Wenzel Anton von Kaunitz-Rietberg

Wenzel Anton Prince Kaunitz-Rietberg

Wenzel Anton Count Kaunitz-Rietberg , from 1764 Imperial Prince of Kaunitz-Rietberg (born February 2, 1711 in Vienna , † June 27, 1794 in Mariahilf , then still a suburb of Vienna), was an Austrian statesman of enlightened absolutism , Reichshofrat and diplomat .

As an advisor and collaborator in the reforms of Maria Theresa and Joseph II and as the founder of the Austrian State Council , he was the leading voice of the Enlightenment party in the Habsburg monarchy and promoter of many domestic political reforms. As State Chancellor (1753–1792) he was responsible for Austria's foreign policy and contributed to the Renversement des alliances through the alliance with France in the run-up to the Seven Years' War . Under Empress Maria Theresa he had extensive powers in foreign policy. However, they were restricted more and more under the successors Joseph II, Leopold II and Franz II .

family

Coat of arms of Wenzel Anton von Kaunitz (1789), Church of the Resurrection in Austerlitz (Slavkov / Czech Republic)

The Kaunitz family had one of their headquarters in Austerlitz, today's Slavkov in Moravia . His parents were Maximilian Ulrich von Kaunitz (1679–1746) and Marie Ernestine von Ostfriesland-Rietberg (1686–1758). Among other things, the father was governor of Moravia. The mother was the heir to Count Ferdinand Maximilian of East Friesland and Rietberg in Westphalia, with whose father the house of East Friesland had died out in 1690 in the male line. The county then went to Wenzel von Kaunitz and was named Kaunitz-Rietberg . Wenzel Anton's brother Karl Joseph (1715–1737) was canon in various dioceses. His uncle Franz Karl (1676-1717) was a bishop in Ljubljana .

He himself married Maria Ernestine von Starhemberg (1717–1749) in 1736 . She was the granddaughter of the former court chamber president Thomas Gundacker Graf von Starhemberg , who, as a member of the secret conference, was one of the most influential advisors to Emperor Karl VI. was. The marriage had seven children. Under these:

1. Ernst Christoph 2nd Imperial Prince of Kaunitz-Rietberg (* June 6, 1737; † 1797), Knight of the Order of the Golden Fleece, Imperial Court Marshal and Ambassador, Fideikommissherr, married on November 12, 1741 to Maria Leopoldine Elisabeth Princess zu Oettingen-Spielberg ( * November 28, 1741), daughter of Prince Johann Aloys I. zu Oettingen-Spielberg , whose son Joseph Ernst Karl Januarius Count von Kaunitz-Rietberg, born in Naples on July 20, 1769, died unmarried before 1797. Their daughter Maria Eleonore, born after 1770, died on March 19, 1825, married Klemens Wenzel Lothar von Metternich Prince von Metternich-Winneberg-Ochsenhausen from the house of Metternich-Winneburg-Beilstein, Duke of Portella and others on Königswart in West Bohemia, Imperial and Royal Chancellor of State and Minister of Foreign Affairs, died in Vienna in 1859.
2. Dominik Anton Andreas Count of Kaunitz-Rietberg-Questenberg (dd 1761) sukz. 1797 as 3rd Prince and Fideikommissherr, (1740–1812); 1762 married to Maria Bernhardine Countess von Plettenberg, daughter of Franz Joseph Graf von Plettenberg-Witten zu Mietingen (from the house of Nordkirchen), Hereditary Marshal of the Principality of Münster. Their children were: 1) Maria Theresia (1763–1803), married in 1784 to Count Rudolph von Wrbna and Freudenthal , on Groß-Waltersdorf , Horovice and Ginetz, chief treasurer and privy councilor, commander of the Kk Bohemian Noble Guard (1813/1814) and President of the Royal Bohemian Society of Sciences in Prague, died in Vienna in 1823; 2) Vinzenz, 4th Prince of Kaunitz-Rietberg-Questenberg at Neuschloß (1764–1839) (sukz. 1812); married on February 15, 1801 in Prague (Maria de Viktoria parish) Pauline de Longueval, Countess von Buquoy , died after 1850; 3) Aloys Wenzel 5th Prince of Kaunitz-Rietberg-Questenberg, Fideikommissherr (succ. 1829) Kk Privy Councilor and Chamberlain, (1774–1774) died as the last male bearer of the Moravian line of the princely house; 1798 married to Franziska Ungnadin Countess von Weißenwolf (* 1773), daughter of Guidobald Ungnad Count von Weißenwolf, Freiherr zu Sonneck and Ennseck.
3. Franz Wenzel Graf von Kaunitz-Rietberg (* 1742; † unmarried 1825), General Feldzeugmeister.
4. Joseph Clemens (born November 22, 1743), Chamberlain, died unmarried.
5. Maria Antonia (born May 16, 1745); married in 1763 to Christoph Wilhelm Graf and Herr von Thürheim Freiherr von Bibrachzell.

Early years

In 1724, for reasons of care for his son, the father obtained the right to a position as a canon in Münster through papal commission . However, there was no intention of entering the clergy. He resigned the post in 1733. Wenzel Anton Graf Kaunitz studied in Leipzig jurisprudence , graduating in 1731 with an excellent defense from. He then went on his Grand Tour , which took him to Berlin , the Netherlands , Italy and finally Paris . He returned to Vienna in 1734, where he had long been eligible for a position on the Reichshofrat . In 1734 he was first a regimental councilor in Lower Austria , before he was able to take up his position at the Reichshofrat a year later.

He intended to enter the diplomatic service. But his financial situation was not good enough for him to accept the post of ambassador at a prestigious court. He had to be satisfied with an embassy in Italy to announce the birth of the future emperor Joseph II . Between 1742 and 1744 he was envoy extraordinary in Turin. During this time he managed to stabilize the uncertain alliance with the Kingdom of Sardinia .

In 1744 he became a minister to the governor-general of the Austrian Netherlands, Karl Alexander von Lothringen , Maria Theresa's brother-in-law, with his seat in Brussels. Since 1745 Kaunitz was the authorized minister there. In the absence of the governor general, he also took over his function as a substitute. It soon became clear to him that the Netherlands could not be held against France during the ongoing War of the Austrian Succession . In fact, he had to capitulate in 1746 and first went to Antwerp , from where he returned to Vienna.

As the Austrian envoy in 1748, he played a key role in the negotiations on the Peace of Aachen . The course of the negotiations convinced him that the previous Austrian allies England and the Netherlands were not interested in the recovery of Silesia planned by Maria Theresa . He therefore began to bet on rapprochement with France. Kaunitz was even willing at times to use the Austrian Netherlands in exchange for political support from France.

From 1749 to 1750 he was a member of the Privy Council . During the secret conference of May 5, 1749, he first formulated his political ideas. The goal of regaining Silesia was then an urgent priority. To achieve this goal, an alliance with France is necessary. After a long debate, this course was approved.

He himself became an authorized minister in Paris, where he remained as the Austrian ambassador until 1752. There he presented Austria as a new power that was only loosely connected to the Holy Roman Empire . Although he was able to gain confidence among the main forces in Paris, an alliance did not come about. He put the plan on hold for the time being. Instead, he came into close contact with some French scouts and ran an open salon . He had no contact with Voltaire . He got to know some of the encyclopedists . It was later erroneously claimed that Rousseau was his secretary.

State Chancellor

Seven Years War

Kaunitz around 1762

Maria Theresa secretly offered him the office of State Chancellor (responsible primarily for foreign policy ) around 1751 . Kaunitz pointed to his poor health, but agreed to take over the post for a short time. However, he must be given a free hand so that he can reorganize the authority so that it works like clockwork. In fact, in tough negotiations, he succeeded in asserting greater powers than any minister in Austria had before. Instead of administering the office only briefly, he remained under Maria Theresa, Joseph II and Leopold II State Chancellor for 41 years before taking his leave on August 19, 1792. Maria Theresa's husband, Emperor Franz I , and other leading figures had spoken out against Kaunitz . The ruler did not overlook his arrogance and hypochondriac tendencies, but was convinced of his qualities.

First he turned the State Chancellery into a smoothly functioning modern foreign ministry. After the renovation of the official building on Ballhausplatz (today's Federal Chancellery), the house, court and state archives were also integrated.

Kaunitz pushed his pro-French foreign policy with difficulty - a clear change of course in contrast to the policy of his predecessor Anton Corfiz Ulfeldt, which was influenced by Baron von Bartenstein . After the clashes between France and England began overseas in 1754 , he instructed the Austrian ambassador Georg Adam von Starhemberg to bring the alliance plans back on the table in Paris. When it came to the Prussian-English convention of Westminster , Louis XV went. accepted the proposals, and in 1756 a defensive alliance between Austria and France was formed. He was also able to win Russia as an ally. When Friedrich II attacked Saxony at the beginning of the Seven Years' War , Kaunitz succeeded in persuading France to form an offensive alliance against Prussia in 1757 . Then there were Russia and Sweden . The famous change of alliances (“ Renversement des alliances ”) and the end of the centuries-old hostility between France and Habsburg marked an important turning point in European political history.

During the war Kaunitz was Maria Theresa's closest advisor, made numerous military decisions himself and initially joined the army himself. The State Chancellery directed the military operations in the following years. However, he did not succeed in persuading the allies to adopt a coordinated military approach. Instead of the hesitant Leopold Joseph von Daun , he relied on Gideon Ernst von Laudon . But even this did not achieve a decisive victory.

In 1760, the Austrian side gradually began to show signs of exhaustion. For Kaunitz, one reason was the new administrative structures created by Friedrich Wilhelm von Haugwitz . He pushed for the dissolution of the Directory in publicis et cameralibus and thus for Haugwitz to be disempowered. He did not fundamentally reject the disempowerment of the estates and the reorganization, but saw the opportunity to increase his influence. So he pushed through the formation of a State Council and the creation of departmental ministries. The State Council discussed all the problems of the individual authorities, but had no executive power itself. The Directory was abolished in 1761, and a United Bohemian and Austrian Court Chancellery was established instead.

All of this did not help to improve Austria's situation in the short term. After Russia under the new Tsar Peter III. Having left the alliance in 1762, Kaunitz pushed ahead with the peace efforts that led to the Peace of Hubertusburg and the final renunciation of Silesia in 1763 .

Peak of influence

After the end of the war, Kaunitz planned extensive reforms. He played his part in the numerous changes of this time. He was instrumental in centralizing the administration. The reforms partially anticipated Josephinism . The Jesuit Ferdinand Maaß spoke of Kaunitziatism . During this time, Kaunitz was primarily concerned with the relationship between state and church . Some of these were tested in the northern Italian possessions that were subordinate to the State Chancellery. In Kaunitz's opinion, the Church's special economic rights in particular were incompatible with a modern state. This included, for example, the tax exemption of the clergy and possession of the dead hand . All this made a Catholic state inevitably inferior to a Protestant one, where these problems had ceased to exist since the Reformation . Kaunitz used Jansenism as an ideological justification . In 1768 he submitted a large memorandum in which he proposed the secularization of church property and the end of the tax exemption of the clergy. In lengthy negotiations, Kaunitz succeeded in swearing the pious Maria Theresa on a state church course. In fact, the tax exemption of the clergy has been abolished since 1768.

Declining importance

Depiction of Kaunitz at the Maria Theresa Monument in Vienna

After the death of Emperor Franz I, Kaunitz's influence on Maria Theresa grew. Although her co-regent Joseph II took up many of Kaunitz's ideas, there were disputes with the state chancellor. There were mainly differences with regard to the achievement of the goals. The impatient Joseph couldn't stand the chancellor's lengthy manner. This is why he submitted his resignation for the first time in 1766.

Despite the opposition to Prussia , Kaunitz suggested a meeting between Joseph II and Friedrich II, which took place in Neisse in 1769 and in Mährisch-Neustadt a year later. At this second meeting Kaunitz accompanied the Kaiser and evidently denied a large part of the conversation; The Prussian King then expressed himself very critically about the Austrian State Chancellor, who “considers himself an oracle in politics and everyone else is his pupil whom he wants to teach”. One consequence of this cautious approach was the First Partition of Poland in 1772. Kaunitz represented this policy advocated by Joseph II against the reluctant Maria Theresa. In the run-up to the War of the Bavarian Succession of 1777, the emperor disrupted the negotiations in Kaunitz with his military action. When the failure of Joseph's plans became apparent, Kaunitz conducted peace negotiations without involving the emperor. These negotiations brought the Innviertel to Austria in 1779 .

Kaunitz considered it a mistake to leave the initiative to Prussia in imperial politics. In 1780, after a long period of domination by Wittelsbach in the Germania sacra of north-west Germany, he succeeded in enforcing Archduke Maximilian Franz of Austria as coadjutor in Kurköln and the Monastery of Münster . At the Perpetual Reichstag in Regensburg he succeeded in creating an influential party that was friendly to the emperor.

Maria Theresa's death brought Kaunitz a considerable reduction in his influence. The emperor was not interested in his balancing policy. Joseph rushed forward on various foreign policy issues without listening to Kaunitz. This included the plan to exchange the Austrian Netherlands with the Wittelsbachers for Bavaria in 1784. This plan failed and ultimately led to the isolation of Austria. The Fürstenbund, founded in 1785 at the instigation of Friedrich II, was directed against Joseph . However, Joseph II had concluded an alliance with Russia against the advice of Kaunitz. Since this was Austria's only support in this situation, Kaunitz supported participation in the Russian-Austrian Turkish War .

He tried in vain to dissuade Joseph from his hasty reform measures that ignored all regional differences. After the emperor's death in 1790 there were uprisings in Hungary and the Austrian Netherlands, a new war with Prussia was to be feared and the war against the Ottomans threatened to fail.

The new Emperor Leopold II made Kaunitz jointly responsible for the mess in foreign policy. Although he did not dismiss him, he severely restricted his foreign policy powers. Kaunitz strictly rejected the policy of rapprochement with Prussia . He recognized quite correctly that Prussia was no longer the strong power that it had been under Frederick II. This assessment proved correct during the First Coalition War . He considered military intervention against revolutionary France to be wrong because he rightly assumed that an attack from outside would unite the country. Franz II also took over Kaunitz as State Chancellor. But at that time its influence was hardly present. The preparations for the Second Partition of Poland in 1793 were agreed without his knowledge, he resigned on August 19, 1792.

Lord of the County of Rietberg

Sankt Maria Immaculata in (New) Kaunitz

Kaunitz-Rietberger coat of arms on the portal of the St. Johannes Nepomuk Chapel in Rietberg

In 1746 he took over the reign of the County of Rietberg . Due to his work in Vienna, however, he could only pay little attention to it and, like his father, had it administered by agents. In the same year, as sovereign, he had the parish church of St. Maria Immaculata built, which resulted in the village of Kaunitz . A little later he initiated the construction of the St. Johannes Nepomuk Chapel in Rietberg and in 1792 the construction of the Church of St. Anna in Verl .

During the Seven Years' War the count's officials had to flee and the state archive was lost. In 1768 he issued a princely police and camera order for the county. In 1775 he decreed the first common and brand divisions. Building regulations followed two years later . Kaunitz hired a "country physician" ( country doctor ) for the first time in 1782 . A short time later there was also an improvement in the education system.

Promoter of the arts and private life

In addition to these church buildings and educational policy , Kaunitz also promoted the arts and sciences. He was an important art collector and sponsor of Christoph Willibald Gluck . He was instrumental in founding the Académie Royale in Brussels as well as in the merging of the various art academies in Vienna to form the Academy of Fine Arts . He was the protector of the institution for over 20 years. However, he did not succeed in founding a scientific academy in Vienna.

Personally, he was considered a strong hypochondriac and extremely vain. Kaunitz first lived in a palace in Vienna's Herrengasse and then the State Chancellery building (today the Federal Chancellery ) on Ballhausplatz and the Kaunitz Palace, which was later used as a school building, in today's Amerlingstrasse 6, where he also died.

In 1749 he was accepted into the Order of the Golden Fleece . On January 5, 1764 he was raised to the rank of imperial prince and on June 27, 1776 to the status of herbländic prince.

Death and later appreciation

Kaunitz died in 1794 and is now buried in the Kaunitz family crypt under the Church of St. John the Baptist in the Austerlitz / Slavkov cemetery. The prince rests in a wooden coffin under a glass plate and is dressed in a uniform and the Grand Cross of the Hungarian Order of St. Stephen . The body is dry and well preserved.

In 1862 the Kaunitzgasse in Vienna- Mariahilf (6th district) was named after him. In the Burgenland town of Pinkafeld , a Kaunitzgasse also commemorates this statesman.

literature

Source editions

• Sebastian Brunner (Ed.): Correspondances intimes de l'empereur Joseph II avec son ami le comte de Cobenzl et son premier ministre le prince de Kaunitz. Kirchheim, Mainz 1871.
• Adolf Beer (ed.): Memoranda of Prince Kaunitz. In: AÖG 48, 1872, pp. 1–158.
• Adolf Beer (ed.): Joseph II., Leopold II. And Kaunitz. Your correspondence. Wilhelm Braumüller, Vienna 1873.
• Hanns Schlitter (Ed.): Kaunitz, Philipp Cobenzl, and Spielmann. Their correspondence, 1779–1792. Adolf Holzhausen, Vienna 1899.
• Hanns Schlitter (ed.): Correspondance secrète entre le Comte AW Kaunitz-Rietberg, Ambassadeur impérial à Paris, et le Baron Ignaz de Koch, Secrétaire de l'Impératrice Marie-Thérèse. 1750-1752. Plon, Paris 1899.

Older representations

• Constantin von Wurzbach : Kaunitz-Rietberg, Wenzel Anton Fürst . In: Biographisches Lexikon des Kaiserthums Oesterreich . 11th part. Kaiserlich-Königliche Hof- und Staatsdruckerei, Vienna 1864, pp. 70–86 ( digitized version ).
• Alfred Ritter von Arneth :  Kaunitz, Wenzel Anton Fürst . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 15, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1882, pp. 487-505.
• Alfred von Arneth : Biography of Prince Kaunitz: A fragment. In: AÖG. 88, 1900, pp. 1-202. Digitized
• Georg Küntzel: Prince Kaunitz-Rittberg as a statesman. Diesterwerg, Frankfurt 1923.
• Elemér Mályusz: Kaunitz on the cultural policy of the Habsburg monarchy. In: Southeast German Research. [now Südostforschungen] 2, 1937, pp. 1-16.
• Alexander Novotny: State Chancellor Kaunitz as a spiritual personality. Hollinek, Vienna 1947.
• Friedrich Walter: Men around Maria Theresa. Holzhausen, Vienna 1951.
• William J. McGill: The Roots of Policy: Kaunitz in Italy and the Netherlands, 1742-1746. In: Central European History. 1, 1969, pp. 131-149.
• William J. McGill: Wenzel Anton von Kaunitz-Rittberg and the Conference of Aix-la-Chapelle, 1748. In: Duquesne Review. 14, 1969, pp. 154-167.
• William J. McGill: The Roots of Policy: Kaunitz in Vienna and Versailles, 1749–1753. In: Journal of Modern History. 48, 1971, pp. 228-244.

Newer representations

• Grete Klingenstein: The rise of the Kaunitz house. Studies on the origins and education of State Chancellor Wenzel Anton. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 1975 (new edition: 1997, ISBN 3-525-35906-3 ).
• Grete Klingenstein, Hanna Begusch, Marlies Raffler, Franz AJ Szabo (eds.): State Chancellor Wenzel Anton von Kaunitz-Rietberg: 1711–1794. New perspectives on politics and culture of the European Enlightenment. Schnider, Graz / Esztergom / Paris / New York 1996, ISBN 3-900993-43-2 .
• Franz AJ Szabo: State Chancellor Prince Kaunitz and Austria's Enlightenment Policy. In: Walter Koschatzky (Ed.): Maria Theresia and your time. A depiction of the period from 1740–1780 on the occasion of the 200th anniversary of the empress' death. Residence, Salzburg / Vienna 1979, ISBN 3-7017-0236-5 , pp. 40–45.
• Tibor Simanyi : Kaunitz or the diplomatic revolution. State Chancellor Maria Theresa. Amalthea, Vienna 1984.
• Harm Klueting: The doctrine of the power of states. The foreign policy power problem in “political science” and in practical politics in the 18th century. (= Historical research. 29). Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1986, ISBN 3-428-06052-0 .
• Reiner Pommerin , Lothar Schilling: Memorandum of Count Kaunitz on the power-political constellation after the Peace of Aach in 1748. In: Johannes Kunisch (Ed.): Expansion and balance. Studies on the European power politics of the ancien régime. Berlin 1986, pp. 165-239.
• Éva H. Balázs: Kaunitz és Magyarország (Doktori tézises összefoglaló). Budapest 1990.
• Franz AJ Szabo: Kaunitz and enlightened absolutism, 1753-1780. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1994.
• Lothar Schilling: Kaunitz and the Renversement des alliances. Studies on the foreign policy conception of Wenzel Anton von Kaunitz. (= Historical research. 50). Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1994.
• G. Klingenstein, FAJ Szabo (ed.): State Chancellor Wenzel Anton von Kaunitz-Rietberg 1711–1794. New perspectives on politics and culture of the European Enlightenment. Graz et al. 1996.
• Michael Hochedlinger: ... That enlightenment is the surest way to secure the calm and loyalty of subjects. State Chancellor Kaunitz and the 'Franciscan Reaction' 1792–1794. In: Helmut Reinalter (Ed.): Enlightenment - Vormärz - Revolution. Yearbook of the International Research Center for Democratic Movements in Central Europe from 1770–1850 at the University of Innsbruck. 16/17, 1996/97, pp. 62-79.
• Franz AJ Szabo: Favorite, Prime Minister or “Third Head of State”? The case of State Chancellor Wenzel Anton Kaunitz. In: Michael Kaiser, Andreas Pečar (ed.): The second man in the state. Supreme officials and favorites among the imperial princes in the early modern period. Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 2003, ISBN 3-428-11116-8 , pp. 345-362.
• Angela Kulenkampff: Austria and the Old Reich. The Imperial Policy of State Chancellor Kaunitz under Maria Theresia and Joseph II. Böhlau, Cologne / Weimar / Vienna 2005, ISBN 3-412-10305-5 .
• Gerlinde Gruber: 'En un mot j'ai pensé à tout.' The commitment of Wenzel Anton Kaunitz-Rietberg for the repositioning of the picture gallery in the Belvedere. In: Yearbook of the Kunsthistorisches Museum Wien. 10, 2008, pp. 191-205.
• Franz AJ Szabo: Perspective from the Pinnacle: State Chancellor Kaunitz on Nobility in the Habsburg Monarchy. In: Gabriele Haug-Moritz , Hans Peter Hye, Marlies Raffler (eds.): Nobility in the “long” 18th century. Austrian Academy of Sciences, Vienna 2009, pp. 239–260.
• Karl Otmar Freiherr von Aretin :  Kaunitz, Wenzel Anton Graf. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 11, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1977, ISBN 3-428-00192-3 , pp. 363-369 ( digitized version ).
• Konrad Fuchs:  Kaunitz, Wentzel Anton Graf v .. In: Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon (BBKL). Volume 3, Bautz, Herzberg 1992, ISBN 3-88309-035-2 , Sp. 1250-1252.

Web links

Commons : Wenzel Anton Kaunitz  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Literature by and about Wenzel Anton von Kaunitz-Rietberg in the catalog of the German National Library
• Works by and about Wenzel Anton von Kaunitz-Rietberg  in the German Digital Library
• Herwig Katzer: June 27th, 1794 - Wenzel Anton Graf von Kaunitz died on the WDR ZeitZeichen (podcast).

Individual evidence

1. ↑ For the descendants see: Roman von Procházka : Genealogical manual of extinct Bohemian gentry families. Neustadt an der Aisch 1973, there: Kaunitz, origin, partial lineages and pedigree p. 138, ISBN 3-7686-5002-2 .
2. ^ Wilhelm Kohl: The dioceses of the ecclesiastical province of Cologne. The diocese of Münster. Volume 4, Berlin 1982, p. 733.
3. ^ Bertrand Michael Buchmann: Court - Government - City Administration: Vienna as the seat of the Austrian central administration from the beginnings to the fall of the monarchy. Vienna 2002, p. 65.
4. ^ Bertrand Michael Buchmann: Court - Government - City Administration: Vienna as the seat of the Austrian central administration from the beginnings to the fall of the monarchy. Vienna 2002, p. 70.
5. ↑ Quoted from Theodor Schieder: Friedrich der Große. P. 403.
6. ^ GJ Rosenkranz: Contributions to the history of the state of Rietberg and its counts. In: Journal for patriotic history and antiquity. NF. Volume 3 Münster, 1852, pp. 185-192.
7. ↑ Kurt Haslinger: The Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna in the 18th century - reforms under Kaunitz. 2008, accessed July 5, 2011 . 
8. ^ Encyclopedia of the enlightenment. New York 2004, p. 322.

predecessor	Office	successor
Maria Ernestine Francisca	Count von Rietberg 1746 to 1794	Ernst Christoph

predecessor	Office	successor
Ferdinand of Bartholomei	Habsburg envoy in Sardinia-Piedmont June 30, 1742 to March 3. 1744	Heinrich Hyacinth by Naye and Richecourt
Karl Ferdinand von Königsegg-Erps	Habsburg Minister in Austria. Netherlands 1744 to 1746	Karl Josef Batthyány
Johann von Mareschall, Gt	Habsburg ambassador to France from 1750 to 1752	Johann von Mareschall, Gt
Anton Corfiz Ulfeldt	Habsburg State Chancellor for Foreign Policy 1753 to 1792	Philipp von Cobenzl
Peter by Giusti	Habsburg ambassador to Spain July 7, 1776 to September 12. 1784	Karl von Humburg