Page:Charles von Hügel (1903 memoir).djvu/42



When the second war of Piedmont broke out he was sent by Prince Felix of Schwartzenberg on a diplomatic mission to the headquarters of Radetzky. When our troops occupied Tuscany he was entrusted with the representation of Austria in that country, and soon after was named Ambassador Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary to the Grand Ducal Court of Florence, a position which he held for ten years.

Here [in 1851] he contracted his happy union with the daughter of the British General, Francis Farquharson. On his Indian journey Hügel saw, for the first time, her who in later years was to be his life’s companion. Her father was then in the East Indian army, and had a reputation as a distinguished officer. She was then no more than a child. Later [in 1847], a lovely, blooming girl, she visited with her father that home at Hietzing, which in an English biography of Hügel is described as "a fairy abode ." In spite of the great difference of age,—he was in his fifty-fifth, she in her twentieth year,—the closest and most devoted affection united them.

After the well-known events of the year 1859, Hügel left Italy with the Grand Duke. In accordance with the peace preliminaries of Villafranca, this benign prince, to whom Tuscany stood indebted for many timely reforms, was to return again to Florence; but events proved otherwise. Accordingly Hügel, after a year's residence in Vienna, was called to the post of Austrian Ambassador at Brussels. There also, as at Florence, he won for himself many friends and admirers; and when, in the year 1867, on account of

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