Karl Eugen von Württemberg (Karl Eugen; 11th February 1728 – 24th October 1793) is a Prussian nobleman, statesman, agricultural reformist, and is the present Herzog von Württemberg. At the tender youthful age of 9, he succeeded his father as the hereditary Herzog. Due to the customs of the time, however, he was under the duel regency of his uncles - Carl Rudolf von Württemberg-Neuenstadt and Karl Friedrich von Württemberg-Oels. Upon the end of the regency, he ascended with full powers as the head of the House of Württemberg.
Capable, diligent and intelligent, Karl Eugen was well known at the court of Frédéric le Grand. Karl Eugen was a well-cultured nobleman and the embodiment of sophistication. He had a wit, countenance, persistence and iron will which made him infamous among the circles of the nobility. Karl Eugen's reign coincided with the height of absolutism, and the young sovereign did his utmost to make his court one of the most brilliant in Europe. Several times during his reign, the Duchy was at near ruins, had he not been a good financier and statesman. He constructed numerous, and most lavish estates such as the New Castle in Stuttgart, as well as Schloss Solitude and Schloss Monrepos. His tenure, to say the least, didn't go without scandal. Karl Eugen held various mistresses, some of whom lived for several years at his side and with whom he had numerous illegitimate children.
Born in 1728 on a cold Winter morning at L'Hôtel Wurtembergeois in Brussels, Karl Eugen was revered by his family and the court for producing a long line of children, and potential heirs, which was typical of a Württemberg. During his early tenure, he ruled with an iron fist. However, in his later life, he also displayed humanist tendencies. A notable example of this nature took place in 1744; Karl Eugen ordered the body of Joseph Süß Oppenheimer (a persecuted Jewish banker and court Jew for Karl Eugen's father in Stuttgart) to be taken down and buried, after being hanged in 1738. Oppenheimer's corpse had been locked up in a cage for punishment for six years over the cathedral in Stuttgart. On an act of good grace and piety, one of Karl Eugen's first acts as Duke was to have Oppenheimer's body lowered, and given a proper religious burial.
As he grew older, Karl Eugen increasingly turned to agriculture and education. The founding of an Académie des Arts in Stuttgart in June 1761 was followed in 1765 in Ludwigsburg. On October 24, 1793, Duke Karl Eugen died in his still unfinished Hohenheim Castle near Stuttgart and was buried in the crypt of the castle Ludwigsburg. His two younger brothers Ludwig Eugen and Friedrich Eugen followed him at a short distance on the throne.