Charles von Hügel
CHARLES VON HÜGEL.
April 25, 1795–June 2, 1870
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CHARLES VON HÜGEL.
April 25, 1795—June 2, 1870
PRIVATELY PRINTED
CAMBRIDGE
1903
To
Our Mother
who for
twenty-three years
steadfastly shared
the joys and sorrows
of the life recorded
in these pages
Verona, 1847–Brussels, 1870
PREFACE.
I FIND it hard to believe that full thirty-three years have passed since my dear father died. He was an old man, he had been in failing health for years, and he had suffered much. But his mental activity hardly ever flagged. He carried to the grave his chivalrous patriotism, his many interests, his warm appreciation of the work of others, his unbounded love of nature, his fresh sympathy with youth. All the tastes and interests which I have, I owe to his inspiration and his gentle training: and through babyhood, childhood, and boyhood, his patience and unfailing sympathy and his wonderful power of throwing himself into the fancies of a child, bridged the wide span of the fifty-nine years which separated him from me.
No detailed history of Charles von Hügels's life, so unusually varied and full of stirring incident, has been written, and the time for doing so in any complete form has now passed, as many facts and personal data have been lost with his contemporaries. All that I have now attempted to do, is to bring together the brief sketches of his career which already exist, and to give, in the shape of notes, the few additional facts and data that were obtainable, as well as some trivial details of purely family interest.
Such a compilation will at least serve the purpose of preserving for my nieces, Gertrud, Hildegard, and Thekla, some picture of their Austrian grandfather, whom they had not the happiness to know, but of whom in years to come they will be the sole representatives. I have this all the more at heart seeing that circumstances have removed his children from the country which he loved and served with such devotion, and that the new surroundings in which his grandchildren have thus grown up, must in time tend to dim in their minds the memory of the Austrian traditions of their family.
Though the thought of doing something of this kind had been for years before me, I am really indebted to my wife’s niece, Mary Froude, for its realization: as it was the revising of a verbatim translation, kindly made by her for my mother, of Dr Wiesner’s speech, which induced me last year to defer no longer the collection of material for these Memoirs. Nor would they have even now appeared, had it not been for the unfailing sympathy and ever ready help which I have received from my wife throughout the course of their compilation.
I hope later to amplify these Memoirs with notices of various members of my father's family, and to give other particulars of his own life, including a sketch of his early years, written by himself for his children, and reprints of the letters from him to my mother concerning the flight of Prince Metternich in 1848, published by my brother in the National Review for June 1883.
Of the memoirs now reprinted, two were written by old and valued friends of my parents, Lady Georgiana Fullerton and Baron von Reumont. The third, the address by Dr Wiesner, at the unveiling of the Hügeldenkmal, has an interest of its own as coming from one who, without any personal knowledge of my father, grew through years of botanical research, not only to value his scientific attainments, but also greatly to esteem and admire his character. I cannot allow this opportunity to pass without expressing the deep gratitude felt by my mother, my brother, and myself to Dr Wiesner and to the Verein der Gärtner und Gartenfreunde in Hietzing, of which he was the mouth-piece, for having revived in Austria the memory of my father’s work.
I have to thank the Autotype Company for the care which they have bestowed on the excellent reproductions of portraits given in this volume, the negatives for which were, at considerable trouble, kindly taken for me by Mr H. A. Chapman, of the Fitzwilliam Museum.
I add a plate representing the Patron‘s Medal of the Royal Geographical Society of London to the list of distinctions received by my father. He valued this medal, given for his explorations in Cashmere, and the Armee Kreuz, commemorative of the 1813-14 campaign, (of which I also give a figure), perhaps more than any of his other decorations, for 'they,' he used to say, 'meant real hard work.' The 1849 medal given by Pope Pius IX (see page xx), commemorates a remarkable episode in the history of the Church which rises vividly to mind at this moment when the death of Leo XIII, the illustrious successor of Pius IX in the Chair of Peter, is hourly expected.
Croft Cottage, Cambridge.
July 17, 1903
TABLE OF CONTENTS
| PAGE | |
| List of Illustrations | xiii |
| Events in the life of Charles von Hügel | xv |
| Distinctions conferred on Charles von Hügel | xix |
| Inscription on the 'Hügeldenkmal' | 4 |
| Memorial Address delivered at the unveiling of the Hügeldenkmal, at Hietzing, near Vienna, October 3, 1901, by Hofrath Dr Julius Wiesner, Professor of Botany at the University of Vienna. (Translated from the German) | 5 |
| Biographical Sketch by Alfred Baron von Reumont, late Prussian Minister at the Grand Ducal Court of Tuscany. (Translated from the German) | 33 |
| In Memoriam by Lady Georgina Fullerton | 53 |
| Presentation of the Patron's Medal of the Royal Geographical Society of London by W. R. Hamilton, F.R.S. | 63 |
| Notes | 71 |
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
| SEE | |
| Patron's Medal of the Royal Geographical Society of London | xix |
| Armee Kreuz, for the 1813-14 campaign against Napoleon | xix |
| Pontifcal Medal, 1849, commemorative of the restoration of Rome | xx |
PORTRAITS
| Charles von Hügel: | |
| At the age of eighteen: taken in fancy dress on the occasion of the ball given at Vienna by Prince Metternich, the Chancellor of State, to celebrate the restoration of peace. From a painting in oils by
E. Sales (? Vienna), 1814 |
Reumont |
| At the age of thirty-six. From a miniature on ivory by Moritz M. Daffinger. Vienna, 1831. This portrait, engraved on copper by Eaton, forms the frontispiece to the first volume of Kaschmir, published 1840 | Hamilton |
| At the age of fifty-four: taken after the campaign in Lombardy. From a copy of a water-colour sketch drawn from life by Denis A. M. Raffet for the late Prince Anatole de Demidoff, Florence, 1849 | Reumont |
| At the age of fifty-six. From a painting in oils by Joseph Neugebauer. Florence, 1851 | Frontispiece |
| At the age of sixty-five From a photograph by L Angerer of Vienna, 1860 | Fullerton |
| At the age of sixty-eight. From a photograph by Ghemar Frères of Brussels of the diplomatists assembled for the Conference on the 'Rachat du péage de l'Escaut.' Brussels, July, 1863 | Reumont |
| The Hügeldenkmal, Hietzing, Vienna. A posthumous bust by Johann Benks, executed 1901 | Wiesner |
| Elizabeth Farquharson: | |
| At the age of seventeen: previous to her marriage with Baron Charles von Hügel. From a painting in oils by Thomas Richmond. London, 1848 | Reumont |
See Notes (1)