The Karlsschule was an elite establishment: the younger two Marschall von Bieberstein brothers got to know Georges Cuvier (1769 – 1832) who later came to prominence as a notable naturalist-palaeontologist, and who became a lifelong family friend.

In June 1791 Ernst Marschall von Bieberstein entered military service as a lieutenant in the district militia ("Kreiskontingent") under the command of Prince William of Nassau-Usingen.

However, he was already destined, in the longer term, for a career in civil administration and after a year of military service he made the switch, taking a post as Court and Government Assessor.

As early as 1793, echoing the views of the men who later came to be known as the Prussian reformers in Berlin, Marschall von Bieberstein had shared his opinion that the best protection against the revolutionary tide lay in adopting a constitution,[9] though it would be another twenty years before he would have the opportunity to implement his own advice on this.

[1][11] Marschall von Bieberstein was still a relatively young man when he took over the government, and his early years in office are marked by a comprehensive strategy of financial, social and economic reform, all designed to create a modern and more unified state.

[1] In December 1809 there followed an edict abolishing all "demeaning physical punishments" ("... entehrenden Leibesstrafen"), a striking testimony to governmental respect for the human rights of the prince's subjects in Nassau, more than a century before such an approach became mainstream in much of western Europe.

Some years later, in 1817, based on the detailed work of the lawyer-educationalist Carl Ibell, and with the enthusiastic (and very necessary) backing of Marschall von Bieberstein, education provision was removed from church control and interdenominational schooling was introduced.

Viewed in retrospect it becomes hard to understand just what a radical step (or, for constitutional conservatives, threat) this de facto guarantee of fundamental rights and liberties would have represented, both in 1814 and subsequently.

After the Prussians suffered a crushing military defeat in 1806 at the hands of Napoleon, however, French pressure led eventually to vom Stein's exile from Prussia in 1808.

[18][19] By backing the so-called "Metternichische Restauration", Marschall von Bieberstein aligned himself with a powerful Austrian Foreign Minister (who after 1821 combined his ministerial responsibilities with the office of Imperial Chancellor).

On 1 July 1819 a serious (though ultimately unsuccessful) attempt was made to assassinate Carl Ibell, who by this time had become a senior member of Marschall von Bieberstein's government in Nassau.

He expressed particular concern that Louis I, Grand Duke of Hesse (which bordered Nassau) had not been persuaded to take the necessary "serious measures" against fraterntities of malcontents at the universities in Darmstadt and Giessen.

Metternich replied promptly, on 31 July 1819, thanking Marschall von Bieberstein for his letter which had, yet again, confirmed him in his own opinion that the member governments of the German confederation needed to work much more closely together.

Metternich was confident that the time for a decision was approaching fast: "A few weeks will be enough to shed light on the future path and to determine whether reason or revolution will prevail".

On 2 August 1819 the eruption of a two month period of communal and antisemitic rioting intensified the perceived need for action against the dangers of a rerun of the French Revolution centred, this time, on German-speaking central Europe.

[24] Ernst Marschall von Bieberstein, whose correspondence has been preserved, now emerged as an uncompromising backer of the approach envisaged in the Karlsbad decrees, both diplomatically and in his conservative domestic authoritarianism during the ensuing fifteen years.

[1][21] During the early 1830s Marschall von Bieberstein survived in office during the so-called "domaine dispute" even though the underlying inequities which triggered it were widely seen as a result of deficiencies in his own fiscal reforms fifteen years earlier.

[25] The savage treatment meted out to the aging opposition leader Johann Georg Heber in 1832 indicate that it was not just the pre-emptive impact of Marschall von Bieberstein's reform agenda fifteen years earlier, but also his willingness in the 1830s to adopt a hands-on anti-liberal approach which Prince Metternich himself would surely have endorsed.

[26] The central mission to preserve the duchy's sovereignty underpinned many of Marschall von Bieberstein's policies after 1819, including his backing of Metternch's determination to suppress popular nationalism.

[1] It was also a reflection of his determination to preserve the duchy's independence to the maximum extent possible that he stubbornly resisted the development of a pan-German customs union, which came into existence in January 1834 but which, following Marschall von Bieberstein's death, Nassau joined only on 10 December 1835.

[1] In traditional German historiography scholars have focused on Marschall von Bieberstein's rejection of a customs union and on the reactionary domestic policies that he implemented after 1819.