In October peace was signed at the camp of Schoenbrunn, and, divorcing the woman who had loved him when he had only his sword and his epaulettes, Napoleon espoused Maria Louisa of Austria; and Prince Charles, who by his accumulated blunders at the battle of Aspern, had thrown away the fortunes of Continental Europe, received from his Imperial conqueror the Grand Riband of the Legion of Honour. O'Reilly came in for a full share of the honours and decorations which were showered upon the Austrian army.
At the general peace of 1814 the Empire, exhausted by a war of five-and-twenty years, reduced her vast military establishments to 58 regiments of the line, 12 battalions of chasseurs, and 5 garrison battalions—in all, 1044 companies of fusiliers, and 116 of grenadiers. The cavalry were reduced to 36 regiments of cuirassiers, light dragoons, uhlans and hussars. Of the third regiment of light horse O'Reilly was colonel and proprietor. He was also High Chamberlain of the Empire.
At this time Louis Count Taaffe, a noble of Irish parentage, was Second President of the Austrian High Court of Justice, and General Count O'Donnel was Military Governor of Austrian Lombardy. One of the Emperor's most distinguished officers was General Count Nugent, who in the war of 1847-8 led 30,000 Austrian infantry to succour Marshal Radetzki, who was then opposed to the troops of Charles Albert.[19] Count Taaffe was a member of the new ministry formed on the 21st of March, in the year of the Austrian revolution: but he retired from office shortly before the appearance of the chartered constitution on the 19th of April.
O'Reilly lived to see Austria affected by the commotions which pervaded Europe after the French Revolution of 1830, when the Duke of Modena and the Archduke of Parma were obliged to quit these states, and a formidable insurrection broke out in the Patrimony of St. Peter—an insurrection to quell which 18,000 Austrian troops were marched towards the frontier; but O'Reilly was too far advanced in years to draw his sword again in the service of the House of Hapsburg. He died in October, 1833, at Vienna, after attaining the patriarchal age of ninety-two. He had long survived his countess, and died childless.
FOOTNOTES:
[19] Nugent, a field-marshal in 1858, commanded 25,000 Austrian troops at the funeral of Marshal Radetzki, and acted as chief mourner.