HUBNER, JOSEPH ALEXANDER, COUNT (1811 1892), Austrian diplomatist, was born in Vienna on Nov. 26, 1811, of middle-class origin, his real name, afterwards changed to Hub ner, being Hafenbredl. He began his public career in 1833 under Metternich, who employed him successively in Paris (1837), Lisbon (1841), Leipzig (1844) and Milan (1848) . After being held some months as hostage by the Italians in 1848, he returned to the Austrian Court; his journal of this period (Ein Jahr aus meinem Leben) is a very valuable record of contemporary events. In March 1849 he became Austrian ambassador in Paris, leaving his post only on the outbreak of the war of 18S9, which took him unprepared. After a short period as Minister of Police he lived in retirement till 1865, when he became ambassador at Rome till 1867. In 1879 he was made a life-member of the Austrian Herrenhaus; in 1854 baron; in 1888 count. He died in Vienna on July 3o, 1892. Besides his journal HUbner wrote two racy travel books and a Life of Sixtus the Fifth (English trans. 1872). A strong conservative and admirer of Metternich, of whose era he was the last survivor, he was yet an able and broad-minded man.
See Sir Ernest Satow, An Austrian Diplomatist in the Fifties (1908) .