Hedvig Catharina Lilje
Born	Hedvig Catharina Lilje 1695 Sweden
Died	1745 France
Nationality	Sweden
Other names	Hedvig Catharina De la Gardie
Occupation	none; was a noble.
Known for	Salonist

Hedvig Catharina Lilje (or Lillje), as married Hedvig Catharina De la Gardie, (1695-1745), was a Swedish noble and salonist considered to have played an important role in the political life during the age of liberty in Sweden during the 1720s and 1730s as an informal amateur-politician. She was the grandmother of Count Axel von Fersen the Younger.

Contents 1 Biography 2 Later life 3 Context 4 See also 5 References

[edit] Biography

Hedvig Catharina Lilje was born child of count Axel Johan Lillje and married to count Magnus Julius De la Gardie in 1709. Her husband was an important member of the Hats (party), which was even said to have been founded in his home; he introduced the political salon in Sweden, for which his wife became the host. Hedvig Catharina was described as intelligent and beautiful until an high age, and soon became one of the leading, though informal, members of her husband's party. The salon was also the center of the noble amateur-theatre that flourished in Stockholm in the decades before the Swedish national stage was founded in 1737; Hedvig's daughter Brita Sophia (1713-1797) was an amateur-actress and the female star and prima donna of the amateur-troupe "Count De la Gardies Comedians". When the national stage was founded in 1737, two of Sweden's first professional native actresses of the new theatre was recruited from the maids of the De la Gardie family.

Especially during the 1730s, she participated in politics and in the conflicts and struggle for power between the cap's 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, while other claimed that her affair with the French ambassador Casteja was the reason for her pro-French politics. After the death of Höpken in 1741, she became the informal leader of the Gyllenborg faction. The same year, however, her husband died, which ended her life as an amateur politician and debate leader.

[edit] Later life

After her husband's death, she moved to Paris in France, were she converted to Catholicism and became heavily indebted. Hedvig Catharina Lilje had six children; she was the mother of the famous scientist Eva Ekeblad, mother-in-law to Cathérine Charlotte De la Gardie and, through her youngest daughter Hedvig Catharina De la Gardie the grandmother of Axel von Fersen the Younger. He eldest daughter, former amateur-actor Brita Sophia, followed her to Paris, were she converted to Catholicism, became a nun and died in 1797.

[edit] Context

During the Swedish age of liberty, many women, especially from the nobility, took part in politics as debate leaders, salon hostesses, writers and play-writes, such as Magdalena Elisabeth Rahm, Baroness Buddenbrock, who was an opinion leader in favor of the Russo-Swedish War (1741-1743), and Henrika Juliana von Liewen, also active as an opinion-leader within the cap-party as a salonist and the participant of a party-paper of 1755-1756.

[edit] See also

• Sophia Elisabet Brenner
• Hedvig Charlotta Nordenflycht

[edit] References

• http://runeberg.org/sqvinnor/0267.html
• http://runeberg.org/sqvinnor/0266.html
• Tryggve Byström, "Svenska komedien 1737-1754".
• http://runeberg.org/sqvinnor/0343.html