#lehmkuhlen

[nordleuchten]

La Fayette and the "Emkendorfer Kreis"

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”.

While I myself always like to point out that La Fayette was far more than the bubbly teenager, he is often made out to be, I find it nevertheless quite remarkable that La Fayette is described here as “quite and withdrawn”. It shows once more that the last years had been a living nightmare for him and his family.

[nordleuchten]

Hello! Do you by any chance know where Lafayette and his family lived after they were released from Olmütz, and waiting to go back to France?

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 hope the information was helpful. I have a la fayette in exile-tag, that might interest you as well. I hope you have/had a lovely day!