Louise Ernestine Christiane Juliane von Göchhausen (13 February 1752 – 7 September 1807) was Chief Lady-in-Waiting to Duchess Anna Amalia of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach. Known for her sharp wit, she became a close friend of

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Johann Wolfgang (von) Goethe (28 August 1749 – 22 March 1832) was a German polymath who is widely regarded as the most influential writer in the German language. His work has had a wide-ranging influence on Western literature, literary, Polit ...

Life

Born in

Eisenach Eisenach () is a Town#Germany, town in Thuringia, Germany with 42,000 inhabitants, west of Erfurt, southeast of Kassel and northeast of Frankfurt. It is the main urban centre of western Thuringia, and bordering northeastern Hesse, Hessian re ...

, the daughter of a

Saxe-Weimar Saxe-Weimar () was one of the Saxon duchies held by the Ernestine branch of the Wettin dynasty in present-day Thuringia. The chief town and capital was Weimar. The Weimar branch was the most genealogically senior extant branch of the House of W ...

official, Luise von Göchhausen was small and hunchbacked in stature; therefore, she considered herself lucky to be accommodated as a Lady-in-Waiting, initially to Margravine Caroline Louise of Baden, from 1783 at the

Weimar Weimar is a city in the state (Germany), German state of Thuringia, in Central Germany (cultural area), Central Germany between Erfurt to the west and Jena to the east, southwest of Leipzig, north of Nuremberg and west of Dresden. Together w ...

court, where she and Anna Amalia lived at Tiefurt House. Appreciated by the duchess for her intelligence and wisdom, Göchhausen also developed a good relationship with Goethe, who had been appointed to the court by Anna Amalia's son, the young Duke Karl August. She prepared numerous transcripts and excerpts of Goethe's works, among them several scenes from ''

Faust Faust ( , ) is the protagonist of a classic German folklore, German legend based on the historical Johann Georg Faust (). The erudite Faust is highly successful yet dissatisfied with his life, which leads him to make a deal with the Devil at a ...

'' the poet had written between 1772 and 1775. The manuscript of this earliest form of the work, known as the ''Urfaust'', is lost, but a copy was discovered in the estate of Luise von Göchhausen and published by Erich Schmidt in 1887.''Goethe's Plays, by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe'', translated into English with Introductions by Charles E. Passage, Publisher Benn Limited 1980 / 9780510000875 / 0-510-00087-8 Göchhausen accompanied the duchess on her journey to

Rome Rome (Italian language, Italian and , ) is the capital city and most populated (municipality) of Italy. It is also the administrative centre of the Lazio Regions of Italy, region and of the Metropolitan City of Rome. A special named with 2, ...

and

Naples Naples ( ; ; ) is the Regions of Italy, regional capital of Campania and the third-largest city of Italy, after Rome and Milan, with a population of 908,082 within the city's administrative limits as of 2025, while its Metropolitan City of N ...

; she also went into exile with her, when

Napoleon Napoleon Bonaparte (born Napoleone di Buonaparte; 15 August 1769 – 5 May 1821), later known by his regnal name Napoleon I, was a French general and statesman who rose to prominence during the French Revolution and led Military career ...

's troops occupied Weimar after the 1806

Battle of Jena–Auerstedt The twin battles of Jena and Auerstedt (; older spelling: ''Auerstädt'') were fought on 14 October 1806 on the plateau west of the river Saale in today's Germany, between the forces of Napoleon I of France and Frederick William III of Pruss ...

. Back at the court, Anna Amalia died in the following year, and Göchhausen only outlived her by five months. Her mortal remains were re-discovered in the Weimar '' Fürstengruft'' in 2008.

References

External links

*https://web.archive.org/web/20070930030052/http://www.br-online.de/wissen-bildung/kalenderblatt/2006/01/kb20060105.html {{DEFAULTSORT:Gochhausen, Luise Von 1752 births 1807 deaths House of Brunswick-Bevern People from Eisenach German ladies-in-waiting 18th-century German people