a short stay there [Paris], and a visit to Mme de Chavaniac in Auvergne, we all met again in the following year 1799 at Vianen, near Utrecht. My father had come there from Holstein, with George. Exiles can fix themselves nowhere. Their only thought is to abandon their momentary home, their only wish to depart.

Mme de Lasteyrie, Life of Madame de Lafayette, L. Techener, London, 1872, p. 377.

Adrienne and Virginie had been in Paris and in the Auvergne, while La Fayette, Georges and Anastasie, now pregnant, had moved directly to Vianen. Adrienne and Virginie followed them there.

Gut Wittmoldt and Gut Lehmkuhlen were in a region that was then known as Danish Holstein. The region was very interesting from a cultural and social aspect, and it became the refuge for many French exiles. The region is today part of Northern Germany.

Vianen is a city in the Netherlands. By the time of the La Fayette’s settlement there, it belonged to the Batavian Republic.

I have made a detailed post about the La Fayette’s home in Vianen here.

I have no specific posts about either Wittmoldt or Lehmkuhlen – what is slightly ironic because I am very often in that area and have visited Wittmoldt especially quite often, but I never took any pictures.

Lehmkuhlen has, rather recently, been turned into a biogas plant but the gardens of the former estate have been preserved.

Wittmoldt is still owned by the same family and on their website they even advertise with the fact that La Fayette and his family stayed on their property. Today, the estate hosts many cultural events like concerts, workshops and art and craft markets. They also offer Equine-assisted therapy. Furthermore, Gut Wittmoldt can be rented for weddings or the like (the chapel where Anastasie married is no longer standing). Several of the buildings on the property have also been turned into guesthouses for tourists. Most modern buildings in Wittmoldt are from the 1860’s but there is at least the old bakehouse from the early 1790’s that La Fayette would have known and that also had been turned into a guesthouse.

I stumbled over a very interesting Dutch article titled “La Fayette en Vianen” the other day and decided to do some research. I always wanted to know where exactly La Fayette and his family stayed while they lived in exile in Vianen (modern day Netherlands). Since most books brush over the family’s time in the Dutch village, I had to do my own digging.

First, a little run-down. After being released from the prison in Olmütz, La Fayette, Adrienne and their daughters settled in Wittmold and Lehmkuhlen in the neutral Danish-Holstein (modern day Germany.) Adrienne’s aunt Madame de Tessé had rented the Gut Wittmold and the region was a place many exiles choose to settlein. It was here that the La Fayette’s were reunited with their son and brother Georges who had spent the last years in America. La Fayette’s oldest living daughter Anastasie married while in Wittmold but tensions rose with time. Adrienne returned with her daughter Virginie to France to regain some of the family’s fortune. Anastasie, now pregnant, and her husband went to Vianen and settled there. Their twin daughters would be born and baptized there. The archive in Utrecht holds the baptism record. Adrienne meanwhile managed to obtain a passport that allowed La Fayette to travel to Vianen as well. The whole family was again reunited in Vianen in 1799.

Vianen was at that point in time part of the Batavian Republic. The Batavian Republic was the successor of the Republic of the Seven Netherlands/United Provinces of the Netherlands. Its formation on January 19, 1795 was heavily influenced by French revolutionary troops but the reform of government was desired by the Dutch people. The Republic became the Dutch Commonwealth in 1801 and was later abolished on June 5, 1806 when Napoléon’s brother Louis Bonaparte was crowned King of Holland. The Batavian Republic was the first of Frances “sister-republics” and later part of the French Empire. The Batavian Republic was organized in different Departments. This map from 1798 shows the order La Fayette would have found in 1799. Utrecht is located in the North-east of the Department van de Rijn:

Utrecht would become its own department in 1801:

With that all being said, we can move on to La Fayette’s address. He lived in the county house (buitenplaats) Buitenlust (I have a hard time finding a suitable English translation, but buitenlust describes the joy of the outdoors) in the Prinses Julianastraat. (princess Juliana street) The house was erected in 1770 for Jacob Cambier and demolished in 1901. Buitenlust was composed of two stories on a rectangular piece of land. A picture of Buitenlust adorns an old postcard from Vianen.

Piet de Hertog, De Prinses Julianastraat, geschiedenis en verdwenen verbouwing, in Het Land Van Brederode – Jaarboek 2013, 2013, pp. 16-25.

After Cambier’s death in 1783, the ownership passed to his son Joan Jacob Cambier. It was he who rented the house to La Fayette and his family.

While the neighborhood has severely changed over the last decades, there is still something left of the original Buitenlust. In 1939 a new building, a single family home, was erected on the grounds of the old country house. The house has a gable stone marked with the word “Buitenlust". The address today is Prinses Juliananstraat 26 in Vianen.

La Fayette’s connecttion with Vianen, Buitenlust and the Cambier family was further explored in the article De Prinses Julianastraat, geschiedenis en verdwenen verbouwing, published by the historical society Het Land Van Brederode:

De bouwheer van Buitenlust was Jacob III Cambier (1711-1783), éen van de Viaanse vooraanstaande Patriotten. Jacobs contacten met de Fransen leidden er tie dat de bekende politicus en generaal Gilbert du Motier, markies De Lafayette (1757-1834) op Buitenlust onderdak vond. Lafayette kende een turbulente politieke carrière en mocht na zijn vrijlating uit oostenrijikde gevangenschap niet naar frankrijk terugkeren. De markies werd vooral bekend door zijn strijd tegen de Englesen in de Amerikaanse vrijheidsoorlog. De deatilas en de betrouwbaarheid van zijn verblijf in Vianen zijn niet exact bekend, maar he is een feit dat De Lafayette in 1799 in Vianen verbleef. Dat volgt namelijk uit een brief die hij vanuit Vianen schreef aan George Washingon. Van de eigenaarsgeschiedenis van Buitenlust zijn slechts flarden bekend. De laaste bewonder van Buitenlust was Willem Jacob II Cambier (1844-1901), secretaris penningmeester van het hoogheermraadschap de of. Na zijn overlijden werd het huis nog in datzelfde jaar abgebroken.

Piet de Hertog, De Prinses Julianastraat, geschiedenis en verdwenen verbouwing, in Het Land Van Brederode – Jaarboek 2013, 2013, pp. 16-25.

My translation:

The builder of Buitenlust was Jacob III Cambier (1711-1783), one of Vianen’s foremost patriots. Jacob’s contact with the French lead to the prominent politician and General Gilbert du Motier, marquis De Lafayette (1757-1834) finding shelter in Buitenlust. Lafayette’s political career had been turbulent, and he was not allowed to return to France after his release from Austrian imprisonment. The marquis was most famous for his fight against England in the American War of Independent. The details of Lafayette’s stay in Vianen are not completely certain, but it is known that he was in Vianen in 1799. This is primarily proven by a letter that he had send to George Washington from Vianen.

The last resident of Buitenlust was Willem Jacob II Cambier (1844-1901), secretary of the treasury for the council of Vijfheerenlanden [a municipality in the province of Utrecht.] After his death, the house was demolished the same year.

The article is wrong in one aspect; there is more than one letter to prove that La Fayette was in Vianen. There is one letter to Thomas Jefferson from April 19, 1799 and one to George Washington from May 9, 1799. Then there is also the letter from Wiliam Vans Murray to John Quincy Adams from March 19, 1799. Murray had visited La Fayette and his family in Vianen and was fairly shocked by what he witnessed there. We furthermore have several legal documents in the archive in Utrecht as well as this except from Virginie’s book:

After a short stay there [Paris], and a visit to Mme de Chavaniac in Auvergne, we all met again in the following year (1799) at Vianen, near Utrecht. My father had come there from Holstein, with George. Exiles can fix themselves nowhere. Their only thought is to abandon their momentary home, their only wish, to depart. It was there that my sister gave birth to her first child, and that my aunts came to see us.