Karl August, sometimes anglicised as Charles Augustus (3 September 1757 – 14 June 1828), was the sovereign Duke of Saxe-Weimar and of Saxe-Eisenach (in personal union) from 1758, Duke of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach from its creation (as a political union) in 1809, and grand duke from 1815 until his death. He is noted for the intellectual brilliance of his court. Biography Born in Weimar, he was the eldest son of Ernst August II, Duke of Saxe-Weimar and Saxe-Eisenach (Ernest Augustus II), and Duchess Anna Amalia of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel. His father died when he was only nine months old (28 May 1758), and the boy was brought up under the regency and supervision of his mother. His governor was the Count Johann Eustach von Görtz and in 1771, Christoph Martin Wieland was appointed his tutor. In 1774 the poet Karl Ludwig von Knebel came to Weimar as tutor to his brother, the young Prince Frederick Ferdinand Constantin, and in the same year the two princes set out, with Count Görtz and Knebel, for Paris. At Frankfurt, Knebel introduced Karl August to the young Goethe. In Karlsruhe on 3 October 1775, after he returned to Weimar and assumed the government of his duchy, Karl August married Luise Auguste, daughter of Louis IX, Landgrave of Hesse-Darmstadt. One of the first acts of the young duke was to summon Goethe to Weimar, and in 1776 he was made a member of the privy council. "People of discernment," the duke said, "congratulate me on possessing this man. His intellect, his genius is known. It makes no difference if the world is offended because I have made Dr Goethe a member of my most important collegium without his having passed through the stages of minor official professor and councillor of state." The , a breed of gun dog is said to have been developed by August and his court for hunting. Karl August was also interested in literature, in art, in science, funding Goethe and the foundation of the Weimar Princely Free Drawing School and encouraging Weimar Classicism. Critics praised his judgment in painting; biologists found in him an expert in anatomy. His aim was to educate his people to work out their own political and social salvation, the object of education being in his view, as he explained later to the dismay of Metternich and his school, to help men to independence of judgment. To this end Herder