Charles Eugene, Duke of Württemberg


Charles Eugene was the Duke of Württemberg, and the eldest son, and successor, of Charles Alexander; his mother was Princess Marie Auguste of Thurn and Taxis.

Life

Born in Brussels, he succeeded his father as ruler of Württemberg at the age of 9, but the real power was in the hands of Regents Carl Rudolf, Duke of Württemberg-Neuenstadt and Charles [Frederick II, Duke of Württemberg-Oels|Carl Frederick von Württemberg-Oels].
He was educated at the court of Frederick II of Prussia. He also studied keyboard with Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach in the 1740s.
In his early years he ruled with an iron fist. In 1744 he ordered that the corpse of Joseph Süß Oppenheimer, his father's financial advisor executed by the Duke of Württemberg-Neuenstadt, whose decaying corpse had been suspended in an iron cage by Stuttgart's Prag gallows for six years, be taken down and given a decent burial. He was also well known for his extensive library, his extravagant interest in opera, and interest in large scale horticulture for the feeding of the masses.
Charles Eugene made the first of his five trips to Paris and the Palace of Versailles in 1748 with his first wife. He used these trips to sightsee and acquire Parisian goods for Ludwigsburg Palace while touring the workshops those goods were manufactured in. From 1776 Etienne Sollicoffre, a banker Charles Eugene had met in Paris, befriended the Duke and acted as the agent of his purchases in the city.
Between 1751 and 1759 Karl Eugen was involved in an increasingly bitter struggle with his adviser, the eminent Liberal jurist Johann Jakob Moser who strongly opposed the Duke's absolutist tendencies. In 1759 Charles Eugene had Moser charged with authoring "a subversive writing" and cast into prison for the next five years. However, in 1764 Moser was released, due in part to the intercession of Friedrich the Great of Prussia, and was rehabilitated and restored to his position, rank and titles.
Having accepted a subsidy from the French, in the Seven Years' War against Prussia, Charles Eugene advanced into Saxony.
In 1761, Charles Eugene founded an Académie des Arts in Stuttgart, in 1765 a public library in Ludwigsburg, and he was responsible for the construction of a number of other key palaces and buildings in the area including the New Palace which still stands at the centre of the Schlossplatz, Solitude Palace, Einsiedel Palace and Castle Hohenheim.
Charles Eugene was known for his interest in agriculture and travel and is considered the inspiration behind today's Hohenheim university, part of which now occupies his former summer estate. His original botanical gardens form the basis for today's Landesarboretum Baden-Württemberg and Botanischer Garten der Universität Hohenheim, which still contain some of the specimens he planted. He was also involved in Aviculture. He built a large number of palaces and bankrupted his lands through courtly extravagance, accepting huge French government loans in exchange for maintaining large numbers of support troops in Württemberg.
He was an early patron of Friedrich Schiller. However, in 1780 he had him arrested for deserting his post as a regimental doctor in Stuttgart in order to attend the first performance of his play The Robbers in Mannheim. Schiller was sentenced to 14 days of imprisonment, and forbidden by Karl Eugen from publishing any further works.
Hermann Sacher, writing in the Catholic Encyclopedia called Charles Eugene "a despot, spendthrift, and profligate". Charles Eugene ruled until his death in 1793, when he was succeeded by his younger brother. He died in Hohenheim.

Marriages

Charles Eugene married twice, first in Bayreuth on 26 September 1748 to Margravine Elisabeth Fredericka Sophie of Brandenburg-Bayreuth with whom he had one daughter, Friederike Wilhelmine Augusta Luise Charlotte, who was born in Stuttgart on 19 February 1750 and died after 13 months in Stuttgart on 12 March 1751. Elisabetha left Charles Eugene in 1756 to return to her parents' court in Bayreuth although they never divorced.
In the meantime, Charles Eugene kept a string of mistresses and fathered eleven children by them. The last of these mistresses was Franziska von Hohenheim, whom he raised to the status of Countess and married in Stuttgart on 10 or 11 January 1785.

Mistresses and illegitimate issue

By an unknown mistress he had:
  • Karoline, unmarried and without issue
By Luisa Toscani he had:
  • Karl von Ostheim, unmarried and without issue
  • Karl Alexander von Ostheim, unmarried and without issue
By an unknown mistress he had:
  • Charlotte, married 30 June 1783 Julius Friedrich von Lützow, without issue
By Teresa Bonafoni he had:
  • Karl Bonafoni
  • Karl genannt Borel, who committed suicide, unmarried and without issue
By Anna Eleonora Franchi he had:
  • Eugen Franchi, unmarried and without issue
  • Eleonore Franchi, Freiin von Franquemont, married in 1792 Jean François Louis Marie, Comte d'Orsay, and had issue
By an unknown mistress he had:
  • Friedrich Wilhelm, unmarried and without issue
By Katharina Kurz he had:
  • Karl-David von Franquemont, married firstly in May 1795 to a Baroness Maria Barbara von Hügel, daughter of Baron Theobald von Hügel, by whom he had a daughter, and married secondly in May 1795 to Luise Sophie Henriette von Jett, by whom he had a daughter:
  • * Charlotte Elisabeth Piron von Franquemont, who lived in Ceylon and married Matthias Johann August David von Franquemont
  • * Karoline Luise von Franquemont, married on 21 October 1819 Johann von Raben, without issue
By Regina Monti he had: