Louise von Plessen

Louise Scheel von Plessen (née komtesse Louise von Berckentin; Vienna, 26 April 1725 – Celle, 14 September 1799) was a Danish lady-in-waiting and memoir writer. She wrote the memoirs of her time at the Danish court: Mémoires de la cour de Danemark.

She was the daughter of Count Christian August von Berckentin (sometimes "Berkentin"; 1694–1758), the Danish ambassador to Austria, and his spouse, Susanna Margrethe von Boineburg zu Honstein (1697–1732). She spent her childhood in Vienna and with a maternal aunt at Vallø stift Protestant convent.

From 1740 to 1744, she was maid of honour to Christian VI's queen consort, Sophie Magdalene of Brandenburg-Kulmbach. In 1744 she married politician Major Christian Sigfred Scheel von Plessen (1716, Glorup Manor – 1755).

In the chronicles of Dorothea Biehl, a personal friend of a member of the court, Anna Sofie Bülow, Louise von Plessen was described as quite intelligent, having educated herself by reading, and with great charm when she felt motivated to make herself liked, but also as haughty and domineering: proud over her learning, and with the view that her sexual virtue made her morally superior, she reportedly felt entitled to be judgmental. Reportedly, she learned from queen Sophie Magdalene how to dominate a spouse, and did so during her own marriage, but in contrast to the royal marriage, her own was described as unhappy.

She became a childless widow in 1755, with a considerable fortune from late spouse, which was enlarged by the inheritance from her father three years later. As a widow, she wished to live a peaceful life, and retired to the countryside with her friend baroness Amalie Charlotte Schack. In 1761 she made an unsuccessful attempt to start a charity school for poor girls in Christianshavn.

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