II. - Schloss Schwetzingen

troops, who were already at the gates of
Mannheim, the inhabitants informed their
Electress, that they were glad to have her in
their midst. Recognizing her cue, she declared
her intention of being Mannheim’s fi rst
citizen, and vowed not to desert her subjects
in their plight. 25 Only when the threat posed
by the French made it inevitable to accept
Austrian help, because the Palatinate’s long
neutrality no longer guaranteed safety, did the
Electress retire to Weinheim. She died there
on 17th August 1794.
(Susan Richter)
Stéphanie Napoléon (1789-1860),
Grand Duchess of Baden
Stéphanie Napoleon (1789-1860) was born
at Versailles, the daughter of Captain of the
Guards Claude de Beauharnais. When her
aunt Josephine married Napoleon I, her family
rose to the very top of the French hierarchy.
Napoleon, long without children of his own,
used his wife’s family in his dynastic politics.
He considered Baden to be an important ally,
and so he married his niece to the heir to the
throne, Karl (1786/1811-1818). The marriage
took place on 7th April 1806, in Paris. 26
The young couple were assigned the Mannheim
palace as a residence, and Schwetzingen
as a summer retreat. For the fi rst time since
Carl Theodor’s move to Munich in 1778, and
until 1811, the palace was continually inhabited
again.
In the summer of 1807, the young poet
Joseph von Eichendorff went for an extended
ramble through the Schwetzingen grounds.
Afterwards he told of having heard Stephanie
singing: “We made a few more incursions into
the garden, and from the castle we heard the
Grand Duchess singing to the accompaniment
of a guitar […].“ 27 Stephanie was considered to
be an unusually gifted musician. During one
25 Mörz 1997, p. 184, n. 2.
26 Rosemarie Strattmann-Döhler, Stephanie Napoleon,
Großherzogin von Baden, Karlsruhe 1989, p. 47. Cp. Rudolf
Haas, Stephanie Napoleon, Großherzogin von Baden – Leben
zwischen Frankreich und Deutschland, Mannheim 1976. pp.
14 ff.
27 Joseph Frh. v. Eichendorff: Tagebücher. In : Werke und
Schriften, vol. 3, Stuttgart 1958/59. Entry for 28. 7. 1807, pp.
199 ff.
IV. Biographies
of her summer stays at Schwetzingen, her
daughter Luise Amalie Stephanie was born on
5th June 1811.
The crown princess, evidently fascinated by
gardens, asked her “chèr grandpère” the Grand
Duke Karl Friedrich, for permission to create
a garden on what had been the ramparts and
fortifi cations of Mannheim. Karl Friedrich
was concerned for the gardens of the former
Palatine palaces himself; he not only granted
the princess’ request, he also took up the suggestion
of the Schwetzingen garden director,
Zeyher (1770-1843), to create an “arboretum”
there in the years after 1804.
When Grand Duke Karl Friedrich died in
1811, Karl succeeded him as the ruler of
Baden, and the couple moved into the main
residence in Karlsruhe. But the young Grand
Duke soon fell seriously ill, and in 1818, he
died after only seven years in offi ce.
The marriage contract had granted Stephanie
the palaces of Mannheim and Schwetzingen
as dower houses. On 20th September 1819,
she moved into the rooms prepared for her
and her household on the main fl oor of
the west wing and the corps de logis up to
the “Rittersaal” at Mannheim. 28 Under her
auspices a lively court developed there.
After the Baden revolution of 1848/1849,
watched by her with reactionary incomprehension,
her small court became a remnant
of the past. Gradually she became estranged
from her “beloved Mannheim”, as she had
called it once in a letter to its mayor. In 1859,
she retired to Nice where she died on 29th
January 1860 . 29
(Susan Richter)
28 Strattmann-Döhler 1989, p. 40, n. 1.
29 Strattmann-Döhler 1989, p. 247, n. 1.
IV.
173