Ernst Marschall von Bieberstein (2 August 1770 - 22 January 1834) served as Chief Minister (Staatsminister) of the Duchy of Nassau between 1806 and 1834. Between 1806 he was one of two chief ministers of Nassau, but after the resignation of Hans Christoph Ernst von Gagern (apparently as an unintended consequence of a new imperial decree), Marschall von Bieberstein became in effect the sole leading politician in Nassau in 1809. During his early years he pursued a liberal course, but as conservatism returned to favour after the fall of Napoleon, his approach became strikingly more "restorationist".
Family provenance
Ernst (Franz Ludwig) Freiherr Marschall von Bieberstein was born into a protestant family at Wallerstein (approximately 80 kilometers / 50 miles north of Augsburg), a younger son of Conrad Otto Christoph Marschall von Bieberstein (1726–96), an army officer and senior government administrator from Württemberg. and his wife 'Johanna Theresia Henriette' née Wolf from Ludwigsburg (1738 – 1783), who came from an army family. The aristocratic Marschall von Bieberstein family could trace their rise to eminence back at least to the thirteenth century, and the medieval Margravate of Meissen.
Ernst Marschall von Bieberstein had at least two elder brothers. Karl Wilhelm Marschall von Bieberstein (1763 – 1817) became a leading politician in the Grand Duchy of Baden. Friedrich August Marschall von Bieberstein (1768 – 1816) became a pioneering botanist. All three brothers attended the Karlsschule (military academy) in Stuttgart, which was at that time the capital of Württemberg.
Life
School
Ernst attended the Karlsschule from 1782 till 1791. Along with a sound military training he also followed and successfully passed details courses in Philosophy and Law. The Karlsschule was an elite establishment: the younger two Marschall von Bieberstein brothers got to know Georges Cuvier (1769 – 1832) who later came to prominence as a notable naturalist-palaeontologist, and who became a lifelong family friend. Like many of his generation, Marschall von Bieberstein was initially sympathetic to many of the ideas underpinning the French Revolution.
Public service
In June 1791 Ernst Marschall von Bieberstein entered military service as a lieutenant in the district militia ("Kreiskontingent") under the command of Prince William of Nassau-Usingen. However, he was already destined, in the longer term, for a career in civil administration and after a year of military service he made the switch, taking a post as Court and Government Assessor. Despite his relative youth, in 1793 he travelled to The Hague on a diplomatic mission. However, he found himself arrested and detained by French troops. He was evidently soon released, since his political career serving the Duchy of Nassau took off. He was appointed a Regierungsrat later in 1793, and in 1795 became a member of the Privy Council. Further promotion followed, and he emerged as one of the most influential members of the government. The pressing issue of the times was the aggressive advance across western Europe of the French Revolutionary Army. Given the overwhelming superiority in terms of resources and numbers of the French forces, Marschall von Bieberstein was pragmatic, counselling a conciliatory approach. As early as 1793, echoing the views of the men who later came to be known as the Prussian reformers in Berlin, Marschall von Bieberstein had shared his opinion that the best protection against the revolutionary tide lay in adopting a constitution, though it would be another twenty years before he would have the opportunity to implement his own advice on this. In order to diminish revolutionary tendencies he also warned against imposing excessive "feudal burdens" on the population. In 1797, in defiance of the wishes of "Regierungspräsident" (head of government) Karl Friedrich von Kruse, that Ernst Marschall von Bieberstein undertook a diplomatic mission to Paris as part of a mediatisation policy, apparently of his own.