He was a politician and poet, a member of a well-known Austrian aristocratic family, born in 1806. He studied philosophy and law at the Universities of Vienna and Graz. He was an opponent of Metternich’s system and as early as 1831 had made his name as the author of Spaziergänge eines Wiener Poeten, which he wrote under the pen-name, which he used for the rest of his life, of Anastasius Grün. In 1848 he was a member of parliament in Frankfurt and later one of the leaders of the Austrian Liberal Party. He was a member of the Upper Chamber in the Austrian Parliament and from 1868 the president of the Reichsratdelegation. He died in 1876.
       The speech on the marriage statute he gave in the Upper Chamber on 20 March 1868 fired the enthusiasm of Liberals in the whole of the monarchy, as a result of which several cities, among them, Vienna, Graz, Litoměřice, Znojmo conferred honorary citizenship on him. The Town Council of Cieszyn also awarded him with this honour at the meeting of 24 March 1868 (four days after his speech). When the grounds were cited, his fight for human rights in the times of Metternich were mentioned, as was his service in the Frankfurt Parliament (the first German Parliament), and the speech which had proved so popular with the Cieszyn authorities. They manifested their solidarity by sending a message of support to the Upper Chamber in Vienna.