Pückler-Muskau was
the first of five children of Count Carl Ludwig Hans Erdmann Pückler,
and the Countess Clementine of Callenberg, who gave birth to him at
age 15. He was born at Muskau Castle (now Bad Muskau) in Upper
Lusatia, then ruled by the Electorate of Saxony.
He served for some
time in the Saxon "Garde du Corps" cavalry regiment at
Dresden, and afterwards traveled through France and Italy, often by
foot. In 1811, after the death of his father, he inherited the
Standesherrschaft (barony) of Muskau. Joining the war of liberation
against Napoleon I of France, he left Muskau under the General
Inspectorate of his friend, the writer and composer Leopold Schefer.
As an officer under the Duke of Saxe-Weimar he distinguished himself
in the field. Later, he was made military and civil governor of
Bruges.
After the war he
retired from the army and visited England, where he remained about a
year, visiting Her Majesty's Theatre, Haymarket and Drury Lane
(admiring Eliza O'Neill), studying parks (he visited the Ladies of
Llangollen) and high society, being himself a member of it. In 1822,
in compensation for certain privileges which he resigned, he was
raised to the rank of "Fürst" by King Frederick William
III of Prussia. In 1817 he had married the Dowager Countess Lucie von
Pappenheim, née von Hardenberg, daughter of Prussian statesman
Prince Karl August von Hardenberg; the marriage was legally dissolved
after nine years, in 1826, though the parties did not separate and
remained on amicable terms.
He returned to
England in 1828 where he became something of a celebrity in London
society spending nearly two years in search of a wealthy second wife
capable of funding his ambitious gardening schemes. In 1828 his tours
took him to Ireland, notably to the seat of Daniel O'Connell in
Kerry. On his return home he published a not entirely frank account
of his time in England. The book was an enormous success in Germany,
and also caused a great stir when it appeared in English as Tour of a
German Prince (1831–32).
Being a daring
character, he subsequently traveled in Algeria, Tunisia, Egypt and
Sudan and explored ancient Nubia. He is documented as having visiting
the site of Naqa in modern-day Sudan in 1837. He also visited the
nearby site of Musawwarat es-Sufra, and in both places he carved his
name in the stone of the temples.
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| Mahbuba, ca. 1840
“In 1837 the
prince visited a slave market in Cairo, there catching sight of a
near-naked Abyssinian girl of no more than 13 called Mahbuba,
“beloved”. He promptly purchased her (ever the gentleman, he
didn’t even haggle). The prince self-righteously pronounced that he
was “too conscientious” to treat her as a slave, but his
description of how he “civilised” her, much as one might train a
puppy, makes for pretty disturbing reading.
But as they
travelled together, north through Lebanon and on into Turkey, a
genuine warmth developed between them, made easier once Mahbuba
learnt Italian so the two could at least converse. Pückler-Muskau
was smitten and while never professing romantic love for her
guardian, Mahbuba did refer to him as “beloved father”. [At this
point, if I were of a romantic nature I might say “he could buy her
body but he could never buy her heart” but…y’know, romance
schmomance.] The pair travelled on to Vienna, where they appeared
before a fascinated imperial court.
However Mahbuba
found it difficult to adapt to the climate and a cold she had caught
in Lebanon developed into tuberculosis. Hoping the health-giving
waters of Muskauer Park might provide a cure, the two travelled there
in September 1840. There they had to contend with the prince’s
ex-wife, who was still in residence and refused to let Mahbuba stay
in the palace.
Mahbuba’s
condition worsened but Lucie, who had departed for Berlin and herself
fallen ill, summoned the prince there. Caught between love and
obligation, Pückler-Muskau – unusually – chose the latter.
Lucie recovered,
Mahbuba never did. She died on October 27, 1840, alone;
Pückler-Muskau didn’t even make it back in time for the funeral.
He claimed, in a letter to a friend, that “I felt more love for her
than I thought myself capable of; that was probably my most intense
pain…and greatest comfort.” Unlike most of his love letters it
bears the hallmark of authentic feeling, though of scant consolation
to the woman who still lies in Muskauer Park, surrounded by the names
of the Prince’s other flames.”
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In the same year, at the slave
market of Cairo he was enchanted by an Ethopian girl in her early
teens whom he promptly bought and named Mahbuba ("the beloved").
Together they continued a romantic voyage in Asia Minor and Greece.
In Vienna he introduced Mahbuba to European high society, but the
girl developed tuberculosis and died in Muskau in 1840. Later he
would write that she was "the being I loved most of all the
world."
He then lived at
Berlin and Muskau, where he spent much time in cultivating and
improving the still existing Muskau Park. In 1845 he sold this
estate, and, although he afterwards lived from time to time at
various places in Germany and Italy, his principal residence became
Schloss Branitz near Cottbus, where he laid out another splendid
park.
Politically he was a
liberal, supporting the Prussian reforms of Freiherr vom Stein. This,
together with his pantheism and his extravagant lifestyle, made him
slightly suspect in the society of the Biedermeier period.
In 1863 he was made
a hereditary member of the Prussian House of Lords, and in 1866 he
attended — by then an octogenarian — the Prussian general staff
in the Austro-Prussian War. He was awarded for his 'actions' at the
Battle of Königgratz, even though the then 80-year old Prince had
slept throughout the day. In 1871 he died at Branitz. Since a
cremation of the deceased was forbidden at that time for religious
reasons, he resorted to a provocative trick, and ordered that his
heart be dissolved in sulfuric acid, and that his body should be
embedded in caustic soda, caustic potash, and caustic lime. Thus, on
February 9, 1871, his remains were buried in the Tumulus - a lake
pyramid in the park lake of the Branitzer Castle Park. Since he was
childless, the castle and the park fell after his death to his
successor to the Majorats, his nephew Heinrich von Pueckler, and all
cash and the inventory to his niece Marie von Pachelbl-Gehag, née
von Seydewitz. The literary estate of the prince was inherited by
writer Ludmilla Assing, who wrote the biography of the author and
published his unpublished correspondence and diaries.
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“In 1826, the
prince of Pückler-Muskau embarked on a tour of England, Wales, and
Ireland. Although captivated by all things British, his initial
objective was to find a wealthy bride. He and his wife Lucie, having
expended every resource on a plan to transform their estate into a
vast landscape park, agreed to an amicable divorce, freeing him to
forge an advantageous alliance that could rescue their project. For
over two years, Pückler’s letters home conveyed a vivid, often
quirky, and highly entertaining account of his travels. From the
metropolis of London, he toured the mines and factories of the
Industrial Revolution and visited the grand estates and spectacular
art collections maintained by its beneficiaries. He encountered the
scourge of rural and urban poverty and found common cause with the
oppressed Irish. With his gift for description, Pückler evokes the
spectacular landscapes of Wales, the perils of transportation, and
the gentle respite of manor houses and country inns. Part memoir,
part travelogue and political commentary, part epistolary novel,
Pückler’s rhetorical flare and acute observations provoked the
German poet Heinrich Heine to characterize him as the “most
fashionable of eccentric men―Diogenes on horseback.”
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