On the outbreak of the 1848 revolution, Hügel chaperoned his earlier rival in love Chancellor Metternich during his escape from Vienna to England. He then sold his garden, rejoined the Austrian army, and took part in the first Italian Independence war. From 1850 to 1859, he served as Austrian Envoy Extraordinary (ambassador) to the Grand Duchy of Tuscany in Florence, finally marrying Elizabeth Farquharson there in 1851. In 1860 he became the Austrian ambassador in Brussels and published a second work based on notes from his Asian tour, this time about the Philippines: "Der Stille Ocean und die spanischen Besitzungen im ostindischen Archipel" ("The Pacific Ocean and the Spanish possessions in the East Indian archipelago"). He retired from the Imperial service in 1867 and took his family to live in the seaside town of Torquay, Devon, England. Three years later, on 2 June 1870, he died in Brussels while on his way to visit Vienna.