Note 15 — Chapter IV · Plots and Counterplots

Wenzel Anton Kaunitz, Count of Rietberg, was one of the most famous of European diplomatists. He was born at Vienna, Jan. 2, 1711. His first mission was the formation of an alliance of Austria, Sardinia, and Great Britain against the Bourbons. He laid the foundation of his fame at the Congress of Aix-la-Chapelle in 1748. Between 1750 and 1752 he concluded a secret alliance between France and Austria. In 1756 he was made Chancellor of the Netherlands and Italy, and at the partition of Poland in 1772 he secured Galicia for Austria. He directed the affairs of Austria for more than forty years, and was specially prominent in his resistance to the power of Prussia.