Aloys von Kaunitz-Rietberg

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Aloys von Kaunitz-Rietberg as envoy in Rome around 1818

Aloys Wenzel Prince of Kaunitz-Rietberg (born June 19, 1774 in Vienna , † November 15, 1848 in Paris ) from the Kaunitz-Rietberg-Questenberg line was a German civil registrar and Austrian diplomat. He was the last Count of Rietberg .

Life

Josef Kriehuber : Princess Franziska von Kaunitz-Rietberg, b. Countess Ungnad von Weissenwolf, 1832

He was the son of Dominik Andreas von Kaunitz-Rietberg-Questenberg and Bernardine (née Countess von Plettenberg- Wittem). He himself married Franziska Countess Ungnad von Weissenwolf in 1798. The marriage resulted in four daughters. The couple later lived separately. His sister Maria Eleonore von Kaunitz-Rietberg (1775-1825) was the first wife of Klemens Wenzel Lothar von Metternich .

In 1795 he became a member of the Reichshofrat . Soon afterwards he entered the diplomatic service and was envoy to Dresden , Copenhagen (1801 to 1804), Naples (1805 to 1807) and Madrid (1815 to 1817). He received the Order of St. Stephen and was envoy to the Holy See in Rome from 1817 to 1820 .

After his father's death in 1812 he inherited his property and assets. Immediately thereafter, he sold the Bečov rule , which his father had inherited from the Questenberg estate. Since 1806/07 the Kingdom of Westphalia slammed County of Rietberg fell in the wake of the Vienna Congress of Prussia .

As a registrar, he retained some privileges such as a seat in the provincial parliament of the province of Westphalia . So he had jurisdiction in the county again. But he began to lease his property around Rietberg. The Liechtenstein family , who have also had claims on Rietberg since early modern times , registered their claims. In 1822, Prince Alois sold the count's estates with the manorial rights to the manor owner Friedrich Ludwig Tenge . The sovereign and judicial rights were not connected with the sale. These were taken over by the Prussian state and after the death of the prince also fell legally to him. The Liechtenstein claims were finally rejected by the Prussian Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 1834. The title, however, remained with the House of Liechtenstein, so that the Prince of Liechtenstein has since carried the title of Graf zu Rietberg .

In July 1822 Kaunitz was arrested in his palace in Dorotheergasse and brought to justice. According to the indictment, which was "desecration, rape and pimping in many cases", he is said to have abused more than 200 underage girls. He was kept prisoner in the court marshal's room of the police house, guarded by a police officer. The trial lasted from June 8th to September 10th, 1822, and the act was locked for a century. Soon after the arrest, his brother-in-law, Prince Metternich, filed for release from prison and for further investigation at large. The emperor himself decided the prince's request for house arrest was positive, but instructed the authorities to act according to the law during the trial. Kaunitz agreed to cooperate, but emphasized his high status and the uselessness of the testimony of the victims of abuse who appeared as witnesses, because they were all "of lower origin". Friedrich Horschelt 's children's ballet , from which he had fetched many of the girls and passed them on, was dissolved, and the prince was banished from court and from Vienna to his property in Moravia by the emperor .

From 1808 to 1813 he employed the actress Katharina Ennöckl as a reader. She apparently resigned her job when Kaunitz also demanded sexual services from her, as can be seen from the case files of 1822.

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ^ GJ Rosenkranz: Contributions to the history of the state of Rietberg and its counts. In: Journal for patriotic history and antiquity , Volume 14, Münster 1853, p. 121f.
    Thomas Winkelbauer: Prince and Prince Servant. Gundaker of Liechtenstein. An Austrian aristocrat of the denominational age. Vienna / Munich 1999, p. 533.
  2. ^ House law of the Princely House of Liechtenstein of October 26, 1993 in the Law Gazette of the Principality of Liechtenstein, accessed on March 15, 2013
  3. ^ Georg Markus : Addresses with history. Where famous people lived author. Amalthea, Vienna 2005, ISBN 3-85002-542-X , p. 287.
    Susanne Feigl, Christian Lunzer: The girl ballet of Prince Kaunitz. Criminal cases of the Biedermeier. Verlag der Österreichische Staatsdruckerei, Vienna 1988, ISBN 3-7046-0095-4 .
    Friedrich Hartl: The Viennese criminal court. The administration of criminal justice from the Age of Enlightenment to the Austrian Revolution. Viennese legal history works, Böhlau, Vienna / Graz 1973, ISBN 3-205-07001-1 , p. 203.
  4. ^ Katharina Ennöckl in the Vienna History Wiki of the City of Vienna
  5. ↑ Edith Futter: The most important actresses of the Leopoldstädter Theater in the period from 1800 to 1830. Volume 2, Notring, Vienna 1970, p. 282 (at the same time: Vienna, Univ., Diss., 1965).
predecessor Office successor
Dominik Andreas Count of Rietberg
1812–1848 		-
personal data
SURNAME Kaunitz-Rietberg, Aloys von
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Kaunitz-Rietberg, Prince Aloys Wenzel von
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian diplomat and last Count von Rietberg
DATE OF BIRTH June 19, 1774
PLACE OF BIRTH Vienna
DATE OF DEATH November 15, 1848
Place of death Paris