Men of the Time, eleventh edition/Beust (Count von), Frederick Ferdinand
BEUST (Count von), Frederick Ferdinand, a distinguished German statesman, brother of the above, born at Dresden, Jan. 13, 1809, studied at Göttingen and Leipsic, and entered the Foreign Office. After holding the post of Assessor of Land-Survey in 1832, he spent between two and three years in visiting Switzerland, France, and England. He became Secretary of the Saxon Legation at Berlin in 1836, occupied the same post at Paris in 1838, was Chargé d'Affaires at Munich in 1841, in London in 1846, Ambassador to the Court of Berlin in 1848, and Minister for Foreign Affairs for Saxony in Feb. 1849, receiving the portfolio for Agriculture in the following May. He took a prominent part in the discussions preceding the treaty of 1852, and in 1853 became Minister of the Interior, when he resigned his post as Minister of Agriculture. On the breaking out of the Danish war in 1863, Baron von Beust distinguished himself by his fidelity to Federal interests, and by a rebuke he administered to Lord Russell in answer to a despatch from the latter. He represented the Germanic Diet at the London Conference of 1864, during the continuance of which he twice visited Paris, to confer with the Emperor Napoleon, whose guest he was afterwards at Fontainebleau. After the war between Austria and Prussia, Baron von Beust was made Minister for Foreign Affairs in Austria, Oct. 30, 1866, Minister of the Household, Nov. 14, 1866, and President of the Council, with the title of Chancellor of the Empire, on the retirement of Count Belcredi, Feb. 4, 1867. The Emperor of Austria, acting under Baron von Beust's advice, made great concessions to Hungary. He succeeded in completely conciliating that country, and on June 8, 1867, the coronation of the Emperor as King of Hungary was celebrated at Pesth, amid the acclamations of the people, the event being hailed as a pledge of the lasting reconciliation with the Magyars. Baron von Beust inaugurated a Liberal policy in regard to the interior organization of the Empire, and, himself a Protestant, he has invariably shown the bitterest hostility to the partisans of the Church. During his tenure of office the Jews were admitted to equal civil and religious rights with the rest of the population; the Reichsrath assented to the separation of the Church from the State, and declared all religious bodies to be equal in the eye of the law; the Concordat entered into with the Holy See in 1855 was repudiated; civil marriage was established; imprisonment for debt was abolished; and press offences were referred to the decisions of juries. Baron von Beust also directed his energies to the improvement of the financial condition of Austria, and the increase of her military strength. He accompanied the Emperor Francis Joseph to France on the occasion of the Universal Exposition of 1867. He resigned the post of Chancellor of the Empire in Nov., 1871, and shortly afterwards was appointed Austrian Ambassador at the Court of St. James's in the place of Count Apponyi. He remained in London till Nov., 1878, when he was appointed Austrian Ambassador at Paris. A sketch of "The Austro-Hungarian Empire, and the Policy of Count Beust, by an Englishman," was published at London in 1870. Count von Beust is Grand Cross of the Legion of Honour, and in Sept., 1871, the Emperor of Germany conferred on him the cordon of the Order of the Black Eagle. He has also received many other German and foreign decorations.