HARCOURT, Harriett Eusebia, a wealthy and accomplished lady of Yorkshire, was born in 1705, near Richmond in that county. She accompanied her father in his travels on the continent, and acquired an extensive knowledge of modern languages. On her father's death at Constantinople in 1733, she retired to the patrimonial estate, near Richmond, which she inherited; and forming a society of cultivated women, she constructed a cloistered dwelling there, and led a species of monastic life with her friends. A summer residence was also built for the fair recluses on another property she had in Green Island on the west of Scotland. The rules of the establishment were not strict; religious and intellectual improvement were combined with indulgence in elegant and rational amusements. All the ladies were on an equality, each being president in turn. Possessed of many extraordinary talents. Miss Harcourt was especially distinguished by her skill in drawing. She died at Richmond, December 1, 1745.—R. H.
HARDEKNUD. See Hardicanute.
HARDENBERG, Albert, a distinguished protestant theologian of the sixteenth century, was born in 1510, in the province of Oberyssel in the Netherlands, and was connected by blood with Pope Adrian VI. He studied at Louvain, where he made the acquaintance of John à Lasco, the Polish reformer, and by him was gained over to the cause of evangelical truth. In 1543 he paid a visit to Wittemberg, where he was warmly received by Luther and Melancthon; in the following year he went to the court of Hermann von Wied, the reforming elector and archbishop of Cologne; and in 1547 settled in Bremen, where he was appointed cathedral preacher and theological lecturer. He remained in Bremen till 1561, when the controversy which arose between him and John Timann respecting the Lutheran dogma of the ubiquity of the body of Christ, to which Hardenberg was opposed, issued in his being compelled to leave the city and territory. In 1567 he received a call to Emden as pastor primarius and superintendent, and there he continued in the enjoyment of universal respect till his death in 1574. Gerdesius gives an account of the controversy at Bremen in his Historia motuum ecclesiasticorum in civitate Bremensi tempore Hardenbergii suscitatorum, Gron., 1756. In the course of the controversy Hardenberg made the remarkable statement before the senate, that he had had it from the lips of Melancthon himself, that shortly before Luther left Wittemberg for Eisleben, where he died, he owned to him that he had gone too far in the matter of the sacrament—alluding to the extreme language which he had used against the Helvetic doctrine on that subject—and had requested Melancthon to publish something after his death which might serve to restore peace to the two branches of the evangelical church.—P. L.
HARDENBERG, Friedrich von. See Novalis.
HARDENBERG, Karl August, Prince, son of a Hanoverian field-marshal distinguished in the Seven Years' war, was born in Hanover on the 31st of May, 1750, and was educated first at home, subsequently at the universities of Göttingen and Leipsic. While still young he was employed in the public service of the electorate, and enjoyed opportunities of visiting and studying England, France, and Holland. After marrying a lady of the noble house of Reventlow, he was employed on a mission at the court of St. James', where he remained some years. A wrong he could not brook, even from a king's son, drove him from England and from Hanover. The lovely Baroness Hardenberg attracted the regards of the prince of Wales, who gratified his passion at the expense of the lady's honour and of her husband's peace. Baron Hardenberg left England and went to Brunswick, where the gallant duke, Frederick the Great's nephew, received him into his service. On Frederick's death, in 1786, his will was intrusted by the duke of Brunswick to the care of Hardenberg, who proceeded to Berlin, furnished with this passport to the consideration and favour of the king of Prussia. From this time Hardenberg became a Prussian, and entered upon that career which was to be his glory. His first employment of importance under his new sovereign was the administration of the affairs of Anspach and Baireuth, at the time their eccentric margrave ceded his territory to Prussia (1791). In 1793 he was summoned to Frankfort-on-the-Maine, and passed the whole winter at the head-quarters of the Prussian army, exerting all his powers of persuasion with the princes of the empire to induce them to pay for the support of the Prussian army as long as it should stand guard on the Rhine. Failing in this, he had orders to send the Prussian army home; and it was already on the march when England and Holland again offered subsidies to maintain it on the frontier. Secret negotiations with France meanwhile proceeded, which terminated in the treaty of Basle. By the sudden death of Count Golz, the chief direction of these final negotiations was intrusted to Hardenberg. On receiving the appointment, he returned to Berlin to lay his plans before the king. He aimed at forming a line of demarcation between Germany and France, behind which Prussia might combine with all the other principalities and states favourable to her views, and so greatly strengthen herself. By the treaty of Basle, however, which was signed on the 15th of April, 1794, Prussia separated from England, deserted Holland, and yet left Germany open to invasion from France. Hardenberg's conduct in these transactions, nevertheless, was so highly appreciated by the king, that the envoy, on his return to Berlin, was publicly invested by the king himself with the order of the black eagle. He was sent back into Switzerland to watch events; but when his grand invention, the neutral line, was violated, first by France, and then by Austria, the Prussian prime minister, Haugwitz, contrived to have him sent off to his old retired employment in Anspach. From this and similar occupations of a subordinate character, he did not rise to a leading position in the state until 1804, when Haugwitz retired from the government, and Hardenberg became minister for foreign affairs. He now found himself face to face with Napoleon. He boldly protested against the emperor's violation of neutral ground, in a despatch that has become historical. He signed a treaty of alliance with England, Austria, and Russia. Had his measures been well seconded, Prussia might possibly have been spared the suffering and degradation she had soon to endure. After the battle of Austerlitz, Hardenberg, maligned on all sides, resigned his office, and retired to his country-seat of Tempelbourg. Here he remained two years, until the disaster of Jena in 1806 drew him once more to the king's side. In the following year he again entered the cabinet; and on the 27th April, 1807, he signed a treaty of alliance with Russia. The battle of Friedland, however, and the peace of Tilsit, which deprived Prussia of the protection of the Emperor Alexander, forced Hardenberg again into retirement, which he did not quit for public life until 1810. On the 6th of June in that year, by Napoleon's permission, the disgraced minister was placed at the head of affairs as chancellor. To save Prussia from total annihilation, he adopted a temporizing policy with respect to her great enemy. He improved the national finances, laid the foundation of a new Prussian army, and fostered the Tugendbund and other patriotic secret societies. To King Frederick William III. he was hand, head, and soul. 'When Germany once more asserted her independence on the field of Leipsic, Hardenberg was at hand to take part in the deliberations of the allies, and he enjoyed the triumphant happiness of signing at Paris itself the treaty of peace of the 30th of May, 1814. After this great event, Frederick William conferred upon his faithful minister the rank and title of prince. He accompanied the allied sovereigns to London, and after an absence of thirty years again met the prince who had done him a grievous wrong. He took an active part in the congress of Vienna, and after the battle of Waterloo went again to Paris, and signed the treaty of the 20th of November, 1815. Returning to Berlin, he continued to govern Prussia to the satisfaction of both king and people to the end of his days. He attended the conference of Aix-la-Chapelle in 1818; that of Troppau and Laybach in 1820; and the congress of Verona. Though grown old and deaf, his services were still most valuable to his country, when he died almost suddenly at Genoa, on his way home from Verona, on the 26th November, 1822. The Mémoires d'un Homme d'État, falsely attributed to Prince Hardenberg, were written by a French officer, M. D'Allonville.—R. H.
HARDER, Jean Jacques, M.D., a Swiss anatomist and physician, was born at Basle in 1656, and died there in 1711. He studied medicine at Geneva, Lyons, and Paris; and after taking his degree, he practised with great success in his native town, and was elected successively to the chairs of rhetoric, natural philosophy, anatomy, and botany, and lastly in 1703 to that of the practice of medicine. He was physician to the duke of Wurtemberg, and the Emperor Leopold created him count-palatine. Harder was elected a member of the Acad. Natur. Curios. by the name of Paeon.—W. B—d.
