Hedvig Catharina Lillie

Hedvig Catharina Lillie, Lilje, or Lillje
Born	Hedvig Catharina Lillie 1695 Sweden
Died	1745 France
Nationality	Swedish
Other names	Hedvig Catharina De la Gardie
Occupation	noblewoman
Known for	Political Salon

Hedvig Catharina Lillie, also spelt Lilje and Lillje, whose married name was Hedvig Catharina De la Gardie (1695–1745), was a Swedish noblewoman who is notable for her salon. She was active during the age of liberty in favour of the Swedish Hats party and a pro-French foreign policy, pursued through her many connections, and was an influential figure of her time.

She was the grandmother of Count Axel von Fersen the Younger.

Cultural and political salon

Hedvig Catharina Lilje was the child of Count Axel Johan Lillje by his marriage to Agneta Wrede.

In 1709 she married Magnus Julius De la Gardie. The family of her husband had economic problems, thanks to the reduction made by Charles XI of Sweden in the 1680s, and the marriage which was arranged by Hedwig's mother saved the finances of the De la Gardie family with her personal fortune. De la Gardie was a leading member of the Hats party, which was even said to have been founded in his home; he introduced the political salon to Sweden, and Hedvig Catharina became its hostess. She was described as an intelligent beauty, and on an informal basis she soon became one of the leading members of the Hats.

Her salon was also the center of the noble amateur theatre which flourished in Stockholm in the decades before the Swedish national theater was founded in 1737; Hedvig's daughter Brita Sophia (1713–1797) was an amateur actress and the female star of the amateur "Count De la Gardie's Comedians". When the national stage was founded in 1737, two of Sweden's earliest professional actresses of the new theatre were recruited from the maids of the De la Gardie family.

Hedwig Catharina was the most openly political woman of her time, and she even wore ribbons which signalled her political wievs. Her salon was frequented by Hat-members and the pro-French. Especially during the 1730s, she participated in politics and in the conflicts and struggle for power between the caps and the other ruling parties during the rule of the estates. Her political activism exposed her to the same criticism as other politicians, and libelous pamphlets circulated about how she let her love affairs inflict her political sympathies. Fryxell spread the rumour about her alleged affair with a young nobleman of the Sture family.

In 1734, she was given the assignement by Carl Gyllenborg to negotiate with France through the French ambassador in Stockholm, Charles Louis de Biaudos de Casteja, in financing the Hat-party with French funds.^[1] Casteja was claimed to be her lover to explain her pro-French sympathies, and she was caricatured as "a beautiful and well bred horse", which "had long been running along with a stallion from Gaul" - meaning her and Casteja,^[2] and anonymous comments were made that "The French have so thoroughly penetrated the senses of some of our woman- ministers, that they have willingly given them their trust".

The politically active salon-holders were criticized in the press, and Lillie was especially exposed to critics. In 1733, Olof von Dahlin carictured the political salon-woman in his paper Den Swänska Argus; she was named "Fru Kättia Sällskapslik" (In English: "Mrs Lusty Society") and criticised for "laughing at virtue" by spending so much time with men and exchanging flirtatious jokes with them.^[3]

After the death of Daniel Niklas von Höpken in 1741, she became the informal leader of the Carl Gyllenborg party faction. The same year, however, her husband Magnus Julius died, which effectively ended her political life.

Later life

In her widowhood, Lillie migrated to Paris, where she converted to Roman Catholicism and fell into debt on a grand scale. She reportedly spent some one million livres in Paris, where she took an active part in aristocratic society and became "an every day guest" at the royal court of Versailles.

Hedvig Catharina Lilje had six children; she was the mother of the scientist Eva Ekeblad, the mother-in-law of Cathérine Charlotte De la Gardie, and through her youngest daughter Hedvig Catharina De la Gardie the grandmother of Axel von Fersen the Younger. Her eldest daughter, Brita Sophia, who in Stockholm had been an amateur actress, followed her to Paris, where she also converted to Roman Catholicism, and became a nun, living until 1797.

Context

During the age of liberty, many women took part in politics as debate leaders, salon-holders, writers and play-writes, such as Magdalena Elisabeth Rahm, Baroness Buddenbrock, who was an opinion leader in favour of the Russo-Swedish War (1741–1743), and Henrika Juliana von Liewen, active as an opinion-leader within the cap-party as a salonist and the participant of the party-paper of 1755–1756: it was even said that women was the true leaders of the political parties.^[4]

Especially France was active in acquiring agents and establishing contacts with politically influential women and offering them secret allowances from the French state to benefit French interests in Sweden : ambassador Casteja upheld contacts with among others the wife of Arvid Horn, Margareta Gyllenstierna, as well as Charlotta von Liewen. During the last years of the age of liberty, in the late 1760s, three women, among them Eva Helena Löwen were among the list of nine identified people paid by the French state to benefit French interests in Sweden.^[5]

References

http://runeberg.org/sqvinnor/0267.html
http://runeberg.org/sqvinnor/0266.html
Tryggve Byström (In Swedish): Svenska komedien 1737-1754 (In English: Swedish comedy 1737-1754) (1981)
http://runeberg.org/sqvinnor/0343.html

Notes