SPAUR, CARLO VON. - Bavarian diplomat, b. Jan. 4, 1794, d. Oct. 26, 1854 in Florence. Count of Winckel and Laudeck, he began his diplomatic career as secretary of legation in Berlin and Frankfurt. He then moved to Rome, first as chargé d'affaires and then as minister.
In Sept. 1833 he married Teresa Giraud (b. in Rome in the early 19th century, d. near Innsbruck on March 27, 1873), niece of the playwright Giovanni Giraud and widow of the English archaeologist Edward Didwell, one of the most brilliant women of the Rome of that time. The count was held in high regard by Gregory XVI, and then by Pius IX. After the assassination of Pellegrino Rossi (Nov. 15, 1848) a further stay in Rome by the Pontiff presented itself as exceedingly risky, so that there took shape in S.'s mind the plan of persuading the Pope to leave Rome, where he was practically a prisoner in his Palace and where his freedom of action had been entirely nullified by the events that had followed one another in the preceding months. Having therefore got in touch with his own ambassador, Martinez de la Rosa, and with the ambassador of France, Duke d'Harcourt, who approved his plan to induce the Pope to leave Rome, he succeeded in persuading the Pontiff himself to depart secretly. On the evening of Nov. 24, while Harcourt, who had requested an audience with the Pontiff, diverted the attention of the guards by pretending to be detained, inside the apartment, in a heated discussion with Pius IX, the Pope, dressed as a simple priest, went out through a secondary door of the Quirinal and got into a carriage that took him to the vicinity of the Colosseum, where Count S. was waiting for him. Having got into his carriage, they left together through Porta S. Giovanni, and reached Ariccia. There Countess S. was waiting for them together with her son, with Liebl, the boy's tutor, and two servants. The Pontiff and S. changed carriages again and the next morning arrived safely at Mola di Gaeta, where Cardinal Antonelli was waiting for them, having arrived previously together with the secretary of the Spanish legation. S. was immediately instructed by Pius IX to take to Ferdinand II in Naples a letter of his, in which he asked him for hospitality in the Kingdom. To thank him for his assistance Pius IX conferred on him the Grand Cross of the Order of Pius and named his son a knight of the Order of Christ. In 1851, during a visit of his to Turin, S., known as a person highly favored by Pius IX, was asked by Victor Emmanuel II to act as interpreter with the Pope of his good intentions to reach a modus vivendi for the settlement of the controversies pending with the Holy See. A few years later, while he was about to set out for Merano, S. met his death.