Henriette Karoline von Pfalz-Zweibrücken (1721-1774)

German Nobility. She was the daughter of Christian III, Duke of Zweibrücken and his wife Caroline of Nassau-Saarbrücken. She married on 12 August 1741 in Zweibrücken, Louis IX, Landgrave of Hesse-Darmstadt. The marriage was arranged and unhappy. Caroline was interested in music and literature, while her consort was interested in military matters, and she lived separated from him at Buchsweiler. She founded a factory to ease the states economy. Caroline was better known as "The Great Landgräfin", a name given to her by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. The position the Landgrafin occupies in the history of Darmstadt and the principality of Hessen-Darmstadt is supported by her rank in literary history, which is mainly due to Goethe's mention of her in his autobiography of 1811-14, Aus meinem Leben. Dichtung und Wahrheit. Goethe writes about his sojourns at Darmstadt during the early 1770s, where he mainly mixed with the circle of Darmstadt Sentimentalists (Sauder). The Landgrafin was the secret motor of this circle, its patron. She also had contact with Frederick II of Prussia, and she was one of the few women that the Alte Fritz respected. He called her once the Glory and Wonder of our century and after her death he sent to Darmstadt an urn with the text femina sexo, ingenio vir (A woman by sex, a man by spirit), which can still be seen today. Through her daughters she is an ancestor to the royal house of Prussia, Germany and the Netherlands. Her posthumous fame makes visible the contradictions imposed on female members of the high nobility.

Bio by: Holy Grail