[1] In 1789, he went as secretary of legation to Berlin, where his maternal uncle, Count Leopold Friedrich zu Stolberg, was Danish ambassador.

[3] It was, therefore, as a Prussian diplomat that Bernstorff attended the Congress of Aix-la-Chapelle (October 1818), at the close of which he returned to Berlin as minister of state and head of the department for foreign affairs.

It is true that Bernstorff backed the Carlsbad Decrees, and the Vienna Final Act; he was also the faithful henchman of Metternich at the congresses of Laibach, Troppau and Verona.

On the other hand, he took a considerable share in laying the groundwork of the customs union (Zollverein), which was destined to be the foundation of the Prussian hegemony in Germany.

In the crisis of 1830 his moderation in face of the warlike clamour of the military party at Berlin did much to prevent the troubles in Belgium and Poland from ending in a universal European conflagration.

In the spring of 1832, the state of his health compelled him to resign the ministry of foreign affairs to Ancillon, who had already acted as his deputy for a year.