| 08:30
Discovering the Huguenots
French people in Brandenburg
Brandenburg | Rathenow | Nennhausen Palace / Address: Meeting point: Wilhelm-Staab-Straße/corner of Yorckstraße, 14467 Potsdam || bus will be ready from 8:00 am
When Louis XIV cancelled the Edict of Nantes more than 200,000 French protestants fled from their homes. Many of them settled in Brandenburg. Having been depopulated and devastated by the Thirty Years' War, the state actively supported the immigration in its own interest. Soon the new citizens turned out to be very inspiring in terms of culture, business and intellectual life.
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When walking in their footsteps you are visiting
- Brandenburg and its Gothic cathedral, the medieval cathedral cloister and the former academy for knights; the poet Friedrich de la Motte Fouqué, whose grandfather had emigrated from France, was born on the cathedral island
- Rathenow and the statue of the Great Elector who created the legal basis for the Huguenots to settle when the Edict of Potsdam was announced in 1685
- Nennhausen Palace and its charming landscaped park where the Romanticist Fouqué received like-minded guests such as E.T.A. Hoffmann and Adalbert von Chamisso at his "court of muses in the mark".
In the palace's small orangery Cellist Zoé Cartier performs a concert playing pieces by Auguste Franchomme, Jacques Ibert and Jean-Louis Duport. The latter was a much-esteemed cello virtuoso at the Prussian royal court.
The excusion is led by: Axel Blum
Departure / arrival:
Wilhelm-Staab-Str. / corner of Yorckstraße, Potsdam
A joint event by Music Festival Potsdam Sanssouci and the URANIA "Wilhelm Foerster" Potsdam e.V.
