Nationality Saxon, Polish Role Statesman | Name Heinrich Bruhl Children Alois Friedrich von Bruhl | |
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Full Name Heinrich von Bruhl Born 13 August 1700 ( 1700-08-13 ) Gangloffsommern Occupation Diplomat, statesman at the court of Saxony and the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth Spouse(s) Countess Franziska von Kolowrat-Krakowska Parent(s) Johann Moritz von Bruhl Died October 28, 1763, Dresden, Germany | ||
Heinrich, count von Bruhl (Polish: Henryk Bruhl, 13 August 1700 – 28 October 1763), was a Polish-Saxon statesman at the court of Saxony and the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth and a member of the powerful German von Bruhl family. The incumbency of the ambitious politician went along with the decline of both states. Bruhl was a skillful diplomat and cunning strategist, who managed to attain control over of Saxony and Poland, partly by controlling its king, Augustus III, who ultimately could only be accessed through Bruhl himself.
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Polish historian and writer Jozef Ignacy Kraszewski wrote a novel under the title Count Bruhl, in which he described Heinrich as an oppressive and stubborn dictator, who, with greed, but also great determination, unsuccessfully attempted to gain control of the entire nation.
It is widely believed that Bruhl had Europe's largest collection of watches and military vests; attributed to him was also a vast collection of ceremonial wigs, hats and the largest collection of Meissen porcelain in the world.
Career
Heinrich was born in Gangloffsommern the son of Johann Moritz von Bruhl, a noble who held the office of the Oberhofmarschall at the court of Saxe-Weissenfels (ruled by a cadet branch of the Albertine House of Wettin), by his first wife Erdmuth Sophie v. d. Heide. His father was ruined and compelled to part with his family estate, which passed into the hands of the prince. Under Duke Christian of Saxe-Weissenfels von Bruhl was first placed as page with the dowager duchess, and was then received at her recommendation into the court of the Electorate of Saxony at Dresden as a Silberpage on 16 April 1719. He rapidly acquired the favour of the Elector Frederick Augustus I of Wettin, surnamed the Strong, who, in 1697, had been elected King of Poland (as Augustus II). Bruhl was largely employed in procuring money for his extravagant master. He became Chief Receiver of Taxes and Minister of the Interior of Saxony in 1731.
He was at Warsaw when his master died in 1733, and obtained the confidence of the Prince-Elector Frederick Augustus II, who was at Dresden at the time, by acquiring the papers and jewels of his late father and bringing them promptly to his successor. Von Bruhl raised money to secure the election of Frederick Augustus II as Polish king (Augustus III the Saxon), who in the following War of the Polish Succession prevailed against his rival Stanislaw I.
During most of the thirty years of the ineffective reign of August III the Saxon, he was the major confidant of the king and the de facto head of the Saxon court. Reichsgraf since 27 November 1737, he had to acquiesce to the influence of old servants of the electoral house for a time, but after 1738 he was in effect sole minister, a position for which he actually had neither the skills nor the knowledge. The title of a Prime Minister was created for him in 1746, but as a classic court favourite his power extended beyond that office. Besides securing huge grants of land for himself, he acquired numerous titles, and he drew the combined salaries of these offices. He also worked closely with Bishop Kajetan Soltyk of Krakow.
Bruhl had cunning and skill sufficient to govern his master and get rid of his rivals and succeeded in keeping everybody at a distance from the king. No servant entered the king's service without the consent of Bruhl, and even when the king went to the chapel all approach to him was prevented. A typical interaction of the king with Bruhl has the king loitering about smoking, and asking, without looking at his favorite, “Bruhl, have I any money?” “Yes, sire,” was the continual answer, and to satisfy the king's demands, Bruhl exhausted the state, plunged the country into debts and greatly reduced the army.
Bruhl kept 200 domestics; his guards were better paid than those of the king himself, and his table more sumptuous. Frederick II said of him, “Bruhl had more garments, watches, laces, boots, shoes and slippers, than any man of the age. Caesar would have counted him among those curled and perfumed heads which he did not fear.”
Politics
Bruhl was a capable diplomat, who played a vital role in the Diplomatic Revolution of 1756 and the convergence of Habsburg and France. However he was wholly responsible for a ruinous fiscal policy which decisively weakened the position of Saxony within the Holy Roman Empire between 1733 and 1763; for the mistaken ambition which led Frederick Augustus II to become a candidate for the throne of Poland, which led to a civil war and did sustainable damage to the Polish sovereignty; for the engagements into which he entered in order to secure the support of Emperor Charles VI of Habsburg; for the shameless and ill-timed tergiversations of Saxony during the War of the Austrian Succession; for the intrigues which entangled the Electorate in the alliance against King Frederick II of Prussia, which led to the outbreak of the Seven Years' War; and for the waste and want of foresight which left the bankrupt country utterly unprepared to resist the immediate attack of the Prussian king.
At the beginning of the Seven Years' War the Saxon army comprised but 17,000 men. After a few weeks, the decimated army, under Frederick Augustus Rutowsky, was compelled to surrender at Pirna from want of the necessary supplies. The army was dissolved, while Saxony remained a war theatre.
Bruhl was not only without political or military capacity, but was so garrulous that he could not keep a secret. His indiscretion was repeatedly responsible for the king of Prussia's discoveries of the plans laid against him. Nothing could shake the confidence of his master, which survived the ignominious flight into Bohemia, into which he was trapped by Bruhl at the time of the Battle of Kesseldorf, and all the miseries of the Seven Years' War. They fled with the pictures and the china, but the archives of the state were left to the victor.
The favourite abused the confidence of his master shamelessly. Not content with the 67,000 talers a month which he drew as salary for his innumerable offices, he was found when an inquiry was held in the next reign to have abstracted more than five million talers of public money for his private use. He left the work of the government offices to be done by his lackeys, whom he did not even supervise.
Legacy
Bruhl died at Dresden on 28 October 1763, having survived his master only for a few weeks. The new elector, Frederick Christian caused an inquiry to be held into his administration. His fortune including large palaces at Pforten (present-day Brody), Oberlichtenau and Wachau-Seifersdorf was found to amount to a million and a half talers, and was sequestered but afterwards restored to his family. The inquiry showed that Bruhl owed his immense fortune to the prodigality of the king rather than to unlawful means of accumulation.
His profusion was often beneficial to the arts and sciences. The famous Meissen porcelain Swan Service was made for him, with over 2,200 pieces, now dispersed to collections around the world. In 1736 the architect Johann Christoph Knoffel had begun to build a city palace and terrace for the count on the bank of the Elbe in the heart of Dresden. This was originally called "Bruhl's Garden" and is today known as Bruhl's Terrace. The Bruhl Palace at Warsaw was rebuilt according to the designs by Joachim Daniel von Jauch from 1754 to 1759. Bruhl was a dedicated collector and protector of the arts - Francesco Algarotti called him a Maecenas. He owned a large gallery of pictures, which was bought by Empress Catherine II of Russia in 1768, and his library of 70,000 volumes was one of the biggest private libraries in the Holy Roman Empire.
Bruhl was portrayed by Johannes Riemann in the 1941 film Friedemann Bach.
Family
He married the countess Franziska von Kolowrat-Krakowska, a favourite of the wife of Frederick Augustus, on 29 April 1734. Four sons and a daughter survived him. His eldest son, Alois Friedrich von Bruhl, was also a Saxon politician, and a soldier and dramatist as well. His youngest son, Hans Moritz von Bruhl (1746–1811), was before the Revolution of 1789 a colonel in the French service, and afterwards general inspector of roads in Brandenburg and Pomerania. By his wife Margarethe Schleierweber, the daughter of a French corporal, and renowned for her beauty and intellectual gifts, he was the father of Carl von Bruhl who as intendant-general of the Prussian royal theatres was of some importance in the history of the development of the drama in Germany. Another granddaughter was Marie von Bruhl, who married Carl von Clausewitz.
Heinrich von Bruhl also had a nephew named Hans Moritz von Bruhl, the same as that of his youngest son. The nephew was a diplomat and astronomer, and lived much of his life in England.