Historic Oddities and Strange Events

The Electress's Plot

The Elector Frederick Christian of Saxony reigned only a few weeks, from October 5th to December 13, 1763; in his forty-first year he died of small-pox. He never had enjoyed rude health. The mother of the unfortunate prince, Marie Josepha of Austria, was an exceedingly ugly, but prolific lady, vastly proud of her Hapsburg descent. The three first children followed each other with considerable punctuality, but the two first, both sons, died early. Frederick Christian was the third. The Electress, a few months before his birth, was hunting, when a deer that had been struck, turned to her, dragging its broken legs behind it. This produced a powerful impression on her mind; and when her son was born, he was found to be a cripple in his legs. His head and arms were well formed, but his spine was twisted, and his knees, according to the English ambassador, Sir Charles Williams – were drawn up over his stomach. He could not stand, and had to be lifted about from place to place. At the age of five-and-twenty he had been married to Maria Antonia, daughter of the Elector of Bavaria, afterwards the Emperor Charles VII.

His brother, Francis Xavier, was a sturdy fellow, like his father, and the Electress mother tried very hard to get Frederick Christian to resign his pretentions in favour of his brother, and take holy orders. This he refused to do, and was then married to Maria Antonia, aged twenty-three. Her mother had also been an Austrian princess, Amalia, and also remarkable for her ugliness. The choice was not happy, it brought about a marriage between cousins, and an union of blood that was afflicted with ugliness and infirmity of body.

Maria Antonia had not only inherited her mother's ugliness, but was further disfigured with small-pox. She was small of stature, but of a resolute will, and of unbounded ambition. English tourists liked her, they said that she laid herself out to make the Court of Dresden agreeable to them. Wraxall tells a good story of her, which shows a certain frankness, not to say coarseness in her conversation – a story we will not reproduce.

She had already made her personality felt at the Bavarian Court. Shortly after the death of her father, in imitation of Louisa Dorothea, Duchess of Gotha, she had founded an "Order of Friendship, or the Society of the Incas." The founding of the Order took place one fine spring day on a gondola in the canal at Nymphenburg. Her brother, the Elector of Bavaria, was instituted a member, the Prince of Fürstenberg was made chancellor, and was given the custody of the seal of the confraternity which had as its legend "La fidelité mêne." The badge of the Order was a gold ring on the little finger of the left hand, with the inscription, "L'ordre de l'amitié – Maria Antonia." Each member went by a name descriptive of his character, or of that virtue he or she was supposed to represent. Thus the chancellor was called "Le Solide."

Sir Charles Williams says that on the very first night of her appearance in Dresden she made an attempt to force herself into a position for which she had no right; to the great annoyance of the King of Poland (Augustus, Elector of Saxony).

At Dresden, she favoured the arts, especially music and painting. She became the patroness of the family Mengs. She sang, and played on the piano, and indeed composed a couple of operas, "Thalestris" and "Il trionfo della fidelita," and the former was actually put on the stage. Sir Charles Williams in 1747 wrote that, in spite of her profession that in her eyes no woman ought to meddle in the affairs of state, he ventured to prophecy, she would rule the whole land in the name of her unfortunate husband.

Nor was he wrong. The moment that her father-in-law died, she put her hand on the reins. She was not likely to meet with resistance from her husband, he was not merely a cripple in body, but was contracted in his intellect; he was amiable, but weak and ignorant. Sir Charles Williams says that he once asked at table whether it was not possible to reach England by land —although it was an island.

Frederick Christian began to reign on 5th October 1763, and immediately orders were given for the increase of the army to 50,000 men. Maria Antonia was bent on becoming a queen, and for this end she must get her husband proclaimed like his father, King of Poland. She was allied to all the Courts of Europe, her agreeable manners, her energy, gained her friends in all quarters. She felt herself quite capable of wearing a royal crown, and she wrote to all the courts to urge the claims of her husband, the Elector, when – the unfortunate cripple was attacked by small-pox, had a stroke, and died December 17th. Small-pox had carried off his ancestor John George IV., and in that same century it occasioned the death of his brother-in-law, Max Joseph of Bavaria, and of the Emperor Joseph I.

He left behind him four sons, his successor, Frederick Augustus, and the three other princes, Charles, his mother's favourite, Anthony, and Maximilian Joseph, the third of whom died the same year as his father. He had also two daughters.

The death of her husband was a severe blow to the ambition of the Electress; her eldest son, Frederick Augustus, was under age, and the reins of government were snatched from her hands and put into those of the uncle of the young Elector, Xavier, who had been his mother's favourite, and in favour of whom his elder brother had been urged to resign his pretensions. Xavier was appointed administrator of Saxony, and acted as such for five years.

When, at the age of eighteen, Frederick Augustus III. assumed the power, he endeavoured to fulfil his duties with great diligence and conscientiousness, and allowed of no interference. He had, indeed, his advisers, but these were men whom he selected for himself from among those who had been well tried and who had proved themselves trusty.

The Electress-mother had, during the administration of Prince Xavier, exercised some little authority; she now suddenly found herself deprived of every shred. Her son was too firm and self-determined to admit of her interference. Moody and dissatisfied, she left Dresden and went to Potsdam to Frederick II., in 1769, apparently to feel the way towards the execution of a plan that was already forming in her restless brain. She does not seem to have met with any encouragement, and she then started for Italy, where she visited Rome in 1772, and sought Mengs out, whose artistic talents had been fostered under her care.

Under the administration of Prince Xavier, the Electress Dowager had received an income of sixty thousand dollars; after her son had mounted the throne, her appanage was doubled, more than doubled, for she was granted 130,000 dollars, and in addition her son gave her a present of 500,000 dollars. This did not satisfy her, for she had no notion of cutting her coat according to her cloth, she would everywhere maintain a splendid court. Moreover, she was bitten with the fever of speculation. The year before her son came of age and assumed the power, she had erected a great cotton factory at Grossenhain, but as it brought her in no revenue, and cost her money besides, she was glad to dispose of it in 1774. The visitor to Dresden almost certainly knows the Bavarian tavern at the end of the bridge leading into Little Dresden. It is a tavern now mediævalised, with panelled walls, bull's eye glass in the windows, old German glass and pottery – even an old German kalendar hanging from the walls, and with a couple of pretty Bavarian Kellnerins in costume, to wait on the visitor. There also in the evening Bavarian minstrels jodel, and play the zither.

This Bavarian tavern was established by the Electress Mother, who thought that the Saxons did not drink good or enough beer, and must be supplied with that brewed in her native land.

But this speculation also failed, and her capital of five hundred thousand dollars was swallowed up to the last farthing, and to meet her creditors she was obliged to pawn her diamond necklace and the rest of her jewels. This happened in Genoa. When her allowance came in again she redeemed her jewelry, but in 1775 had to pawn it again in Rome. Unable to pay her debts, and in distress for money, she appealed repeatedly, but in vain, to her son.

Frederick Augustus was, like his father, of feeble constitution, and moreover, as he himself complained later on in life, had been at once spoiled and neglected in his youth; and he was unable through weakness to ascend a height. He did not walk or ride, but went about in a carriage. The January (1769) after he came to the Electoral crown, he married Amelia Augusta of Zweibrücken, sister of Max Joseph, afterwards first King of Bavaria. She was only seventeen at the time.

The favourite son of his mother was Charles. This prince had been hearty and in full possession of his limbs in his early age, but when he reached the years of eleven or twelve, he became crippled and doubled up like his father. Wraxal says that beside him Scarron would have passed as a beauty. He was so feeble and paralysed that he could only be moved about on a wheeled chair. He died in 1781. His elder brother, the Elector, though not a vigorous man, was not a cripple.

One of the attendant gentry on the Electress Mother, in Rome, was the Marquis Aloysius Peter d'Agdolo, son of the Saxon Consul in Venice, Colonel of the Lifeguard, and Adjutant General to Prince Xavier whilst he was Administrator.

Agdolo advised the Electress Mother to raise money to meet her difficulties by selling to her son, the Elector, her claims on the Bavarian inheritance. Her brother, Maximilian Joseph, was without children; and the nearest male claimant to the Electoral Crown of Bavaria was the Count Palatine of Sulzbach, only remotely connected. It was, therefore, quite possible that Bavaria might fall to a sister. Now on the death of her brother, the Dowager Electress of Saxony certainly intended to advance her claims against any remote kinsman hailing through a common ancestor two centuries ago. But whether she would be able to enforce her claim was another matter. She might sell it to her son, who would have the means of advancing his claim by force of arms and gold. This was in 1776. Maria Antonia was delighted with the scheme and at once hastened to Munich to put it in execution, taking with her all her diamonds which she had managed to redeem from pawn.

Whilst she was on her way to Munich, Agdolo was despatched to Dresden, to open the negociation with her son, not only for the transference of her rights on Bavaria, but also for the pawning of her diamonds, to her son.

She had urgent need of money, and in her extremity she conceived an audacious scheme to enable her at the same time to get hold of the money, and to retain her rights on Bavaria. The plan was this: – As soon as she had got the full payment from the Elector for the resignation of her claims in his favour, she had resolved suddenly to proclaim to the world that he was no son at all of the late Elector Frederick Christian – that he was a bastard, smuggled into the palace and passed off as the son of the Elector, much as, according to Whig gossip, James the Pretender was smuggled into the palace of James II. in a warming pan, and passed off as of blood royal, when he was of base origin.

Frederick Augustus thus declared to be no son of the House of Saxony, the Electoral crown would come to her favourite son Charles, who was a cripple. The Elector was not deformed – evidence against his origin; Charles was doubled up and distorted – he was certainly the true son of the late Elector, and the legitimate successor.

If Maria Antonia should succeed – she would rule Saxony in the name, and over the head of her unfortunate son Charles, and her rights on Bavaria would not have been lost or made away with.

Arrived in Munich, she confided the whole plan to her ladies-in-waiting. She told them her hopes, her confidence in Agdolo, who was gone to Dresden to negociate the sale, and who was thoroughly aware of her intentions.

Agdolo, as all the ladies knew, was a great rascal. He had been pensioned by Prince Xavier with six hundred dollars per annum, and he had what he received from the Electress Mother as her gentleman-in-waiting. He was married to the Princess Lubomirska, widow of Count Rutowska, had quarrelled with her, and they lived separate, but he had no scruple to receive of an insulted wife an annual allowance. All these sources of income were insufficient to meet his expenses; and no one who knew him doubted for a moment that he would lend himself to any intrigue which would promise him wealth and position. The plot of the Dowager Electress was a risky one – but, should it succeed, his fortune was assured.

At Dresden he was well received by the Elector; and Frederick Augustus at once accepted the proposition of his mother. He consented to purchase Maria Antonia's resignation in his favour of her claims on the allodial inheritance of the family on the extinction of the Bavarian Electoral house in the male line, and to pay all her debts, and to find a sum sufficient to redeem the diamonds, which were represented as still in pawn at Rome.

Maria Antonia and her confidant appeared to be on the eve of success, when the plan was upset, from a quarter in which they had not dreamed of danger. Among the ladies of the court of the Dowager Electress was one whose name does not transpire, who seems to have entertained an ardent passion for Agdolo. He, however, disregarded her, and paid his attentions to another of the ladies. Rage and jealousy consumed the heart of this slighted beauty, and when the Electress Mother confided to her the plan she had formed, the lady-in-waiting saw that her opportunity had arrived for the destruction of the man who had slighted her charms. She managed to get hold of her mistress' keys and to make a transcript of her papers, wherein the whole plan was detailed, also of copies of her letters to Agdolo, and of the Marquis's letters to her. When she had these, she at once despatched them – not to the Elector of Saxony, but to Frederick II. at Berlin, who stood in close relations of friendship with the Elector of Saxony. She had reckoned aright. Such tidings, received through the Court of Prussia, would produce a far deeper impression on Frederick Augustus, than if received from her unknown and insignificant self. It is possible also that she may have known of her mistress having been at Berlin and there thrown out hints of something of the sort, so that Frederick II. would at once recognise in this matured plan the outcome of the vague hints of mischief poured out at Potsdam a few years before.

All was going on well at Berlin. Adolphus von Zehmen, Electoral Treasurer, had already started for Munich, furnished with the requisite sums. He was empowered to receive the deed of relinquishment from the Dowager Electress, and also her diamond necklace, which, in the meantime, was to be brought by a special courier from Rome. Maria Antonia, on her side, had constituted Councillor Hewald her plenipotentiary; she wrote to say that he would transact all the requisite negociation with the Treasurer Zehmen, and that the diamond necklace had arrived and was in his hands.

Agdolo received orders from the Electress Mother on no account to leave Dresden till the middle of September, 1776, lest his departure should arouse suspicion.

The conduct of the Marquis was not in any way remarkable, he moved about among old friends with perfect openness, often appeared in Court, and was satisfied that he was perfectly safe. He was not in the least aware that all his proceedings were watched and reported on, not by order of the Elector, but of his own mistress, who received regular reports from this emissary as to the behaviour and proceedings of the Marquis, so that she was able to compare with this private report that sent her by Agdolo, and so satisfy herself whether he was acting in her interest, or playing a double game.

This bit of cunning on her part, was not surprising, considering what a man Agdolo was, and, as we shall see, it proved of great advantage to her, but in a way she least expected.

The Marchese d'Agdolo had paid his farewell visit to the Elector, and received leave to depart. Frederick Augustus had not the remotest suspicion that his mother was playing a crooked part, and he seemed heartily satisfied with the negociation, and made the Marquis a present.

On September 15, 1776, Agdolo was intending to start from Dresden, on his return to Munich, and the evening before leaving he spent at the house of a friend, Ferber, playing cards. Little did he suspect that whilst he was winning one stake after another at the table, the greatest stake of all was lost. That evening, whilst he was playing cards, a courier arrived from Berlin, in all haste, and demanded to see the Elector in person, instantly, as he had a communication of the utmost importance to make from Frederick II. He was admitted without delay, and the whole of his mother's plot was detailed before the astonished Elector.

"The originals of these transcripts," said the courier, "are in the hands of the Marchese d'Agdolo, let him be arrested, and a comparison of the documents made."

The Privy Council was at once assembled, and the papers received from Frederick II. were laid before it. The members voted unanimously that the Marquis should be arrested, and General Schiebell was entrusted with the execution of the decree. No surprise was occasioned by the entry of General Schiebell into the house of Ferber. It was a place of resort of the best society in Dresden; but when the General announced that he had come to make an arrest, many cheeks lost their colour.

"In the name of his Serene Highness the Elector," said the General, "I make this man my prisoner," and he laid his hand on the shoulder of Agdolo, who had served under him in the Seven Years' War. He was taken at once to his own lodgings, where his desks and boxes – already packed for departure – were opened, and all his papers removed. The same night, under a strong guard, he was transported at 10 o'clock, to Königstein. In that strong fortress and state prison, perched on an isolated limestone crag, the rest of his life was to be spent in confinement.