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Updated: June 19, 2025
MY LORD: According to a general belief in our diplomatic circles, it was the Austrian Ambassador in France, Count von Cobenzl, who principally influenced the determination of Francis II. to assume the hereditary title of Emperor of Austria, and to acknowledge Napoleon Emperor of the French.
Perhaps he could not help feeling that Austria just now was signing the misery and disgrace of Germany in order to purchase thereby some provinces, and that Austria enlarged her territory at the expense of the empire whose emperor was her own ruler Francis II. Their business being finished, the two plenipotentiaries rose, and Count Cobenzl withdrew.
In October, 1795, Count von Cobenzl signed, in the name of the Emperor, a treaty with England and Russia; and in 1797 he was one of the Imperial plenipotentiaries sent to Udine to negotiate with Bonaparte, with whom, on the 17th of October, he signed the Treaty of Campo Formio.
Talleyrand, from envy, no doubt, does not allow him the same political merit as his other political contemporaries, having frequently repeated that "the official dinners of Count von Cobenzl were greatly preferable to his official notes." It is true that this condescension was, perhaps, as much a boast, or a threat, as a compliment.
"Will you try to command the storm to stand still?" asked Count Cobenzl. "Yes, I will try, for we must not break off the negotiations in this way and recommence hostilities. We must conciliate this terrible warrior!" He rushed out of the room, and hastened through the anteroom and down-stairs to the front door.
They met accordingly, at the Hotel de Montmorency, Rue de Lille, occupied by Count von Cobenzl; but they came to no other unanimous determination than that of answering a written communication of Talleyrand by a written note, according as every one judged most proper and prudent, and corresponding with the supposed sentiments of his Sovereign.
The first visit I paid in Berlin was to Calsabigi, the younger brother of the Calsabigi with whom I had founded the lottery in Paris in 1757. He had left Paris and his wife too, and had set up a lottery in Brussels; but his extravagance was so great that he became a bankrupt in spite of the efforts of Count Cobenzl to keep him going.
"It would appear that diamonds do not abound in Prussia," replied Potemkin, with a gesture of slight toward the cross on his breast. "These brilliants are rather yellow." "Do you prefer Austrian diamonds?" asked Cobenzl, significantly. "I have never seen any," answered Potemkin, with a yawn.
He told me he was experimenting with colours for his own amusement, and that he had established a hat factory for Count Cobenzl, the Austrian ambassador at Brussels. He added that the count had only given him a hundred and fifty thousand florins, which were insufficient. Then we spoke of Madame d'Urfe.
Even old Count Metternich, the delegate of the Emperor of Austria and ruler of the empire, notwithstanding the stiffness of his limbs, had mounted his horse; by his side the other two ambassadors of Austria were halting Count Lehrbach, the Austrian member of the imperial commission, and Count Louis Cobenzl, who was acting as a delegate for Bohemia and Hungary.
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