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 FROM THE 
 
 BENNO LOEWY LIBRARY 
 
 COLLECTED BY 
 
 BENNO LOEWY 
 
 1854-1919 
 BEQUEATHED TO CORNELL UNIVERSITY 
 
I'm 
 
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 Cornell University Library 
 DB 87.W42 1909 
 
 3 1924 028 064 420 
 
06 
 
Cornell University 
 Library 
 
 The original of tiiis book is in 
 tine Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924028064420 
 
THE REAL FRANCIS-JOSEPH 
 
THE REAL FRANCIS 
 JOSEPH 
 
 THE PRIVATE LIFE OF THE 
 EMPEROR OF AUSTRIA 
 
 BY 
 
 HENRI DE WEINDEL 
 
 WITH PHOTOGRAVURE PORTRAIT AND FORTY-FOUR 
 OTHER PORTRAITS AND ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 NEW YORK 
 D. APPLETON AND COMPANY 
 
 MDCCCCIX . n 1^ 1\!|: 1-1 
 
 lo UKMVIUaM'lY 
 
 I IIHVAUY 
 
J 
 
 >l^ 
 
 First pnblUhti ifi 1909 
 
 V 'I I }■ 51 :^ V I i^ n 
 
 l(r^ 
 
PREFACE 
 
 The information which will be found in this book 
 about the romantic adventures — now farcical, 
 sometimes comic, often tragic — of the Emperor 
 Francis- Joseph, the Empress Elisabeth, and the 
 Habsburg family, is for the most part unpublished 
 up to now, and unknown, or very little known. It 
 was collected and was communicated to me by a 
 person in Austria particularly well informed about 
 the Court of Vienna. I should have preferred 
 that this person's name appeared on the cover of 
 the book beside my own. That, however, has 
 been strictly forbidden. I can only take the 
 opportunity here of expressing publicly my in- 
 debtedness to my anonymous collaborator. 
 
 H. DE W. 
 
 [N.B. — M. de Weindel has personally revised 
 his book and added some new material for the 
 purposes of the English edition.] 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER PAGB 
 
 I. A ROMANTIC WOOING - " ^3 
 
 II. THE EDUCATION OF A PRINCE - 28 
 
 III. A DREAM THAT CAME TRUE - - 46 
 
 IV. AN UNREALIZED AMBITION 6g 
 V. THE FIRST ACT OF A TRAGEDY 87 
 
 VI. IMPERIAL AMUSEMENTS IO9 
 
 VII. THE empress's FLIGHT I27 
 
 VIII. THE IMPERIAL WANDERER I43 
 
 IX. FROM TRAGEDY TO FARCE 159 
 
 X. THE CROWN PRINCE - 185 
 
 XI. Rudolf's marriage - - 203 
 
 XII. THE MYSTERY OF MAYERLING 225 
 
 XIII. THE END OF A MARTYRDOM - 246 
 
 XIV. SHATTERED PRINCIPLES 27O 
 XV. A BANKRUPT POLICY- 287 
 
 XVL THE CLOSE OF A LIFE - 30O 
 
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 THE EMPEROR francistJOseph - - frontispiece 
 
 TO FACE PAGE 
 
 THE EMPRESS ELISABETH AT THE TIME OF HER 
 
 BETROTHAL - I 8 
 
 FRANCIS-JOSEPH IN BOYHOOD 28 
 
 THE ARCHDUKE ALBERT — LOUIS KOSSUTH 46 
 
 FRANCIS-JOSEPH 68 
 
 THE EMPRESS ELISABETH 88 
 KING EDWARD VII. AND THE EMPEROR FRANCIS-JOSEPH — 
 
 THE HUNTING-BOX AT MURZZUSCHLAG - 1 10 
 
 THE IMPERIAL FAMILY IN 1860 - I28 
 THE IMPERIAL RESIDENCE AT ISCHL — THE PALACE OF 
 
 SCHONBRUNN - - I38 
 THE EMPEROR AND EMPRESS AT A HUNGARIAN FESTIVAL I42 
 LUDWIG II. OF BAVARIA - l62 
 THE ARCHDUKE MAXIMILIAN I70 
 THE ARCHDUCHESS CHARLOTTE - I 74 
 THE ARCHDUKES JOHN, CHARLES-LOUIS, AND LOUIS- 
 VICTOR 184 
 THE CROWN PRINCE RUDOLF AT FIFTEEN 196 
 
 THE CROWN PRINCESS STEPHANIE THE CROWN PRINCE 
 
 RUDOLF 206 
 
 COUNT CHARLES BOMBELLES — BRATFISCH - 220 
 
 THE CROWN PRINCE RUDOLF 226 
 
 xi 
 
xii LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 TO FACE PAGE 
 
 THE BARONESS MARIE VETSCHERA — MAYERLING 236 
 
 THE HOFBURG : THE FUNERAL VAULT OF THE HABS- 
 
 BURGS AT VIENNA - 244 
 
 LAST VISIT OF THE EMPEROR AND EMPRESS TO BUDA- 
 
 PESTH- - - - 246 
 
 THE ACHILLEION AT CORFU — THE ACHILLEION : PERI- 
 STYLE - - - 252 
 
 LAST WALK TOGETHER OF THE EMPEROR AND EMPRESS, 
 
 NAUHEIM, 1898 . . . - - 256 
 
 THE EMPRESS ELISABETH IN HUNGARIAN COURT DRESS - 268 
 
 THE ARCHDUCHESS GISELA — LEOPOLD, DUKE OF BAVARIA 
 — ELISABETH, GRANDDAUGHTER OF FRANCIS-JOSEPH — 
 BARON VON SEEFRIED, HER HUSBAND 272 
 
 THE ARCHDUKE FRANCIS-FERDINAND, THE COUNTESS 
 
 CHOTEK, AND THEIR TWO CHILDREN - 280 
 
 THE ARCHDUKE FRANCIS - SALVATOR, ARCHDUCHESS 
 VALfiRIE, AND THEIR CHILDREN — ELISABETH, 
 DAUGHTER OF THE CROWN PRINCE RUDOLF, AND 
 HER HUSBAND, OTTO VON WINDISCHGRATZ 286 
 
 FRANCIS-JOSEPH AT A REVIEW OF THE SCHONBRUNN 
 
 FORESTERS IN 1 898 - - 288 
 
 THE 1898 JUBILEE : THE CHILDREN'S wtTE AT VIENNA 296 
 
 THE EMPEROR AND SOME OF HIS GRANDCHILDREN - 30O 
 
 FRAU KATHARINA SCHRATT .... 306 
 
THE REAL FRANCIS-JOSEPH 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 A ROMANTIC WOOING 
 
 " Take care, cousin : if Black growls at you so 
 muchj you will have a bad name in the house !" 
 
 The person thus addressed had stumbled over 
 a snarling spaniel as he turned toward the terrace 
 steps. He was a slim young man, with an expres- 
 sion on his face of mingled gaiety and pride. His 
 upper lip, shaded by a slight moustache, curled 
 ironically, and it was in a tone of exaggerated 
 courtesy that he made his reply. 
 
 " Spare your fears for me, fair cousin. If I 
 choose, I know how to conquer the terrible Black. 
 Thanks all the same for your anxiety about me." 
 
 He made a profound bow to the pretty girl who 
 had spoken to him, went down the front steps of 
 the chateau, and was soon lost to view in the cool 
 darkness of the pine-woods in the park of Possen- 
 hofen. 
 
 It was an afternoon in May, 1853. The two 
 actors in this short scene were the Princess Sophia, 
 eldest daughter of the Duke Maximilian, and the 
 
 13 
 
14 THE REAL FRANCIS- JOSEPH 
 
 Princess Ludovica (Louise) of Bavaria, and His 
 Majesty Francis- Joseph the First, Emperor of 
 Austria, Apostolic King of Hungary, King of 
 Bohemia, Dalmatia, Croatia, Sclavonia, and many 
 other places. 
 
 The EmpeijDr was twenty-three, his cousin 
 twenty-one. Francis- Joseph had arrived that 
 morning at Possenhof en, the home of Duke Meixi- 
 milian, who, through his marriage with the sister 
 of the Princess Sophia of Bavaria, wife of the 
 Archduke Francis-Charles of Austria, had become 
 the uncle of the Emperor, Francis-Charles's son. 
 Up to the present uncle and nephew, it must be 
 admitted, had had but little to do with one 
 another. The cares of empire had fallen upon the 
 young Sovereign at the age of eighteen, and 
 plunged him, at a time of life when a man thinks 
 much more about the gratification of his desires 
 than of the destiny of nations, into the midst of a 
 difficult and complicated political situation, leaving 
 him little leisure. Moreover, as his character was 
 one which led him readily enough in the direction 
 of the amusements close at hand, he did not waste 
 the moments snatched from the affairs of State in 
 family visits. Rumour already put to his credit 
 a number of affairs of the heart, dexterously 
 managed by him ; and the young monarch was 
 constantly dreaming of adding to the list of his 
 sentimental victims. 
 
 Duke Maximilian, for his part, seldom thought 
 of leaving the neighbourhood of Munich, the banks 
 
A KUiviAJMiv^ WOOING 15 
 
 of the Lake of Starnberg, and the woods of Possen- 
 hofen, to go to Vienna, where the rigid etiquette 
 accorded ill with his liking for a simple country 
 existence. A noted horseman and a veteran 
 sportsman, he lived with his wife, his four 
 daughters and his three sons, in the rather modest 
 state which the not over- magnificent establishment 
 of Possenhofen allowed him to keep up, without 
 leaving much margin. A good husband and a 
 good 'father, the head of the ducal branch of the 
 Wittelsbachs took delight in long hunting excxir- 
 sions about the wood and mountain country which 
 was his, and in his packs of hounds giving tongue 
 through the forest. Much of his income went to 
 the upkeep of his stables and kennels, especially 
 his kennels. So great was his affection for his 
 dogs that, like Frederick the Great — but like him 
 in this point alone ! — the Duke never went out 
 without an escort of them, while in his study the 
 best places on the chairs and couches were always 
 occupied by his four-footed friends. He even 
 gravely insisted that dogs had souls, and that 
 their knowledge of mankind was far superior to 
 ours. When, therefore, a new-comer found him- 
 self ill-received by the dogs of Possenhofen, 
 he need not try to make a second appearance 
 there. The dogs of the house, by barking at 
 him, had put him in the Duke's bad books. 
 And this was the meaning of the warning which 
 the Princess Sophia had given her Imperial 
 cousin. 
 
i6 THE REAL FRANCIS- JOSEPH 
 
 If the young girl, as she lay back in her chair, 
 with her brows somewhat knitted, looked as 
 though she were reflecting on her conversation 
 with Francis-Joseph, it must be confessed that ^ 
 his thoughts were not in the slightest degree con- (V 
 cerned about it. He made his way through the 
 wood with light and easy gait, rejoicing in the 
 few minutes of solitude stolen from both State 
 and family affairs. 
 
 But State and family affairs, nevertheless, 
 threatened to intertwine themselves in the closest 
 manner. Francis- Joseph was on Possenhofen soil 
 that day at the instigation of his mother, who had 
 concerted the meeting with her sister, the Princess 
 Ludovica, and with a very clear eye to a be- 
 trothal ; and the proposed bride — so much more 
 interested in the affair than was Francis- Joseph — 
 was none other than the poor Princess Sophia, who 
 was so disturbed over the quarrel between her 
 cousin and bad-tempered little Black. 
 
 The Emperor had not wished to vex his mother, 
 and he knew that Sovereigns, as a matter of 
 course, married young, and in obedience to the 
 promptings of the hearts — of diplomatists. He 
 knew, too, that the diplomatists would look with 
 a favourable eye on a marriage with the Princess 
 Sophia. He had left Vienna for Possenhofen, 
 therefore, intending to ask for his cousin's hand. 
 He even meant to urge his suit the same day, since 
 Government business required him back in Vienna 
 as soon as possible. He was aware why he had 
 
A ROMANTIC WOOING 17 
 
 come. He had seen his cousin. She did not 
 displease him, if she inspired him with no love. 
 He was performing a duty, not following his taste, 
 and his future Empress remained to him a matter 
 of supreme indifference. 
 
 His mind was much less occupied with reflec- 
 tions on such affairs than with joy at his hour of 
 freedom, when suddenly a little dog charged into 
 his legs, frisking and gambolling as if refusing not 
 to be recognized. From one of the paths in the 
 wood was heard a woman's voice calling the 
 indiscreet puppy back. 
 
 " Here, here ! Come here !" 
 
 Francis- Joseph stood still, struck by the fresh 
 tone of the voice, and he was still more struck 
 when he found that the speaker was a girl of 
 about fifteen, dainty, supple, and slight, who 
 seemed to spring in proud purity like a living 
 flower from the soil of the woods. Seeing the 
 young man, she had stopped also, a straight little 
 white-robed figure. Her beautiful eyes were clear 
 and intelligent, and her long fair hair, roUing over 
 her shoulders, challenged the brightness of the 
 day. 
 
 She was the first to break the silence. 
 
 " Please excuse Dick, ..." she began, when 
 Francis- Joseph stopped her. Taking from his 
 head his soft felt hat with a game-bird's feather 
 in it, he came forward and said : 
 
 " No excuses for Dick, mademoiselle ! I know 
 the ways of the house, and that a guest whom the 
 
 2 
 
i8 THE REAL FRANCIS- JOSEPH 
 
 dogs receive well is always well received by their 
 masters. This good little animal has my most 
 heartfelt thanks." 
 
 " I hope that you may not be deceived, mon- 
 sieur." 
 
 " That is my dearest wish." 
 
 " And I am sure that my father will follow the 
 dog's example, and greet you with his best wel- 
 come." She made him a humorous curtsy, and, 
 with a smile like spring, went on : " Besides, he 
 could not do otherwise." 
 
 Rather astonished, Francis- Joseph hesitated, 
 and then said : 
 
 " Then you must be . . ." 
 
 " The Duchess Elisabeth- Amelie-Eugenie of 
 Bavaria, at your service. Your Majesty !" 
 
 She spread out her white dress in another 
 curtsy, and gave a merry laugh. Francis- Joseph, 
 who had taken her for some attendant in his 
 uncle's household, and had begun to contemplate 
 a little gallantry, stood embarrassed before the 
 young girl, not at what he had said to her, but at 
 what he had thought of saying. The embarrass- 
 ment was all the worse for being entirely of his 
 own causing, and all the more acute because it 
 was known only to himself. He realized, however, 
 that if he prolonged the awkward situation he 
 would end by betraying a thought which he must 
 at aU costs keep secret ; so, to break the silence 
 and at the same time to give himself time to 
 reflect, he said nothing more than : 
 
THE EMPRESS ELISABETH AT THE TIME OF HER BETROTHAL. 
 
 To face fage i8 
 
A ROMANTIC WOOING 19 
 
 " My cousin . . ." 
 " Are you my cousin ?" 
 " Will you not give me your hand ?" 
 She was very young, very untroubled, but a little 
 haughty ; for already the Princess Elisabeth had 
 a great deal of pride in her bearing. She came 
 nearer to him and held out frankly her little white 
 hand, saying : 
 
 " Certainly. Here it is !" 
 
 For an instant Francis- Joseph held his cousin's 
 hand in his, looking with a strange feeling of 
 emotion into her clear young eyes, so pure and 
 commanding, which never fell before his. Then, 
 letting her hand go, he asked, with a change of 
 tone : 
 
 " How is it that I have never seen you before ?" 
 " As you have scarcely tried to, you cannot 
 blame us." 
 
 " On the contrary, I know that I am to blame, 
 and that I neglect my relatives too much. But 
 that is not what I meant to say. I wanted 
 to know why I did not see you at lunch-time 
 to-day." 
 
 Elisabeth's eyes took on a slight tinge of melan- 
 choly. 
 
 " For the same reason that you will not see me 
 at dinner to-night." 
 
 " Is it indiscreet to ask you this reason ?" 
 Smiling again, the young Princess replied in 
 mock humility : 
 
 " I will speak if the Emperor orders it." 
 
 2—2 
 
20 THE REAL FRANCIS- JOSEPH 
 
 " The Emperor can never order you, cousin, 
 but a friend begs you." 
 
 He took her hand and led her to a stone bench, 
 where, after she had seated herself, he sat down 
 by her side. 
 
 " Now tell me. I am listening," he said. 
 
 " Well, it seems that I am too young to be 
 present at family banquets." 
 
 " Too young ? But, if I remember rightly, you 
 must be . . . let me see . . ." 
 
 " Do not trouble. Sire. I am sixteen." 
 
 Elisabeth felt quite at home with this twenty- 
 three-year-old Emperor, garbed in his Tyrolese 
 costume, and stripped of all the majesty of 
 empire. She began to talk as he had desired her 
 to. It did not take him long to divine the truth 
 in her frank, though not unguarded, conversation. 
 It was necessary for Duke Maximilian and his 
 Duchess to marry off the eldest of their four 
 daughters, Princess Sophia ; and, as it was a 
 Princess of twenty-one that was intended for 
 him, it was not thought convenient to introduce 
 upon the scene of the betrothal the golden hair 
 and flower-like eyes of Princess Springtime ! 
 But the more they opened the more the flowers 
 in these beautiful bright eyes intoxicated the 
 young Emperor's swelling heart, and about the 
 Princess's dainty face her pale gold hair shed so 
 sweet a light that he could think of nothing more 
 desirable than to have its reflection always before 
 him. 
 
A KUMAIMllC WOOING 21 
 
 She went on talking, while he only heard now 
 the music of her voice, without taking in for the 
 moment the exact meaning of her words. He 
 awoke at last from his dream to hear her say, as 
 though in conclusion : 
 
 " And that is why Your Majesty will not see 
 me at the family table to-night any more than 
 he saw me this morning." 
 
 She rose up, and for the third time made a 
 sprightly curtsy as she prepared to take her leave. 
 Francis- Joseph detained her. Successfully con- 
 cealing the agitation which possessed him, he 
 borrowed from the armoury of diplomacy a 
 weapon for use in the game of love. From the 
 outset he had comprehended the imperious and 
 undiscipUned nature of the young girl, and with- 
 out forgetting prudence (since he had also dis- 
 covered her superior intelligence and education), 
 he set himself to stir her to revolt against her 
 father's order to keep upstairs while her elder 
 sister took part in the entertainments at the 
 chateau. He told her that she was no longer a 
 child, as they tried to make her believe, and with- 
 out openly encouraging her to rebellion, suggested 
 that he might intervene on her behalf to obtain her 
 release from the regime of isolation. Then, while 
 her gladness was shining out from the depths of 
 her eyes, he rose, and, striking his forehead with 
 a most natural gesture, cried out : 
 
 " I have an idea !" 
 
 " What is it ?" 
 
22 THE REAL FRANCIS- JOSEPH 
 
 " Listen now ;" and, taking her by the arm, he 
 guided her slowly toward the house as he explained 
 his scheme. She was to go up to her room, put on 
 a party-frock, and at the hour for dinner to come 
 down to the terrace, where the famUy met before 
 meals. 
 
 " And is that all your scheme ?" 
 
 " Do not trouble about the rest of it. I have 
 my part to play." 
 
 " But I shall be scolded !" 
 
 " Don't I teU you I have my part to play ? Do 
 you think that I wish to cause you pain ?" 
 
 Elisabeth only wanted to be convinced. After 
 her cousin's last pretext she said : 
 
 " Well, I will do as Your Majesty orders." 
 
 He released her arm, and, laying his finger on 
 his lips, whispered : 
 
 " TiU we meet ?" 
 
 " Till we meet," she replied, and her white 
 figure vanished lightly through the gloomy firs in 
 the direction of the chateau. 
 
 Francis- Joseph, who up to now had known 
 only the slight attractions of passing fancies, 
 was under the domination of a totally new 
 sentiment, and, to his joy, was aware that 
 his heart was really touched. In the presence 
 of love he was no different from the shepherd 
 tending his flock in the mountain pastures, and 
 he felt an agonizing yet delightful necessity of 
 giving vent to his happiness. Standing alone 
 there in the great park, he was surprised to 
 
A ROMA^ilC WOOING 23 
 
 find himself, with tears in his eyes, singing like 
 a child. 
 
 While the young Emperor unbosomed his new- 
 born love to the firs of the park, the Princess 
 EHsabeth had gone up to her room, and was 
 putting on all her finery. Her lady-in-waiting 
 caught her in the middle of her task, and was 
 astonished. Ignorant of the art of Ipng, the 
 Princess told her the truth frankly. She was 
 dressing herself to go down to the dinner in honour 
 of her cousin the Emperor Francis-Joseph. The 
 terrified lady-in-waiting threw up her arms. What 
 would happen ? The Duke attached great im- 
 portance to his authority. Had he by chance 
 permitted the Princess Elisabeth to be present at 
 the rneal ? Again EHsabeth told the truth. Her 
 father had not permitted her to come to the feast. 
 The poor lady begged and prayed her, but aU in 
 vain. Elisabeth's mind was made up, and con- 
 sequently, as the lady-in-waiting well knew, it 
 was made up once and for all. While the discus- 
 sion was stUl going on, the dinner-hour arrived. 
 Elisabeth came from her room, pursued by her 
 lady, fuU of terrified lamentations. By accident 
 the Emperor appeared suddenly before them. 
 Offering his arm gallantly to his cousin, he led her 
 on to the terrace, where the family and the guests 
 were assembled. The tableau can be imagined. 
 The Duke sprang up, his face dark with storm- 
 clouds. Francis- Joseph averted the immediate 
 danger by taking the responsibility on himself, 
 
24 THE REAL FRANCIS-JOSEPH 
 
 as he had promised ; and the Duke, making the 
 best of a bad job, put up with the presence of 
 his younger daughter at her elder sister's side. 
 History does not tell us whether the dinner was a 
 merry one, though it is surely permissible to guess 
 that there was an air of constraint about it. But 
 the chroniclers make up for their silence on this 
 point by telling us of the sequel. 
 
 When dinner was over, the Emperor managed 
 to find himself alone with his uncle in the com- 
 bined study and kennel of the Duke. In the 
 presence of the dogs alone the following dialogue 
 took place, the gist of which, rather than the 
 actual words, can be guaranteed : 
 
 " Uncle," said the Emperor, " I have the honour 
 to ask you for the hand of my cousin — not Sophia, 
 but EUsabeth." 
 
 " My nephew," replied the Duke, " it is abso- 
 lutely impossible." 
 
 " You refuse ?" 
 
 " Definitely and entirely." 
 
 " Why ?" 
 
 " Because my daughter Elisabeth is too young." 
 
 " I wiU wait." 
 
 " And also because it would be an insult to my 
 daughter Sophia." 
 
 " But there could not be an insult if her hand 
 was not asked for." 
 
 " No matter — I refuse." 
 
 " That is your last word ?" 
 
 " It is." 
 
A ROMANTIC WOOING 25 
 
 " Then, in that case, I shall not marry either of 
 them." 
 
 The next morning the Emperor left the chateau 
 
 of Possenhofen as free as he entered it the day 
 
 before. 
 
 * * * * * 
 
 Three months later, on August 18, the birthday 
 of the Emperor Francis- Joseph, there were fes- 
 tivities at Ischl, the residence of the Sovereign for 
 the time being. The invitations to the Imperial 
 villa included many high personages, notably the 
 Grand-Duke MaximiHan from Bavaria, the Duchess 
 Ludovica, and their three sons and four daughters. 
 According to the yearly custom, the Imperial 
 family went to morning service at the church of 
 Ischl, which was crowded with worshippers when 
 the family procession entered. It would be more 
 exact to say that it was packed with inquisitive 
 people, for the story of what had occurred at Pos- 
 senhofen had spread abroad since May, and the 
 presence at Ischl of the Emperor's uncle and, more 
 still, of his daughters Sophia and Elisabeth, stirred 
 to the utmost the curiosity of the aristocratic con- 
 gregation. The murmurs which before the Im- 
 perial procession's entry had echoed among the 
 pillars of the nave, regardless of the sanctity of 
 the place, were suddenly checked as the Emperor 
 crossed the threshold of the church. Every eye 
 was fixed on the Princess Elisabeth and her elder 
 sister. To the great surprise of all present, the 
 Emperor's mother drew back to allow Elisabeth 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 THE EDUCATION OF A PRINCE 
 
 Boyhood had not been for Francis- Joseph a 
 period of nothing but joy ; and even if we make 
 allowance for a momentary outburst of sentiment, 
 we may still admit that the Emperor did not 
 stray far from the truth when he declared to 
 Colonel O'Donnel that he had never appreciated 
 life so much before the hour of his betrothal to 
 Elisabeth. 
 
 Born at Schonbrunn on August i8, 1830, 
 Francis-Joseph was the son of the Archduke' 
 Francis-Charles, second son of the Emperor 
 Francis I., and of the Archduchess Sophia, 
 daughter of King Maximilian- Joseph of Bavaria. 
 He was destined to the throne from the moment 
 he was born. The eldest son of Francis I., the 
 Archduke Ferdinand, had no issue by his marriage 
 with the Princess Marie-Anne, third daughter of 
 Victor Emmanuel, King of Sardinia, and so, after 
 Francis-Charles, his son the Archduke Francis- 
 Joseph was the heir to the Imperial and Royal 
 crowns of Austria-Hungary. 
 
 The child was accordingly brought up in the 
 28 
 
FRANCIS-JOSEPH IN BOYHOOD 
 
 To face -page 28 
 
THE EDUCATION OF A PRINCE 29 
 
 shadow of the throne which must one day be his, 
 and throughout the whole of his education there 
 was but this one end in view. While other little 
 boys, Princes or commoners, were spending their 
 time playing at ball or horses, little Francis- 
 Joseph was listening to lectures on his rights and 
 his duties as shepherd of his people. Education 
 in the Austro-Hungarian Imperial family com- 
 prised two branches, sharply divided from one 
 another. There was the military education, 
 which delighted the child, though his serious 
 study of it was not to come until later, and the 
 education in languages, which he hated, and 
 which commenced as soon as he could speak at 
 all. As ruler of a country where a dozen languages 
 and dialects flourished side by side, intermingling 
 and running into one another, he must learn to 
 express himself correctly in each of these tongues 
 when the occasion arose. Therefore, in addition 
 to German, French, and English, which his tutors 
 tried to teach him simultaneously, Francis- 
 Joseph was made to imbibe Italian, Hungarian, 
 Czech, Polish, Ruthenian, Croatian, and Servian, 
 to mention only the principal dialects. This 
 would have been a hard task for anyone ; for 
 Francis- Joseph it was far too heavy. By a 
 singular misfortune the poor boy was exceedingly 
 deficient in the gift of tongues ; yet, although all 
 was to no purpose, they — and particularly his 
 mother, a haughty, ambitious, and fiercely im- 
 perious woman — would not renounce the effort 
 
30 THE REAL FRANCIS- JOSEPH 
 
 to force the child, with his intense disUke of 
 languages, to become a perfect polyglot. Vain 
 and thankless was the work of his preceptors, as 
 they suffered under the ill-temper of the Arch- 
 duchess Sophia ; for neither indulgences nor im- 
 positions ever succeeded in making Francis- 
 Joseph sp'eak anything correctly except German 
 and French. Even English impressed itself very 
 slightly on the convolutions of his brain. Witness 
 the story preserved at Vienna of his reply to King 
 Edward VII. in 1903. The British Sovereign had 
 come to pay a visit to the old Emperor in the 
 Austrian capital. At the big official dinner, when 
 speeches had to be exchanged while all the com- 
 pany stood on their feet to listen. King Edward 
 rose and proposed his toast in German. The 
 Emperor of Austria followed with his toast — in 
 French. The journals were at pains to invent 
 many explanations, notably the one that Francis- 
 Joseph was a strict guardian of tradition, and 
 had fallen back upon the language of diplo- 
 matists. But the truth is far more simple. The 
 Emperor, in spite of the years and years and 
 years during which English grammar had been 
 drummed into his head, would have been totally 
 incapable of uttering ten consecutive remarks in 
 the language of Shakespeare. 
 
 On this occasion Francis-Joseph's linguistic in- 
 capacity had no serious consequences. At other 
 times, however, his shortcomings in this respect 
 did him great harm. It can truly be said that 
 
THE EDUCATION OF A PRINCE 31 
 
 one of the reasons (but one of the reasons only) 
 of the hostility of the Hungarians toward the 
 person of their Sovereign lies in his ignorance of 
 their language. His first estrangement from 
 them, a grave and lasting estrangement, dates 
 from a very distant period. When he was quite 
 a young ruler, Francis- Joseph made a tour of his 
 dominions. His first visit was to Buda-Pesth, 
 an official visit if there ever was one, accompanied 
 by all the ordinary and extraordinary ceremonies 
 which make such journeys burdensome. Notable 
 items on the programme were the inspection of a 
 military school and a call at a hospital. Speeches 
 had, of course, to be made at both places ; and, 
 equally of course, they must be made in Hun- 
 garian, since Buda-Pesth could not imagine that 
 the Sovereign was without a knowledge, or at 
 least an official knowledge, of the national tongue. 
 As he did not understand a word of Hun- 
 garian, and as he must speak, and not read, his 
 speeches, to avoid hurting Magyar susceptibilities, 
 the Talmas of this Napoleon had made him learn 
 by heart two little addresses, with the appro- 
 priate gestures to accompany the words. Re- 
 hearsals had taken place, and all promised well. 
 The hour arrived. The military school's inspec- 
 tion came first. The Emperor, after smiling at 
 the conventional addresses, of which he could not 
 grasp a word, made his reply to the compliments 
 which had been showered upon him. But he saw 
 the faces of his hearers darken, instead of brighten- 
 
32 THE REAL FRANCIS-JOSEPH 
 
 ing, while stupefaction manifested itself on the 
 courtiers' features. At the hospital the same 
 looks, the same embarrassment, and the same 
 coldness followed his words. The Emperor, speak- 
 ing in sufficiently good Hungarian, accompanied by 
 suitable actions, had praised at the military school 
 the excellent care shown to the sick, and at the 
 hospital the precision of the manoeuvres executed 
 in his presence ! He had shuffled his speeches ! 
 
 The Hungarians have never forgiven him for this 
 unintentional mystification. As for the Emperor, 
 no one in his suite has ever dared to reveal to him 
 what he did. It would have been possible at the 
 time, on the very day, to have stopped him, and 
 with a single word to have prevented him from 
 consummating his blunder. Not a single courtier 
 made the attempt. But it must be admitted that 
 it is not so much the contemptible spirit of courtier- 
 ship which is to blame as the Emperor's own pride, 
 arrogance, and obstinacy, which never allowed him 
 to confess that His Apostolic Majesty was capable 
 of error in any circumstance whatever. 
 
 All the efforts, therefore, spent on making a 
 polyglot out of the future Emperor Francis- 
 Joseph had only one result, but they were cer- 
 tainly successful in that : they made his boyhood 
 and youth miserable for him. 
 
 The other branch of his education, the military 
 side, provided him with very real compensations. 
 For centuries past, from father to son, from uncle 
 to nephew, from cousin to cousin, the Habsburgs 
 
THE EDUCATION OF A PRINCE 33 
 
 had handed down to one another a genuine love for 
 all things connected with the Army. If we cannot 
 say that the baby Archduke imbibed his military 
 principles with his nurse's milk, at least we can 
 assert that from his earliest days he was initiated 
 into the joys of the profession of arms by his 
 grandfather, the old Emperor Francis, father of 
 Marie-Louise and father-in-law of Napoleon the 
 Great. The first words which he uttered were not 
 the usual baby-talk, but military commands. It 
 would not be at all astonishing if one were to be 
 told that, with the milk still on his lips and a 
 bonnet on his head, Francis- Joseph used to cry 
 " Shoulder arms !" before he could say " Papa !" 
 At the age of four, under the instruction of his 
 grandfather, whose study he hardly ever left, the 
 child knew by heart all the words of command 
 then in use in the Austro-Hungarian army, and 
 could manoeuvre like a Kaiserlick. Out of doors, 
 when he met a soldier, he would stop him, and 
 want to " play with him " as he played with 
 the Emperor Francis's sabre at home. 
 
 Every day, in the intervals between his lan- 
 guage and military lessons, when the little boy 
 walked out, holding his grandfather's hand, in 
 the streets of Vienna, the park at Schonbrunn, 
 or the garden at Laxenburg, he kept up a string 
 of questions about all the soldiers they met. 
 One day at Schonbrunn he saw a sentry on duty 
 at a doorway. Loosing his grandfather's hand, 
 he went up to the sentry, and received a salute. 
 
 3 
 
34 THE REAL FRANCIS- JOSEPH 
 
 So overjoyed was he at this sign of military respect 
 for his tiny personage that he scampered back to 
 his grandfather, and asked him for some money to 
 give to the man. The old Emperor could refuse 
 him nothing, and complied with his request. 
 Francis- Joseph trotted off quickly to the sentry 
 again, and held out the money to him, saying : 
 " Here, this is for you !" The regulations are 
 very strict. A soldier on duty may never accept 
 anything. Besides, the Emperor himself was 
 present. With his rifle still on his shoulder, the 
 sentry never moved. Upset and at the point of 
 tears, the child stamped his foot, crying : "I 
 want you to take it !" But the soldier re- 
 mained motionless and silent. 
 
 Francis- Joseph turned round toward Francis. 
 The Emperor of to-day — a jovial character, who 
 was wont good-humouredly to exchange coarse 
 pleasantries, in Viennese slang, with the populace 
 — was laughing at the discomfiture of the Emperor 
 of to-morrow. The tiny Archduke walked back 
 to his grandfather, pale with rage at the opposition 
 to his little will, and repeated through his clenched 
 teeth : "I want him to take it !" Then the 
 Emperor Francis accompanied his grandson up 
 to the soldier, and, lifting the child to the level 
 of the sentry's cartridge-box, put the child's hand 
 into it with his gift. 
 
 This incident, which shows the child's great love 
 for soldiers, his imperious temper, and Francis's 
 indulgence to his grandson, was by no means dis- 
 
THE EDUCATION OF A PRINCE 35 
 
 advantageous to the sentry. In his simple and 
 famihar manner the old Emperor got into con- 
 versation with him. Learning that this model 
 soldier was the son of a poor widowed peasant- 
 woman, wretched and infirm, who constantly 
 lamented her loneliness, he gave him a sum of 
 money sufficient to buy himself out of the army, 
 which was possible in those days. 
 
 Another day the little Prince, still aged four, 
 was walking along the vast galleries of the Hof- 
 burg, the Imperial Palace at Vienna, when sud- 
 denly at a turn he came upon two magnificent 
 Hungarian Guards, who gave him the military 
 salute. Enchanted by the brilliant uniform, and 
 still more enchanted by their salute, the child 
 planted himself in front of them, and, assuming 
 his piping voice of command, strained to its 
 utmost, put them through various manoeuvres. 
 Then, standing them at ease, he went up to the 
 taller of the two, and in a tone which admitted 
 no reply, said : 
 
 " Give me your sword and belt." 
 
 " But, Your Highness ..." protested the man 
 in hesitation, looking at his comrade for advice. 
 
 Francis - Joseph interrupted him violently, 
 stamping his foot as usual : 
 
 " Give me them, I tell you." 
 
 The poor Hungarian submitted. The child be- 
 strode the sword, turned the belt into reins, and, 
 riding off like a witch on a broomstick, went full 
 speed down the echoing corridors of the Hofburg, 
 
 3-2 
 
36 THE REAL FRANCIS- JOSEPH 
 
 battering the sword against the tiled floors and 
 the walls in his passage. History does not tell 
 how long this ride lasted, but when he brought 
 back to the Hungarian his sword and belt, the 
 latter was in strips and the blade of the former 
 terribly hacked about. The wretched man looked 
 at his weapon in consternation, muttering : 
 
 " Well, I am safe to be punished when the 
 Colonel sees this." 
 
 " You must tell him that it is the Archduke 
 Francis- Joseph who did it." 
 
 " It would be much better to tell your father to 
 buy me another," said the Hungarian, regaining 
 his courage. 
 
 The child looked the impertinent fellow up and 
 down, and replied haughtily : 
 
 " / will pay you for it when I am Emperor." 
 
 Then he stalked away majestically. 
 
 A year later the old Emperor Francis died. 
 Ferdinand mounted the throne, and little Francis- 
 Joseph passed under the absolute control of his 
 father and mother, especially his mother. The 
 Archduke Francis-Charles was little more than a 
 good respectable bourgeois, full of himself, and 
 asking nothing better than to be spared all worry ; 
 so, to have peace in his own house, and avoid 
 giving himself trouble, he was glad to hand over 
 to his wife, Sophia, the upbringing of the future 
 Emperor. There were no more military games in 
 the Imperial study ; no more walks in the Laxen- 
 burg gardens or rides in the Hofburg galleries ; 
 
THE EDUCATION OF A PRINCE 37 
 
 no more merriment. The child was put by his 
 mother under the charge of an austere woman, the 
 Countess of Sturmf eld, and a rough soldier. Colonel 
 Hauslab, who succeeded in making even his 
 military training less pleasant for him. Four 
 companions shared the studies of the future 
 Sovereign — Counts Mark and Charles Bombelles, 
 who were Portuguese by descent ; Francesco de 
 Coronini, an Italian ; and Count Taaffe, The 
 father of the two first-named, Count Henry Bom- 
 belles, was to exercise a great influence over 
 Francis- Joseph, for it was he who was appointed 
 a little later the tutor of the young Prince. (It 
 may be noted in passing that the brother of Henry 
 Bombelles, Charles Renier by name, had married 
 Marie-Louise secretly after the fall of the Napo- 
 leonic Empire.) Count Taaffe later in life pre- 
 sided for many years over the Austro-Hungarian 
 Cabinet, and devoted the best of his energies — 
 though it did not require much effort — to the 
 maintenance of the narrowest reactionary prin- 
 ciples in the mind of his master and friend. Only 
 Francesco de Coronini broke away later from 
 Francis- Joseph, throwing himself so vigorously 
 into the party of opposition that he became 
 leader of the Liberals in the Austrian Parlia- 
 ment — conduct which caused Francis- Joseph to 
 show very marked antipathy to him ever after- 
 wards. 
 
 Between the years of five and thirteen Francis- 
 Joseph's life was tamely and monotonously divided 
 
38 THE REAL FRANCIS- JOSEPH 
 
 between the Countess Sturmf eld's lessons in lan- 
 guages and Colonel Hauslab's instructions in the 
 military art. It was this dulness, heavy and un- 
 varying, of his boyhood which ended by inspiring 
 in the youth, and also in the man of riper years, 
 that passionate craving for freedom which blinded 
 his eyes to the fact that through it he spread 
 around himself the most terrible sufferings, and 
 brought about a most painful domestic tragedy. 
 His early years were devoid of affection. His 
 father was indifferent, his mother all ambition. 
 He was doomed to receive no genuine marks of 
 love. He was to meet with no disinterested feel- 
 ings outside the friendship of Count Taaffe, which 
 in time to come, owing to the Count's violently 
 Conservative sentiments, was to prove so harmful 
 to him. 
 
 When Francis- Joseph reached the age of thir- 
 teen, his mother put his education entirely into 
 the hands of Count Henry Bombelles, a man who, 
 with his son Charles, was certainly the evil genius 
 of the Habsburgs and of Austria-Hungary for 
 more than the last fifty years of the nineteenth 
 century. Destitute of character, principles, con- 
 victions, or morals, a crafty hypocrite, and a tool 
 in the hands of the Jesuits (who also swayed the 
 conduct of the Archduchess Sophia), Count Henry 
 Bombelles must be reckoned one of the principal 
 causes, or rather the principal cause, of the serious 
 defects of character and of will which made Francis- 
 Joseph one of the most wretched of men, and his 
 
THE EDUCATION OF A PRINCE 39 
 
 wife, the Empress Elisabeth, a martyr in the truest 
 sense of the word. 
 
 The pleasm-es of the mind and the heart had 
 played little part in the early life of Francis-Joseph. 
 A keen taste for the pleasures of the senses very 
 soon showed itself, and Count Henry Bombelles, 
 instead of setting himself to check it, on the con- 
 trary encouraged his pupil in the pursuit of third- 
 rate adventures. Such conduct ran in the blood 
 of the family, for Charles Bombelles, son of Francis- 
 Joseph's tutor, when he became Master of Cere- 
 monies in the Court of the Crown Prince Rudolf, 
 earned his right to the infamous title of Kaiser- 
 licher und Koniglicher Kuppler. The father in 
 1845 gave a foretaste of what his son was to be 
 later. 
 
 The worst part of the scandal is that well- 
 informed persons do not hesitate to suggest that 
 the Archduchess Sophia was aware of what was 
 going on. Without definitely saying in so many 
 words that she chose such a tutor for her son with 
 full knowledge of the depths to which he could 
 descend in his desire to please, they mention, as a 
 strong presumption in favour of what they hint, 
 that later she certainly tolerated the escapades of 
 her son, then newly married, and did not shrink 
 from reproaching the hapless Ehsabeth for not 
 overlooking her husband's lapses. 
 
 But what could have been the secret idea of the 
 Archduchess Sophia in giving a free hand to Count 
 Henry Bombelles, and in even encouraging him 
 
40 THE REAL FRANCIS- JOSEPH 
 
 to lead her son on ? Always a woman of ambition, 
 and never a true mother, the daughter of the King 
 of Bavaria dreamt of directing the destiny of the 
 Empire. There was no reason for expecting then 
 that Ferdinand would abdicate, and she could not 
 guess that Francis- Joseph would come to the 
 throne at eighteen years of age. She had, there- 
 fore, a motive for corrupting her son's will-power, 
 in order to dominate him more completely, and 
 one day to reign in his name. 
 
 Among the many preceptors who took charge, 
 under Count Henry Bombelles, of the young 
 Francis- Joseph between 1843 and 1848, the year 
 of his accession, special mention must be made of 
 Father Othmar von Rauscher, who became Prince- 
 Archbishop of Vienna. He taught morals and 
 philosophy to the three eldest sons of the Arch- 
 duke Francis-Charles, and particularly to Francis- 
 Joseph. The extent of his influence can be 
 gathered from his pupils. A sworn liege of the 
 Church, who identified his personal interests with 
 those of Rome, he gave to the ideas of the future 
 Emperor, fatigued by his pleasures, and like wax 
 in the hands of a Churchman, a Centralist bent in 
 pontics which was destined to bring the path of 
 Francis- Joseph across some almost unsur mount- 
 able obstacles to the government of his Empire. 
 It cannot be said that Father von Rauscher 
 assisted Count Henry Bombelles in his least reput- 
 able duties, but at least it is true that he shut his 
 eyes, a method which is not new with ecclesiastics. 
 
THE EDUCATION OF A PRINCE 41 
 
 It must be added — and it helps us to understand 
 better how Father von Rauscher desired to form 
 the mind of a pupil who, after becoming Emperor, 
 should never rebel against the authority of the 
 priests — that it was Francis-Joseph's old tutor of 
 philosophy who induced him in 1855 to make a 
 Concordat with the Vatican. This agreement was 
 for more than fifteen years a heavy burden upon 
 Austria's home and foreign policy. Even to-day, 
 so many years after its denunciation, its reac- 
 tionary impress lies on the Austro-Hungarian 
 Civil Code, as in the articles dealing with marriage 
 and divorce, with the jurisdiction over priests, 
 etc. It may be mentioned, particularly, that the 
 " civil " law in Austria forbids marriage between 
 a Jew and a Catholic, and that the same law — 
 civU again — prevents divorced Catholics from 
 remarrying. 
 
 Such, then, were the two men, Bombelles and 
 Rauscher, whose regrettable influence moulded 
 the young mind of Francis-Joseph. 
 
 Simultaneously with his pursuit of moral philo- 
 sophy and of pleasure the boy Archduke followed 
 his military studies. He served in turn in an 
 artillery battery, in a cavalry squadron, and in 
 an infantry battalion. He was interested in all, 
 but most passionately in the cavalry work. It 
 was not the strategical part of it, however, but 
 the horsemanship, which attracted him. The joy 
 of the moment, as always, appealed to him, and 
 he became a fearless rider. He performed some 
 
42 THE REAL FRANCIS- JOSEPH 
 
 wonderful feats in horse-breaking, which gave 
 him a reputation among cavalry officers that has 
 lasted to this day. 
 
 One fact will prove better than any number of 
 anecdotes the importance which Francis- Joseph 
 attached to proving himself a fine horseman. In 
 185 1, three years after his accession to the throne, 
 and when he was twenty-one years of age, the 
 Emperor was visited in his capital by His Majesty 
 Nicholas I., Tsar of All the Russias. While they 
 were out driving through Vienna, a Cossack's 
 horse took fright, bolted, and threw its rider. 
 The Emperor in an instant, at the risk of breaking 
 his neck, leapt from the carriage, seized the horse 
 by the mane, sprang on its back, conquered it, 
 and brought it back, sweating and quivering, to 
 the side of the Imperial carriage. 
 
 From his earliest days, when we have seen the 
 reason for his liking for the Army, Francis- Joseph 
 has been a soldier heart and soul. A Prussian 
 diplomatist, Steinberg, commissioned by his King 
 to write a report on the Viennese Court, could say 
 with truth concerning the Emperor : " He has an 
 esteem and love which is passionate for all things 
 military. He takes interest in nothing but soldiers 
 and the Army." 
 
 The correctness of this report is borne out by 
 the following : In 1853 the Emperor was attacked 
 and wounded by a madman. His first words were : 
 " It is nothing. I am only sharing the lot of my 
 brave soldiers." 
 
THE EDUCATION OF A PRINCE 43 
 
 Francis-Joseph's great courage cannot be denied. 
 He has given glorious proof of it many times on 
 the battle-field. He received his baptism of fire 
 at the Battle of Santa Lucia on May 6, 1848, a 
 little before his accession to the throne. At the 
 end of April he had joined the Army of Italy to 
 serve on the staff of a famous General, old Marshal 
 Radetzky. The latter, to tell the truth, was none 
 too well pleased at the arrival of the young Prince, 
 whose presence at the front threw a great responsi- 
 bility upon him. Still, the Archduke was there, 
 and the best must be made of a bad job. The 
 veteran tried at least to make him understand 
 that the best place for taking in the whole fight 
 was somewhere out of firing-range, and that it 
 was in no way necessary for him to risk his life 
 in order to realize the meaning of a battle. Ra- 
 detzky might as well have been talking to a deaf 
 man. He went on to speak about his own re- 
 sponsibility, and begged the Prince not to expose 
 himself. The only answer he could extract from 
 Francis- Joseph was this simple one : 
 
 " Now that I am here, honour forbids my 
 leaving the place without fighting." 
 
 So he fought, and fought, too, with such spirit, 
 ardour, and gaiety that Marshal Radetzky, though 
 animated by no friendly feelings toward him, could 
 not refrain from mentioning him in his " Memoirs." 
 
 " Of all my comrades," he wrote, " there was 
 no one who shrank from danger ; but among them 
 all the young Prince Francis- Joseph distinguished 
 
44 THE REAL FRANCIS- JOSEPH 
 
 himself most by his enthusiasm. He seemed posi- 
 tively to mock at death. When a cannon-ball fell 
 quite near him, he was no more troubled by it 
 than a child is frightened at a blow from a rubber 
 ball. Light-hearted as only reckless youth can be, 
 he urged on his horse, galloping from side to side 
 wherever danger threatened most, without dream- 
 ing for a moment that the head which he exposed 
 so gaily would wear a few weeks later the Imperial 
 crown." 
 
 On his return from the Italian campaign, the 
 young Archduke revealed an unexpected effect on 
 himself of the cannon's roar, for he expressed a 
 wish to take music-lessons, after having always up 
 to now shown unmistakable repugnance against 
 the study of this " polite accomplishment "! Of 
 course the Archduchess Sophia granted his wish, 
 and Francis- Joseph set himself — without the 
 slightest success — to practise scales and to speU 
 the first little childish pieces of the period. It 
 was in the course of one of these music-lessons at 
 Schonbrunn, on October 6, 1848, that the Prince 
 heard the news of the events at Vienna which led 
 to the abdication of his uncle, and made him, 
 hardly more than a boy. Emperor of Austria- 
 Hungary at a time of particular stress. He left 
 Schonbrunn for Olmiitz the next day, making the 
 journey on horseback beside his parents' carriage. 
 
 At Olmiitz events developed fast, and on the 
 day that the crown was placed on his young head 
 Francis- Joseph was so well aware of the serious- 
 
THE EDUCATION OF A PRINCE 45 
 
 ness of the situation that, when his mother has- 
 tened first of all to pay to him the respect due to 
 Sovereigns, he exclaimed, forgetting the severe 
 and useless lessons which had made a torture of 
 his childhood : 
 
 " Good-bye to my poor youth !" 
 
 As he spoke tears — only too well justified by 
 the future — filled the eyes of this boy of eighteen. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 A DREAM THAT CAME TRUE 
 
 On a fine spring morning, March 13, 1848, a body 
 of Viennese students formed themselves in file in 
 the centre of the old town, where the University 
 then was. Their looks betrayed anything' but 
 lightness of heart. They marched gravely and 
 calmly through the midst of the crowd, which 
 cheered them as they went. In front of the Diet 
 House they halted. One of them, a youth of 
 delicate features and a pale complexion, wearing 
 a black beard, was hoisted on to the shoulders of 
 four of his companions, and began to harangue 
 the crowd. No extravagances fell from the young 
 student's lips. His talk was of freedom — freedom 
 of the jury, freedom of the Press, freedom of con- 
 science. His noble words echoed among the crowd 
 to an accompaniment of loud applause. The 
 speaker was a Hungarian medical man, house- 
 surgeon to one of the Vienna hospitals, and he 
 was destined one day to be famous as Dr. Fischhof . 
 Within the building outside which the student 
 stood sat the members of the Estates of Lower 
 Austria. Under the presidency of Count Monte- 
 
 46 
 
A DREAM THAT CAME TRUE 47 
 
 cuccoli they were drawing up an address to the 
 Emperor Ferdinand, which was to make a firm 
 demand for the carrying out of various reforms. 
 The crowd outside grew constantly more agitated, 
 and a deep murmur ran through its mass. Soon, 
 hke spray upon its surging billows, scattered cries 
 came tossing up : " Down with Metternich !" 
 " Down with the Emperor Ferdinand !" " Long 
 live Francis-Joseph !" For the first time, the 
 name of Francis- Joseph stirred the hearts of the 
 people. The mob, which heaped insults on two 
 men, had just found a third man to treat with 
 honour. The Revolution was at hand. 
 
 Suddenly it became a fact. Dr. Fischhof had 
 finished speaking. It was the turn of another 
 Hungarian student. Dr. Goldmark, to act. He 
 suggested breaking into the Diet House, and the 
 crowd followed him. Making Fischhof their 
 spokesman, the people required the members of 
 the Estates to come with the Revolutionists to the 
 Hofburg to demand the immediate execution of 
 the desired reforms. Count Montecuccoli agreed 
 to nominate a committee from the Estates to go 
 on a deputation with twelve representatives of the 
 people. WhUe the crowd was engaged in selecting 
 its representatives, a young man arrived with a 
 copy of the speech which Louis Kossuth had 
 delivered in the Hungarian Diet eight days pre- 
 viously. He read it out to the crowd, which lis- 
 tened in silence untU he came to these words : 
 " For the common good of us all, it is necessary 
 
48 THE REAL FRANCIS- JOSEPH 
 
 for us to obtain a Constitution." He got no 
 further that morning. The crowd had now an 
 object in view, and the formidable cry ran through 
 it : " The Constitution ! The Constitution !" 
 
 At this moment a message was dehvered from 
 a window in the Diet House. All that the mem- 
 bers would agree to demand of the Emperor was 
 the yearly publication of the receipts and expendi- 
 ture of the Empire. The crowd, which only half 
 an hour before had been perfectly calm, was now 
 mad with rage. It forced the representatives of 
 the Estates to join in the march on the Hofburg. 
 Here the gates of the outer court were guarded 
 by sentries, who allowed the representatives to go 
 through, but presented fixed bayonets to the 
 people. It was decided to proceed to Metternich's 
 palace and make a demonstration there. Francis- 
 Joseph's family, passing by in a carriage, had a 
 warm reception. Meanwhile, the evil geniuses of 
 the Emperor Ferdinand — Metternich and, worse 
 still, the Archduke Albert — persuaded the Sovereign 
 to give the formal order calling out the troops. 
 Vienna now presented the appearance of a be- 
 sieged city. Patrols marched through the streets, 
 forcing their way with difficulty through the 
 packed ranks of the mob, while the shop-fronts 
 were all hastily shuttered. 
 
 These military precautions produced a very dif- 
 ferent result from that expected by the Archduke 
 Albert. The Viennese knew of this method of 
 intimidation, but they only knew of it by hearsay. 
 
A DREAM THAT CAME TRUE 49 
 
 Such steps had never actually been taken against 
 the inhabitants of the Austrian capital. A frenzy 
 of excitement broke out. The word " barricade " 
 sped from mouth to mouth. After a body of 
 Italian Grenadiers had fired blank cartridge at the 
 demonstrators to drive them away and to open the 
 way to the Diet House, which they were ordered 
 to clear, the mob in its rage seized upon every- 
 thing which came to hand to obstruct the road- 
 way and oppose the troops. The whole civil 
 population was rising against the military element 
 under the command of the Archduke Albert. The 
 Commandant of the garrison, old General Matau- 
 schek, at this point made his appearance, mounted 
 on horseback. He urged the mob to disperse, but 
 in such unhappily chosen language that a gigantic 
 man, emerging from the crowd, stepped up to the 
 old General, and struck him so violent a blow with 
 a staff that he fell dead on the spot. His corpse 
 was carried away. It was now the turn of the 
 Archduke Albert, head of the Army of Lower 
 Austria, to come upon the scene, followed by two 
 Generals. He also harangued the mob, momen- 
 tarily appeased by Matauschek's death. He 
 might have got a hearing had he not let drop this 
 unfortunate phrase at the very instant when a 
 few voices had begun to applaud him timidly : 
 " You had better be quiet and go home." A 
 fresh explosion of popular fury took place. 
 Stones, blocks of wood, and projectiles of every 
 description were hurled at the Archduke, who 
 
 4 
 
50 THE REAL FRANCIS- JOSEPH 
 
 fled precipitately, with the two Generals still in 
 attendance. 
 
 Blood calls for blood, and the corpse of old 
 Matauschek, the Revolution's first victim, must 
 have company. A regiment of Pioneers came out 
 from the inner courtyard of the Hofburg under 
 command'of a Colonel, and drove back the demon- 
 strators at the point of the bayonet. The rebels 
 fled, unchecked by the vain eloquence of the 
 advocates of resistance. But the irremediable 
 was bound to happen. The Archduke Albert, 
 whose pride had been outraged, had given orders 
 to the troops to show no mercy. Agreeing on this 
 point with Metternich, he wished an example to 
 be made. The Colonel, obsequious to his chief, 
 was ready to provide whatever was asked of him, 
 regardless of the terrified attitude of the mob. 
 The troops poured a volley into the back of the 
 fugitives, and the road was stained with the blood 
 of many of the demonstrators. Four men and one 
 poor old woman were stretched lifeless amid a 
 number of wounded. The Archduke Albert had 
 had his revenge, but the agitation was entering 
 upon a violent and momentous phase. The towns- 
 people of Vienna had cast curious eyes upon the 
 demonstrators as they passed, and had exhibited 
 no great anxiety to protest against the rule of 
 absolutism, which, as a matter of fact, was no 
 great burden upon them. But now these same 
 towns-people, ordinarily so peaceful, were aroused. 
 They came out into the streets, armed themselves 
 
A DREAM THAT CAME TRUE 51 
 
 by plundering the gunsmiths' shops, and joined 
 the mass of students and working men. It was a 
 real Revolution, and no longer a riot. 
 
 The demonstrators ceased to give way to the 
 troops. Furious fights took place in the streets of 
 Vienna, around the Hof quarter, where the Arsenal 
 was ; in the Hohemarkt, where stood the Law 
 Courts; and even in the neighbourhood of the 
 Hofburg, or Imperial Palace. A rather curious 
 occurrence took place at the last-named place. A 
 Sub-Lieutenant of artillery was in charge of the 
 main door with his men and two guns. At 9 p.m., 
 while the demonstration was proceeding violently, 
 the Archduke Maximilian of Este came out of the 
 Palace, and gave the order to " fire into the mob, 
 and give the scum a taste of the cannon." The 
 action of the Austrian Archdukes was as consis- 
 tently disastrous as that of the Russian Grand- 
 dukes. The Sub-Lieutenant remarked that the 
 demonstration did not seem so serious as to call 
 for desperate measures. The Archduke repeated 
 his order in a furious tone. The Sub-Lieutenant 
 replied that only the Emperor's order could force 
 him to take such a step. The Archduke then per- 
 sonally commanded the artillerymen to fire their 
 guns, whereon the Sub-Lieutenant took his stand 
 at one of the cannon's mouths, and declared that 
 if his men obeyed the Archduke the first victim 
 of their obedience would be their own officer. 
 The men did not stir, and Maximilian of Este 
 returned to his rooms in the Hofburg foaming 
 
 4—2 
 
52 THE REAL FRANCIS- JOSEPH 
 
 with rage. The Sub-Lieutenant expected the 
 worst consequences of his act, but eight days 
 later, on March 21, 1848, the " Official Gazette " 
 had the following announcement : 
 
 " The brave man who on the evening of March 13 
 prevented a catastrophe by twice refusing to obey 
 the order which had been given him to fire on the 
 crowd, and who placed himself at one of the 
 cannon's mouths, declaring that he would be the 
 first victim if his men fired, is Sub-Lieutenant John 
 PoUet." 
 
 The " Official Gazette " spoke the truth. A catas- 
 trophe had actually been averted, for Hans Kiid- 
 lich, one of the foremost combatants of March 13, 
 writes in his " Memoirs ": " If PoUet had executed 
 the command of Maximilian of Este, the sequel 
 would have been the assassination of the Arch- 
 dukes and the burning of the Hofburg." 
 
 While, however, thanks to the conduct of Sub- 
 Lieutenant Pollet, the disturbance was subsiding 
 in the neighbourhood of the Hofburg, it was grow- 
 ing worse around Vienna. The working men of 
 the suburbs, plunged in the acutest distress by the 
 introduction of machinery in place of hand labour 
 in the weaving industry, which employed more 
 than two-thirds of them, naturally held the 
 " Government " responsible for their troubles ; 
 so, when the noise of the rising in the centre of 
 the city reached them, their exasperation drove 
 them to take up at once the cry of " Revolution." 
 But the gates of Vienna had been closed, and 
 
A DREAM THAT CAME TRUE 53 
 
 against the ramparts of the city's fortifications 
 the mobs of working men broke in sullen waves. 
 
 The worst excesses began to be committed. 
 On the night of the 13th the gas-lamps were torn 
 down, the pipes were uprooted, and fire applied, 
 and flaming trenches burnt around the city, into 
 which were driven soldiers, Custom-House men, and 
 everyone who fell to hand wearing a uniform. 
 So threatening did the situation become, especially 
 in the wretched suburbs of Mariahilf and Gumpen- 
 dorf, that the Court took fright, and met the 
 working men's rising by granting a portion of the 
 demands of the students and towns-people. On 
 the night of March 13-14, scared by the fiery 
 blaze from the suburbs, whose reflection could be 
 seen even on the walls of the Imperial study, the 
 melancholy Ferdinand, hesitating, timorous, and 
 epileptic, almost weak-witted, found in his very 
 terror strength to take a step which he imagined 
 to be the outcome of his own free-will. He dis- 
 missed the Chancellor, Metternich, and Baron Sed- 
 lintzky, head of the police ; sent the Archduke 
 Albert to the Army in Italy ; and allowed the 
 students and towns-people to enrol themselves as 
 University and National Guards. Doubtless there 
 was no question of giving the principal guarantees 
 demanded by the Revolutionary party, such as 
 liberty of the Press, abolition of the censorship, 
 and estabHshment of the Constitution. But the 
 first step had been taken in the direction of con- 
 cessions, and, thanks to the proletariat, the 
 
54 THE REAL FRANCIS- JOSEPH 
 
 middle class had won a triumph. Their gratitude 
 (though it would be foolish to express any surprise 
 at this, seeing the ferocious seljfishness of all bour- 
 geoisies) revealed itself in a manner which was at 
 least unexpected. In alarm at the threatened 
 intrusion of the Fourth Estate into their political 
 affairs, the towns-people and students employed 
 for the maintenance of law and order the weapons 
 which the Emperor Ferdinand had given them 
 under pressure of popular demand. On the fol- 
 lowing day they used their first cartridges against 
 the proletariat which had procured them for them. 
 Almost all the victims of March 13 belonged to 
 the middle class. Those of the far more bloody 
 days of the 14th and 15th were amongst the ranks 
 of the working men ; and, on the 14th at least, 
 nearly aU the working men Revolutionaries who 
 were killed or wounded fell before the fire of the 
 University and National Guards. 
 
 Nevertheless, an Imperial Edict should have 
 quickly opened the eyes of these " gentlemen of 
 the Third Estate." It was to the effect that the 
 Sovereign, " finding himself disappointed in his 
 hopes for the restoration of order, nominated 
 Prince Alfred of Windischgratz Governor-General 
 of Vienna, with full powers over all civil and 
 military authorities." 
 
 The Emperor had sent away Metternich* and 
 the Archduke Albert, but he had put Vienna at 
 the mercy of the most terrible reactionary of the 
 * Metternich had fled to England. — Translator. 
 
A DREAM THAT CAME TRUE 55 
 
 day, whose very name was a policy. The bour- 
 geoisie, who had been allowed to play at soldiers, 
 had not found out at once that what was being 
 given them with one hand was being taken away 
 with the other. The appointment of Windisch- 
 gratz, the frantic opponent of all progress and 
 pitiless butcher of the small and weak, could not 
 fail to remove the scales from their eyes. They 
 had suffered the counter-Revolution to organize 
 its forces, and now they must take up arms afresh 
 against it, in spite of the fact that the Emperor 
 had granted on the night of the 14th the abolition 
 of the censorship and the freedom of the Press. 
 
 Therefore, on the morning of March 15, when 
 the University and National Guards were ordered 
 to turn out against the working men, the students 
 and towns-people were found to have taken from 
 their arms the white badge of law and order, and 
 replaced it by the red badge of the Revolution. 
 Once again Ferdinand took fright, and at 6 p.m. 
 he signed the grant of a Constitution, promising 
 to summon to a central Parliament deputies from 
 all countries within the Empire. 
 
 At nightfall a Hungarian deputation led by 
 Kossuth reached Vienna, relying on the Revolu- 
 tion there to support their claims to a Constitu- 
 tion for Hungary. They found the town all de- 
 corated, illuminations in the windows, rockets 
 streaking the sky, and in the streets improvised 
 orchestras leading the dance on the pavements 
 still wet with the blood shed that very day. 
 
56 THE REAL FRANCIS- JOSEPH 
 
 March i6 dawned on a totally changed Empire. 
 Absolute rule had given place to constitutional 
 government. Three days' revolution had sufficed 
 to bring about this complete reversal of conditions, 
 destined to have the most serious consequences. 
 Up to now absolutism had only maintained its 
 sway through the strength of will of two Sovereigns 
 of superior calibre — Joseph II., brother of Marie- 
 Antoinette, and Francis I., father-in-law of 
 Napoleon. It was already known that the case 
 was not the same with the epileptic Ferdinand, 
 whose illness left him for days at a time without 
 will, memory, or consciousness. His condition 
 had even become so bad that in 1836 it was found 
 necessary to attach to him a Council of Regency. 
 But what a Council ! Its members were that 
 mere cipher Francis-Charles, father of Francis- 
 Joseph, and the Archduke Louis, another brother 
 of the Emperor, with Metternich, the Chancellor, 
 and Kolovrat, the Minister. These men were old 
 and worn out, incapable of understanding the 
 necessities of their day, and solely occupied in 
 fighting one another. Under the direction of 
 the Archdukes, a whole worthless crop of official 
 weeds choked up the flower-beds of the Govern- 
 ment. 
 
 The situation in Austria-Hungary in 1848 was 
 the same as the situation nowadays in Russia 
 under the rule of the Granddukes, supported by 
 an army of corrupt and lying officials. The Empire 
 of Austria maintained at that time no less than 
 
A DREAM THAT CAME TRUE 57 
 
 25,000 first-class officials, assisted by 95,000 officials 
 on promotion. All these were drawn from the 
 aristocracy, and the State spent on them annually 
 over £640,000 in retiring pensions alone. The 
 inferior posts, reserved for the middle class, were 
 so badly paid that those who held them, to save 
 themselves from starvation, had to rely almost 
 entirely on bribes, which were practically a State 
 institution. The case was the same with the 
 Judges, who invariably pronounced in favour of 
 those who paid them best. Another grievance 
 against the system established by the Council of 
 Regency arose out of the school organization of 
 the country. To quote merely the figures, whose 
 evidence is the most eloquent of all, while Prince 
 Metternich drew a regular salary of nearly ;£22,ooo, 
 the budget of the Department of Public Instruc- 
 tion amounted to £3,000 for a country where the 
 children numbered over 5,000,000. The school- 
 masters, although mere State functionaries, had 
 no claim to a pension, and had to be content with 
 salaries of little over £10 a year in the towns and 
 £6 in the country. As for the Universities, they 
 were entirely under the control of the Church. 
 The Church was all-powerful, especially the Jesuits, 
 those terrible black monks whom Maria-Theresa 
 had expelled, and the Bavarian Caroline-Augusta, 
 wife of Francis I., had recalled. At the epoch of 
 the Viennese Revolution the main support of the 
 Jesuits was another Bavarian, Francis-Joseph's 
 mother, Sophia,l_who, trained by them, had veiled 
 
58 THE REAL FRANCIS-JOSEPH 
 
 her narrowly reactionary spirit under an appear- 
 ance of Liberalism. 
 
 The defensive armour of the absolutist system 
 was completed by the censorship and the police. 
 The censorship attacked everything, however re- 
 motely suggesting the idea of freedom. Nearly 
 all foreign literature was mercilessly condemned, 
 and the national literary output might almost be 
 said to be confined to Mass-books and almanacs. 
 There lies before the writer of these lines an 
 Austrian Government notice, dated 1840, wherein 
 it is stated that Thiers's " History of the French 
 Revolution," and the works of Victor Hugo, 
 having been introduced into Austria, " the police 
 call on the public instantly to denounce anyone 
 having in his possession these works, whose cir- 
 culation is forbidden throughout the Empire." 
 This same police, on the other hand, took no 
 trouble to punish evil-doers, the budget of £135,000 
 being devoted entirely to the maintenance of the 
 political spy system. 
 
 An examination of contemporary reports and 
 memoirs does not produce the impression that the 
 state of affairs was any more enviable in the realm 
 of finance. Everything was in the hands of the 
 big international financiers, who were absolute 
 masters of the situation, and fully justified the 
 saying that " financiers support the State as the 
 rope supports the man who is hanged." Baron 
 Rothschild had the monopoly of the early rail- 
 ways ; the Greek banker Sina had the monopoly 
 
A DREAM THAT CAME TRUE 59 
 
 of the sale of corn, and got up famines ; and as 
 the bigwigs got what they wanted in return for 
 their complaisance, the Government shut its eyes 
 and allowed things to go on. And while the 
 Hebrew plutocracy organized the plunder of the 
 pubUc finances, the poor Jews were harried, in- 
 sulted, and attacked. Napoleon's dictum nearly 
 half a century earlier was well justified now : 
 "Austria is no longer a monarchy, but an oligarchy, 
 and an ohgarchy of the worst kind." 
 
 The Revolution of March, 1848, the outcome of 
 this condition of affairs, was, nevertheless, desired 
 and prepared for by a section at Court, headed by 
 members of the Imperial family and inspired by 
 the dea ex machina of the party, the Archduchess 
 Sophia. What did this party want ? Hostile to 
 the power of Metternich, and working, though 
 unwittingly (for such an idea was kept by the 
 Archduchess Sophia to herself), to put the Im- 
 perial and Royal crown upon the young head of 
 Francis- Joseph, the Court Opposition was eager 
 to proclaim that if the Emperor Ferdinand was 
 incapable of exercising his functions he must 
 abdicate. 
 
 It is no secret that during March, 1848, the 
 Hofburg witnessed violent scenes, in which the 
 contending parties were Metternich and his allies, 
 including the Archdukes Albert, Louis, and Maxi- 
 miUan of Este on the one hand, and on the other 
 the so-called " Liberals," guided by the Arch- 
 duchess Sophia ; and the latter, thanks to the 
 
6o THE REAL FRANCIS- JOSEPH 
 
 Emperor's terror on the night of the fires in the 
 suburbs, succeeded in forcing the Chancellor's 
 resignation. 
 
 With Metternich out of the way, the " Liberals " 
 were, nevertheless, far from indulging in liberal 
 actions. The Archduchess Sophia's friends be- 
 longing to the Jesuit Order had no such intentions. 
 It was her doing that Prince Windischgratz was 
 invested with dictatorial powers. Moreover, her 
 affection for the people being purely a matter of 
 profession, she supported rather than opposed the 
 proclamation of a state of siege. 
 
 StUl, it was advisable that the Liberal fiction 
 should be kept up by the Government. Accord- 
 ingly, on March 17 a responsible Ministry was 
 formed. Unfortunately, the president in this 
 Cabinet, which had been nominated " to satisfy 
 the wishes of the people," was none other than 
 Count Kolovrat, Metternich' s assistant in the 
 famous Council of Regency. Count Taaffe, Baron 
 Kribeck, and Count Ficquelmont, all three of them 
 notorious reactionaries, were also members of the 
 Cabinet. The first measure proposed was the 
 eagerly expected Press Law. It was brought for- 
 ward on April i, a date which furnished the only 
 excuse for a law whose effect was to re-establish 
 the censorship abolished on March 14. A good 
 joke, perhaps, but not to the taste of the Viennese. 
 Popular rejoicings began to abate, and the students 
 even went so far in the course of a riotous demon- 
 stration as to burn the Press Law in front of the 
 
A DREAM THAT CAME TRUE 6i 
 
 Ministers' residences. The working men were 
 again aroused. Up to now they had received all 
 the kicks and no halfpence. Their state was as 
 miserable as before. A contemporary wages list 
 reveals some interesting figures. At the chemical 
 works the daily rate of pay was^ for men, yd. ; for 
 women, 2|d. to sJd. ; for children under fourteen 
 years of age, ijd. In the match-factories the 
 men received 4d., the women 2jd., the children 
 ijd. ; in the sugar-refineries, where the hours were 
 fifteen to sixteen daily, the men 6d., the women 
 2jd., the children ijd. Evidently, therefore, 
 there was no gold-mine for the people of Vienna, 
 and it must be added that the agricultural labourers 
 flocked to the capital, where more than two-thirds 
 of the inhabitants were out of work. The peasan- 
 try was also ready for revolt, their earnings being 
 as small as their burdens were heavy. A taxation 
 return of Lower Austria shows that a farmer who 
 had made during the summer of 1847 a profit of 
 83 florins 28 kreutzers found himself taxed during 
 the same period to the extent of 57 florins 51 
 kreutzers — 69 per cent, of his gains. So, while 
 Vienna was once more seething, a revolutionary 
 movement showed itself in the country, especially 
 in GaHcia. On April 25 there were even barri- 
 cades erected in Cracow, and during the day fifty- 
 seven were killed and over one hundred wounded. 
 Again the Government took fright, and the 
 Emperor was authorized by a Family Council to 
 bestow on the Empire a genuine Constitution. 
 
62 THE REAL FRANCIS- JOSEPH 
 
 The decree was published in the " Official Gazette." 
 The Constitution was based on the two-chamber 
 principle, with a Senate composed of Princes of 
 the Imperial family, of life-senators nominated at 
 the Emperor's discretion, and of 150 elected for 
 a term by the great landed proprietors, and a 
 Chamber of Deputies of 383 members. A decree 
 of May II settled the mode of election. There 
 was one deputy to every 50,000 inhabitants, and 
 the vote was refused to all working men earning 
 daily or weekly wages, all servants, and all people 
 receiving public assistance — in fact, to the greater 
 part of the town population, and to a considerable 
 proportion of the agricultural labourers. Such a 
 Constitution was powerless, therefore, to check the 
 popular agitation. Furthermore — and here we see 
 the handiwork of the " Liberal " party, guided by 
 the Archduchess Sophia, who was thus paving the 
 way for a movement which to-day threatens the 
 very life of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy — the 
 Constitution applied only to Austrian territory, and 
 left Hungary and the Italian provinces under the 
 absolute rule of the Emperor-King. 
 
 At Vienna the demonstrations continued, al- 
 though Kolovrat's Ministry had been replaced by 
 another, quite as reactionary as the first, however. 
 The principal demands were for the complete re- 
 tirement into private life of the Archduke Louis ; 
 the departure from Court of the Emperor's mother, 
 whose unpopularity arose from her open adherence 
 to the policy which the Archduchess Sophia 
 
A DREAM THAT CAME TRUE 63 
 
 secretly recommended ; the disgrace of the Arch- 
 dukes of the House of Este, all avowed reac- 
 tionaries ; andj lastly, the dismissal of Count 
 Bombelles, tutor to the Prince, in whom rested 
 the confidence and hopes of the Empire, the young 
 Francis-Joseph. A Central Committee was chosen 
 by the people, which was to exercise control 
 over the acts of the Government. The Com- 
 mittee was suppressed, whereon the turmoil was 
 such that the troops were called out. But now 
 the soldiers fraternized with the people, and the 
 Government authorized the Central Committee. 
 Everything appeared on the way to settlement, 
 when on the night of May 17-18 the news was 
 heard that the Emperor had left Vienna with the 
 Imperial family, and was taking refuge at Inns- 
 bruck. The word " abduction " was at once men- 
 tioned, and rightly. This coup, like most of the 
 proceedings at this troublous period, betrayed the 
 hand of the Archduchess Sophia, steadily pre- 
 paring her counter-Revolution. 
 
 At Vienna demonstrations had been given up 
 for barricades, and barricades for street skirmishes, 
 for which anything served as a pretext. If the 
 Government took a step which annoyed the bour- 
 geoisie or the populace of Vienna, up went the 
 barricades, shots were fired, and the Government 
 reversed its action. The Emperor's return was 
 much desired by Vienna. At last it was promised 
 for June 26, the opening day of the Chambers. 
 At Innsbriick, meanwhile, the Archduchess Sophia 
 
64 THE REAL FRANCIS- JOSEPH 
 
 and the Jesuits worked steadily at the organiza- 
 tion of the counter-Revolution. It was necessary 
 to put Ferdinand in such a position that the only 
 way out of it would be abdication. With this 
 object in view, the heterogeneous races of the 
 Empire were stirred up against one another. 
 Before *the Constitution came into being, the 
 question of nationalities hardly arose, all having 
 one constant and absorbing object in view in their 
 struggle against absolutism. The Constitution 
 changed all this, favouring Vienna and the Ger- 
 man element at the expense of the Slavs. The 
 seed sown by the agents of the Archduchess Sophia 
 in the minds of the victims of this arrangement 
 sprouted so well that on June i a Slav Congress 
 met at Prague, setting up the standard of Czech 
 Radicalism against the Radicals of Vienna, and 
 opening between the two races a breach which 
 nothing henceforward could close, and which at 
 the present time jeopardizes more dangerously 
 than ever the continued existence of this mosaic- 
 work Empire, whose component parts disunite, 
 separate, and gape apart more every day. The 
 Government expressed the wish that the Em- 
 peror should establish his Government perma- 
 nently at Prague. There was even talk of a Czech 
 provisional Government, in opposition to the 
 German Government at Vienna. The Viennese 
 protested at Court, but in vain, for the Court 
 made no move. There was some discussion about 
 sending to Prague, as representative of the Em- 
 
A DREAM THAT CAME TRUE 65 
 
 peror, the Archduke Francis-Joseph. This mis- 
 sion did not take place, and affairs took a bad 
 turn at Prague, where the Czechs were exasperated 
 by the provoking attitude of the troops sent to 
 their town, under the command of the already 
 mentioned Prince Windischgratz. 
 
 Barricades were erected in Prague also, whereon 
 the Prince-Governor without hesitation proclaimed 
 a state of siege, and bombarded the town. An 
 unconditional surrender followed, and great were 
 the rejoicings at Vienna when it was given out 
 that the bombardment had been intended to 
 punish the Czech capital for its anti-German 
 tendencies. The Archduchess's policy was suc- 
 ceeding. The racial crisis was entering on its 
 acute phase, and the hapless Emperor Ferdinand's 
 position was growing untenable. 
 
 June 26 arrived without seeing the Emperor's 
 return to Vienna. His place was taken by the 
 Archduke John, a frank reactionary. Once again 
 the Archduchess Sophia's policy turned out very 
 well for her. Vienna complained of the Em- 
 peror's absence, and still more of his substitute. 
 " If only the Archduke Francis-Charles had been 
 sent to us, o^- his son Francis- Joseph !" was the 
 cry. It must not be forgotten that the Arch- 
 duchess's husband and son always represented in 
 popular eyes the Liberal sympathies of the Habs- 
 burg family. 
 
 In spite of all protests, and nearly a month after 
 the original date, the Archduke John solemnly 
 
 5 
 
66 THE REAL FRANCIS- JOSEPH 
 
 declared the Reichsrath open on July 22. At the 
 second sitting a Radical deputy called for the 
 Emperor's return. Four days later the Minister 
 of the Interior replied that the Emperor declined 
 to come to Vienna, but that he promised to send 
 his brother, the popular Francis-Charles, as soon 
 as the Assembly should have passed the laws of 
 the Constitution. Now Francis-Charles was wel- 
 come, but the Emperor's presence was also re- 
 quired. A sharp and heated debate took place. 
 At last, when wrath against the Sovereign had 
 mounted higher and higher, a deputy declared, 
 amidst applause : " Hitherto the people have 
 shown boundless patience, but there are limits 
 to everything. Had any other nation received 
 such an insult, the Sovereign guilty of inflicting 
 it would have been removed long ago. Take the 
 examples of history — Charles I., James II., 
 Louis XVI. !" An address to the Emperor was 
 drawn up and passed, demanding his return to 
 Vienna. On August 12 he came back, and was 
 received with icy coldness by the city. His suite 
 were even greeted with hostile shouts in the streets. 
 Hated already by the Czechs, Ferdinand now was 
 confronted by the armed hostility of the Viennese. 
 A fresh revolutionary movement began, and in 
 spite of the existence now of a fierce racial ques- 
 tion, the news of a rebellion in Hungary was well 
 received in Vienna as a blow to the Emperor. 
 When, therefore, on October 6, the troops were 
 about to leave the capital on a campaign against 
 
A DREAM THAT CAME TRUE 67 
 
 the Hungarians, their departure was blocked by 
 the people. At the North Vienna Station, where 
 the troops were to have entrained, the rails had 
 been torn up and the telegraph-Unes cut by the 
 rioters. Orders were given to the men to leave 
 Vienna by the Tabor Gate, and take the train at 
 a small station on the other side of the Danube. 
 When they reached the bank of the Danube, they 
 were obUged to halt, for the rebels had blown up 
 the bridge. Quite a battle now took place be- 
 tween the troops and the people. Fighting was 
 general on the ramparts, in the town, in the very 
 cathedral, where ninety-five dead bodies were 
 found at the foot of the high-altar. The General 
 in command of the troops was killed. The War 
 Minister, Count Latour, who was discovered hiding 
 in a cupboard at his official residence, was dragged 
 out of doors and hanged on a lamp-post. Finally, 
 the Arsenal surrendered, and the rebels won the 
 day. 
 
 During the riots the Emperor left Vienna a 
 second time, and went to Olmiitz, from where he 
 hurled his troops against his capital, under the 
 command of the butcher Windischgratz. The 
 siege began on October 22, and on the 28th, in 
 spite of the fact that the Hungarians made com- 
 mon cause with the Viennese against the Emperor 
 Ferdinand, and marched on the capital to meet 
 the Imperial troops besieging, it, Vienna was 
 obliged to surrender unconditionally. 
 
 The Emperor showed no generosity. Between 
 
 5—2 
 
68 THE REAL FRANCIS- JOSEPH 
 
 the months of November, 1848, and April, 1849, 
 1,375 persons were thrown into prison and 532 
 shot. Vienna, nevertheless, remained in a state 
 of martial law, and paid for defeat by losing the 
 right of housing the Reichsrath, which was removed 
 to Kremsier, in Moravia. 
 
 Ferdinand's position, in spite of the troops' 
 decisive victory, had become impossible. He 
 realized that his unpopularity (so well worked up 
 by his sister-in-law, without whom nothing would 
 have been heard of it) left no road open before 
 him save that of abdication. Accordingly he abdi- 
 cated. 
 
 The Revolution had blossomed at the spring- 
 time of the year. Its chUd, young Francis- Joseph, 
 was invested with power at the springtime of his 
 life. The Archduchess Sophia's dream had been 
 realized. 
 
FRANCIS-JOSEPH 
 From a portrait by Winterhalter 
 
 To face page t 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 AN UNREALIZED AMBITION 
 
 The governing idea of Francis-Joseph's reign was 
 the organization of a central power sufficiently 
 strong to rule over the different races owning 
 allegiance to the sceptre of the Habsburgs, were 
 they Germans^ Hungarians, Czechs, Croats, or 
 Tyrolese — to mention only the chief among the 
 infinitely various peoples constituting the un- 
 friendly brotherhood of the Austro-Hungarian 
 Empire. To-day there are more rents and leaks 
 than ever before in the ship of State, which, at the 
 age of eighteen, Francis- Joseph, under the guid- 
 ance of the Archduchess Sophia, freighted with his 
 ambition, and that ship's journey is ending on 
 the rocks. The old Emperor, on his seventy- 
 fifth birthday, could not be present at a review 
 held in his honour at Buda-Pesth, for fear of a bad 
 reception. Yet these same Hungarians had looked 
 upon him as the perfect ruler a few months before 
 he ascended the throne. Louis Kossuth, indeed, 
 on March 3, 1848, while directing the Hungarian 
 Revolution against the Government of the Emperor 
 Ferdinand, uttered these words : 
 
 69 
 
70 THE REAL FRANCIS- JOSEPH 
 
 " The heir to the House of Habsburg, the Arch- 
 duke Francis- Joseph, on whom rest the nation's 
 hopes, will one day have a splendid throne, based 
 upon the liberty of the people. But it wUl be 
 impossible for him to keep this throne if the 
 existing system continues. Gentlemen, I am 
 persuaded that our dynasty's future fate depends 
 upon a cordial alliance between people and 
 SovereigUj and for this alliance the cementing 
 power of a Constitution is necessary. In calling 
 for a Constitution I am taking a point of view 
 which is entirely that of our dynasty. God be 
 praised that this point of view is in accord with the 
 interests of our beloved country !" 
 
 The February Revolution in Paris had just 
 deprived Louis-PhUippe of his crown, and the 
 Hungarians heard with an almost childish enthu- 
 siasm the echoes which reached them of this 
 rising. The explanation of this enthusiasm is to 
 be found, in the first place, in the romantic and 
 heroic past of the Hungarian nation, but still 
 more in the almost hostile attitude which, since 
 the time of Joseph II., the Habsburgs had taken 
 up against Hungary. The Habsburgs reigned 
 over Austrian territory " by grace of God " and 
 as absolute masters. The Hungarian Constitu- 
 tion, on the other hand, was a kind of restraint 
 upon their absolutism, for which they took their 
 revenge in an affectation of disdain. The Austrian 
 Emperors were wont to entrust the duties involved 
 by the Hungarian crown of St. Stephen to the 
 
AN UNREALIZED AMBITION 71 
 
 hands of a brother or a near relative, to whom 
 they gave viceregal powers and the title of Prince 
 Palatine. Joseph II., brother of Marie-Antoinette 
 and son of Maria-Theresa, was the first who aspired 
 to reduce the Hungarian Constitution to a nulUty, 
 as far as facts were concerned, and to set up at 
 Vienna a central monarchical power, including all 
 the various lands over which he reigned. It was 
 this ambition, relentlessly pursued by his succes- 
 sors, which provoked the events of 1848 in Hun- 
 gary, as well as the separatist movement in the 
 Italian provinces. The Hungarians replied to the 
 claims of the Emperors of Austria by demanding 
 the extension of their Constitution and the grant 
 of constitutional government to the different races 
 living with them under the shelter of the same 
 Empire. 
 
 This was all that the Hungarians were asking 
 for, and when Louis Kossuth, as Deputy in the 
 Diet, uttered the words quoted above, he had no 
 suspicion that his simple speech was destined to 
 set him, fifteen months later, at the head of the 
 Republic of Hungary. His speech, however, was 
 to cause a considerable stir in the internal politics 
 of the Empire, for it incited the Austrians to 
 claim a Constitution on their own behalf, which 
 they did, as we have seen, on March 13 and 14. 
 
 But the Hungarians, inflamed by the burning 
 words of their Louis Kossuths, Alexander Petofis, 
 and Maurus Jokais, determined to demand from the 
 Emperor the following concessions : A general 
 
72 THE REAL FRANCIS- JOSEPH 
 
 amnesty for political offenders, the abolition of the 
 censorship, liberty of the Press, a national guard, 
 national army, and national bank. Under the 
 leadership of Stephen, Archduke Palatine, a depu- 
 tation proceeded to Vienna to present the requests 
 of the Hungarian nation to the Emperor Ferdi- 
 nand. Influenced by the revolutionary move- 
 ment in Vienna, the Emperor accorded on the eve 
 of their arrival a Constitution to Austria. The 
 Hungarians were therefore full of hope when they 
 reached the Hofburg. They left it radiant with 
 joy, for the Emperor had just promised to give 
 them satisfaction. Moreover, they put reliance in 
 the " Liberal " influence exercised by Francis- 
 Joseph's mother. How they deceived themselves, 
 or, rather, how the Archduchess Sophia was able 
 to deceive them ! On March 23 a scheme for a 
 Ministry was submitted to the Emperor, in which 
 the portfolio of finance was assigned to Louis 
 Kossuth. It was not until the 29th that Ferdi- 
 nand's decision was made known. He accepted 
 the Ministry, but docked of two portfolios, those 
 of war and of finance — the national army and the 
 national bank — which were both to remain in 
 the Austrian Cabinet. Hungarian hopes were en- 
 tirely shattered, for this refusal cut off the head 
 of their separatist scheme. 
 
 Ferdinand had promised to satisfy them. What 
 had happened ? Once again the Archduchess 
 Sophia had appeared on the scene. She had 
 favoured the Viennese revolutionary movement 
 
AN UNREALIZED AMBITION ^^ 
 
 with the object mainly of procuring the disgrace of 
 Metternich, the chief obstacle to her desire to 
 make Ferdinand abdicate — not, as was popularly 
 believed, because of her Liberal views. The truth 
 was that Francis-Joseph's mother was a con- 
 vinced centralist, and intended her son to mount 
 the throne of a great homogeneous Empire, not 
 one made up of fragments. It was for this reason 
 that she had intervened to prevent her brother- 
 in-law from conceding the Hungarian demands. 
 
 The Archduke Stephen, however, was to give 
 battle to the Archduchess Sophia. He made a 
 solemn promise to the National Assembly and to 
 Count Bathyany, future President of the Hun- 
 garian Ministerial Council, to make further repre- 
 sentations to the Emperor. He kept his word, 
 and returned victorious. On April ii the first 
 Hungarian Cabinet made its state entry into 
 Buda-Pesth. 
 
 Fully aware of the danger threatened by this 
 administrative dualism to her maternal ambitions, 
 the Archduchess Sophia refused to give up all as 
 lost. The Hungarian Constitution existed, but its 
 power must be made illusory. She therefore in- 
 cited the Austrian Government to make the 
 Hungarian War and Finance Ministers subor- 
 dinate to the central power of the Empire. Soon 
 the whole Austro-Hungarian Army was again 
 receiving its orders from Vienna, while the Austrian 
 Finance Minister was burdening the Hungarians 
 with a portion of the public debt without consult- 
 
74 THE REAL FRANCIS- JOSEPH 
 
 ing the Cabinet of Buda-Pesth. This was not 
 enough for the Archduchess. She had already 
 conceived the Machiavellian idea of getting rid of 
 the Austrian revolutionary movement by stirring 
 up the racial passions of the various peoples of 
 the Empire, pnd she made use of the plan again 
 with regard to Hungary. At the very moment 
 when the Hungarian Diet had voted the necessary 
 credits for the Italian War — not because Hungary 
 was interested in this war, but out of gratitude 
 to the Emperor — the Archduchess's party was all 
 but openly inciting the Croats and Serbs against 
 the Hungarians. Jellachich, Governor of Croatia, 
 who was to play so big and so dishonourable a 
 part in the Hungarian Revolution, refused, at the 
 instigation of the Court of Vienna, to obey the 
 Cabinet of Buda-Pesth. He demanded in the 
 name of the Croats the independence of his pro- 
 vince and the formation of a separate Government. 
 As Croatia was an integral part of the Kingdom of 
 Hungary, this was a rebellion, and almost a case 
 of high treason. The Hungarians demanded the 
 dismissal of Jellachich. The Emperor replied by 
 confirming Jellachich in his post. 
 
 At the same time Transylvania rose against the 
 Buda-Pesth Government, which had no power to 
 put down the movement by force of arms, seeing 
 that, in spite of the Imperial promise, and thanks 
 to the Archduchess's plot, the Hungarian Army, 
 for all that there was a Hungarian War Minister, 
 was under the control of the Austrian War Office 
 
AN UNREALIZED AMBITION 75 
 
 — ^in factj if not in principle. Count Bathyany, 
 therefore^ asked Parliament to call on the country 
 to raise a body of volunteers. Ten thousand men 
 responded to the appeal. But Jellachich continued 
 on his career, and now put himself entirely at the 
 disposal of the Court of Vienna, being rewarded 
 by nomination to the post of Commander-in-Chief 
 of the Imperial troops garrisoning Hungary and 
 Croatia. Three hundred thousand florins were 
 assigned to him for the upkeep of these troops, and 
 the irony of the situation was carried so far that 
 Buda-Pesth was informed that this item must 
 come from the Hungarian treasury. In reply to 
 this stroke, the Hungarian Diet voted 42,000,000 
 florins for the establishment of a National Army 
 of 200,000 men. The Emperor refused to sanction 
 the vote. The Archduchess Sophia even suc- 
 ceeded in having the door of the Imperial Cabinet 
 shut upon a deputation which had come from 
 Buda-Pesth to obtain the Emperor's assent to the 
 formation of the Hungarian Army. The situation 
 became serious. The aspect was that of revolu- 
 tion when Louis Kossuth began to circulate 
 Hungarian banknotes, called " Kossuth notes." 
 Yielding to the insistence of the Finance Minister, 
 Count Bathyany resolved to publish a call to arms. 
 It was high time. A few days later, on Sep- 
 tember II, Jellachich invaded Hungary at the 
 head of the Imperial troops. The Archduke 
 Palatine went to meet him, but with a flag of 
 truce. Jellachich refused any discussion of terms. 
 
76 THE REAL FRANCIS- JOSEPH 
 
 The Archduke Stephen realized that Jellachich 
 was not there as a Croatian rebel against Hungary, 
 but as the commander of the Imperial forces and 
 with the Emperor's mandate. The Prince Pala- 
 tine dared not venture on a conflict with the 
 Imperial family of which he was a member. He 
 resigned his office and left Hungary. The last 
 tie between the House of Habsburg and the 
 country of Kossuth was severed. An Imperial 
 rescript named Count Lamberg, an Austrian, 
 Commander-in-Chief of the Hungarian national 
 forces. Buda-Pesth's answer was to throw Count 
 Lamberg into the Danube. But Jellachich was 
 marching on Buda-Pesth with 30,000 men. 
 The Hungarian Government sent to meet him 
 General Moga, at the head of a volunteer army. 
 Jellachich was beaten near Stuhlweissenburg. 
 He asked for a three days' armistice, which Moga 
 was mistaken enough to grant him. During the 
 three days Jellachich took flight, leaving behind 
 only 5,000 men and twelve guns, which Moga 
 captured. The Hungarian General's second mis- 
 take was to set free all his prisoners on a promise, 
 which they never kept, to bear arms no more 
 against Hungary. 
 
 Instigated by the Archduchess Sophia, Fer- 
 dinand appointed Jellachich Royal Commissioner 
 in Hungary, instead of Count Lamberg. At this 
 moment it was learnt that the Viennese had 
 prevented the Imperial regiments from leaving 
 the capital to fight against the Hungarians. The 
 
AN UNREALIZED AMBITION 'j^ 
 
 joy was delirious, and Louis Kossuth, that political 
 poet, was the first to raise the hasty cry " To 
 Vienna !" awakening a tremendous echo from the 
 throats of all Hungarians. The Committee of 
 Defence ordered General Moga to march upon 
 revolutionary Vienna, besieged by the Imperial 
 troops. The Hungarian General's forces, as we 
 know, arrived too late. Vienna had surrendered 
 to Prince Windischgratz, who made his celebrated 
 reply to the envoys sent to him, whom at the 
 same time he quietly made prisoners : " One can- 
 not treat with rebels." Jellachich was now with 
 Windischgratz, and the two together defeated 
 Moga, the Hungarian General being so seriously 
 wounded that he was totally incapacitated, and 
 was obliged to resign his command. His hope 
 of assistance from the Viennese had proved as 
 false as their hope that the siege would be re- 
 lieved by his intervention. Kossuth appointed 
 in Moga's place at the head of the Hungarian 
 Army a former Austrian Lieutenant, Gorgey, no 
 bad tactician, but a politician rather than a soldier. 
 He began by removing from the Army a certain 
 number of volunteers who did not appear to him 
 sufficiently trustworthy. This was a grave error, 
 particularly at a moment when the Army's ranks 
 were already depleted by desertions, in conse- 
 quence of Prince Windischgratz' s proclamation 
 treating the Hungarian volunteers as rebels, and 
 styling all the officers in Kossuth's Army traitors 
 to the Emperor. 
 
78 THE REAL FRANCIS- JOSEPH 
 
 Such was the situation of affairs wheUj on 
 December 2, 1848, in the great banqueting hall 
 of the Archbishop's palace at Olmiitz, Francis- 
 Joseph assumed the Imperial crown, without a 
 single representative of Hungary being present. 
 The proclamation of the new Emperor, whom 
 Louis Kossuth had a few months before extolled 
 as " the hope of the nation," spoke openly of 
 " domestic traitors," and expressed the aspira- 
 tion of " maintaining the unity of the Empire, 
 and joining together in a single body all the 
 peoples of the Monarchy." If this proclamation 
 bore the signature of the Austrian President of 
 Council, it did not bear that of his Hungarian 
 colleague, whom the Emperor Ferdinand had 
 recognized but a few weeks previously. 
 
 Hungary's answer was not long in coming. 
 The National Assembly announced that it re- 
 garded Francis- Joseph as a usurper, and that it 
 was impossible to recognize as King a Sovereign 
 who had not taken the oath prescribed by the 
 Hungarian Constitution. Francis- Joseph, having 
 made up his mind, with his mother's help, to 
 persist obstinately in his centralist policy, replied 
 with an insulting proclamation, in which he 
 branded as traitors, guilty of the crime of lese- 
 majestS, not only the Committee of Defence, but 
 also the Hungarian National Assembly. All hope 
 of a peaceful understanding was at an end. The 
 " Central Government " at once adopted the 
 tactics so dear to the Archduchess Sophia, and 
 
AN UNREALIZED AMBITION 79 
 
 acted on the motto Divide ut imperes. First 
 the Serbs, then Transylvania, and again Croatia, 
 were stirred up against Buda - Pesth. Blood 
 began to flow, and atrocities were committed. 
 In the little town of Szalatna, Transylvania, 
 where 1,200 Hungarians had taken refuge, the 
 duties of hospitality were so strangely under- 
 stood that the men had their eyes knocked out, 
 their noses and ears sliced off, and they were 
 burnt alive ; while the women and young girls, 
 after being outraged and having their breasts 
 cut off, were beaten to death. It is important 
 to note that the Austrian garrison looked on 
 quietly at this horrible scene. 
 
 Fights took place on a small scale throughout 
 the unhappy land of Hungary, whUe the Army 
 was mishandled by its chiefs, often jealous of one 
 another, and occasionally traitorous. Neverthe- 
 less the Hungarians, in spite of Windischgratz's 
 entry into Buda-Pesth, determined to carry on 
 the struggle all the same, and won a few victories. 
 Francis- Joseph recognized the difficulty of the 
 situation, and was ready to make concessions. 
 He recalled Windischgratz, with whom no terms 
 were possible for the Hungarians, and appointed 
 in his place General Welden, who had no con- 
 nection with politics in the past. An under- 
 standing might have come about had not Kossuth, 
 doubtless fearing onerous terms, and certainly 
 urged on by his ambition, gratuitously made 
 reconciliation impossible by causing the Hun- 
 
8o THE REAL FRANCIS- JOSEPH 
 
 garian Republic to be proclaimed on April 14, 
 1849, in the great Lutheran church at Debreczen, 
 he himself being hailed as head of the Republic. 
 
 This time Francis- Joseph, who had attempted 
 one revolt against the warlike advice of his mother, 
 was unable to draw back, and success was destined 
 to fall again to the Archduchess Sophia. Of 
 course the Austrian troops at the disposal of the 
 Empire were very few, for the greater part of 
 them were occupied in Italy. But the foreigner 
 was at hand, offering the young Sovereign help 
 in suppressing liberty in his dominions, and in 
 destroying a Constitution nearly 1,000 years 
 old. Nicholas I. of Russia, fearing a Republic 
 on his borders, made an offer of 200,000 men, 
 and Francis- Joseph was not afraid to accept it. 
 
 The feeling which sprang up in Hungary now 
 was truly worthy of admiration. Every able- 
 bodied man in the country came forward to 
 defend the threatened freedom of the land. 
 Everyone was enrolled — even boys of fifteen, 
 even women. At first Gorgey, whom Kossuth 
 had called to the Ministry of War, refused the help 
 of the latter ; but they made their way into the 
 ranks by stratagem, and proved themselves so 
 useful that Gorgey was obliged to give way. 
 One of these Amazons, a Jewess named Marie 
 Lebstock, gave proofs of such courage and such 
 powers of initiative that she was granted the rank 
 of Lieutenant. 
 
 Such enthusiasm, especially at the outset, is 
 
AN UNREALIZED AMBITION 8i 
 
 almost invincible, and Hungary's volunteer army 
 triumphed over the regular forces of the Im- 
 perialists. On May 15 Gorgey laid siege to Buda- 
 Pesth, after defeating the Austrian General Hentzi, 
 and on May 21 the Hungarian capital, but re- 
 cently captured by Windischgratz, fell into the 
 hands of the national troops. On the following 
 June 5 the Hungarian Assembly and Government 
 were established there once again. The rejoicings 
 were beyond all measure, and the Republic 
 became a religion of which Kossuth was the 
 Messiah. So great was the joy, in fact, that the 
 enemy were forgotten. 
 
 The Italian War was at an end. The Austrian 
 Army; reinforced by the troops from Lombardy, 
 crossed the Hungarian frontier on the west, 
 while Paskevitch, at the head of 200,000 Russians, 
 crossed it on the east. Buda-Pesth was still 
 rejoicing when the cry of terror was heard : " The 
 Russians are coming !" 
 
 Kossuth, with his absurd optimism, invited the 
 Powers to protest against the invasion of the 
 Hungarian Republic's territory. The Powers 
 turned a deaf ear to his appeal. While Kossuth 
 was busy with his oratory, the allies continued 
 on their way. The Russians occupied Transyl- 
 vania, while the Austrians hauled down the Hun- 
 garian tricolour from every fortress on the east. 
 The Emperor Francis- Joseph was present in person 
 at the battles of his army against his former 
 subjects. Before long the National Assembly and 
 
 6 
 
83 THE REAL FRANCIS- JOSEPH 
 
 the Government were compelled to leave Buda- 
 Pesth a second time, and take refuge at Szegedin, 
 in Southern Hungary. Gorgey, bought over by 
 the Russians, who had promised him a good round 
 sum, was planning the capitulation of the National 
 Army. He .demanded, before he would do any- 
 thing, that Kossuth should retire from the dicta- 
 torship, and resign it to him. To save " his 
 country," Kossuth yielded to Gorgey's conditions, 
 and fled to Turkey. Before he left he buried with 
 his own hands the Hungarian crown, the old 
 crown of St. Stephen, in the neighbourhood of 
 the frontier village of Orsova. When it was 
 recovered later, the little cross on the top was 
 found bent on one side. From this time onward 
 the arms of Hungary have borne a crown with a 
 cross bent toward the left. 
 
 To return to Gorgey, on August ii he took up 
 the dictatorship. Immediately he opened nego- 
 tiations with the Russian General Ruidiger. At 
 Vilagos Gorgey surrendered to him eleven Generals, 
 1,426 officers, 30,889 men, 144 guns, 7,967 horses, 
 and sixty standards, all of which passed through 
 the hands of the Russians into those of the 
 Austrian General Haynau. General Ruidiger 
 merely asked for a safe-conduct for Gorgey, who 
 managed to leave the country without danger. 
 
 The repression of the rebellion was terrible. 
 Those hanged included twenty-five Generals, the 
 members of the Government and of the Com- 
 nndttee of Defence, and thousands of other Hun- 
 
AN UNREALIZED AMBITION 83 
 
 garians. For several weeks Hungary was like a 
 vast execution-ground. Francis- Joseph pardoned 
 a few of the prisoners at random. He occasion- 
 ally made a lucky selection, notably in the case 
 of Count Julius Andrassy, who became in later 
 years President of the Hungarian Ministerial 
 Council and Minister for Foreign Affairs, and 
 whom Francis-Joseph had to thank for the Triple 
 Alliance. 
 
 The executions, however, were not sufficient. 
 The Archduchess Sophia's idea of transforming 
 Hungary into an Austrian province was carried 
 out, and with the greater ease in that Francis- 
 Joseph, always attentive to his mother's advice, 
 had meanwhile suspended the Austrian Constitu- 
 tion. For several years Hungary was dealt with 
 like a conquered country, undergoing terrible 
 oppression, including the treatment of any Hun- 
 garian speaking his national tongue as a traitor. 
 
 A nation can be oppressed, but it can scarcely be 
 destroyed. Francis- Joseph, who is aware of this 
 fact to-day in Hungary, was to find it out more 
 quickly in Italy. From 1848 the separatist move- 
 ment became marked in the Italian provinces 
 attached to Austria, Lombardy, and Venetia, 
 which rose at the first sign given by King Charles- 
 Albert of Sardinia. Old General Radetzky was 
 able to check the movement by forcing the King of 
 Sardinia to sue for an armistice after the Austrian 
 victory at Custozza. On March 12, 1849, Charles- 
 Albert took up arms again. He was beaten, again 
 
 6—2 
 
84 THE REAL FRANCIS-JOSEPH 
 
 by Radetzky, twice in four days — first at Mortara, 
 then at Novara. For ten years the Italian inhabi- 
 tants of the Austrian provinces bore the heavy 
 yoke of the Government of Vienna, which proved 
 itself a tyranny toward subjects already only too 
 disposed to break away, and drove them still 
 farther in that direction. The more it was at- 
 tempted to Germanize the Italian provinces, the 
 stronger and livelier the national sentiment grew. 
 It is true that Napoleon III., for political reasons, 
 encouraged this feeling. Even at the New Year's 
 reception of 1859 Napoleon had, while greeting the 
 Ambassadors, made a remark frankly hostile to 
 the Government of Francis- Joseph. Finally, on 
 April 29 in the same year, war broke out between 
 Austria-Hungary and Italy, the latter being sup- 
 ported by the troops of the French Empire. 
 Radetzky was no longer there, and it was all in vain 
 that Francis- Joseph himself took command of the 
 Austrian forces. He was beaten at Magenta and 
 Solferino, and lost Lombardy. The echo of these 
 events in Austria was tremendous. In order to 
 secure domestic peace, the Emperor was compelled 
 to promise his people a new Constitution, which 
 was proclaimed on February 26, 186 1. 
 
 In 1864 the War of Schleswig-Holstein took 
 place, in which Austria supported Prussia. Simul- 
 taneously a state of siege was proclaimed in 
 Hungary, where the insurrection of Poland had 
 inspired fresh hopes of shaking off the yoke of the 
 Habsburgs. Next racial spirit sprang up again in 
 
AN UNREALIZED AMBITION 85 
 
 the remaining Italian provinces of the Empire. 
 Finally, an estrangement showed itself in the rela- 
 tions between Prussia and Austria. In 1866, 
 much against the wishes of Francis- Joseph (whose 
 reply at Villafranca in 1859 to Napoleon's sugges- 
 tions about the Rhine had been, " Your Majesty, 
 I am a German Prince !"), war was declared be- 
 tween Austria and Prussia. It was Bismarck's 
 wishes, not Francis-Joseph's, which carried the 
 day. Bismarck, indeed, was desirous of putting 
 an end, once and for all, to the ambition which 
 Francis- Joseph betrayed of adding to the Austrian 
 Imperial crown the crown also of that German 
 Empire of which the Iron Chancellor dreamed. In 
 spite of the Austrian successes* on land at Cus- 
 tozza, by sea at Lissa, both due to the strategic 
 knowledge of the Archduke Albert, the defeat of 
 Koniggratz forced Austria to submit to peace. 
 Aspirations of uniting the crown of the German 
 Empire to those of the Empire of Austria and the 
 Kingdom of Hungary on the Habsburg escutcheon 
 had to be abandoned for ever. Italy, also, profit- 
 ing by the critical situation, and once more sup- 
 ported by Napoleon III., obtained Venetia. At 
 one stroke the German Empire in the North and 
 United Italy in the South were established at the 
 expense of Austria-Hungary. 
 
 The lesson was not wasted. Francis- Joseph 
 realized, when freed from the ill-omened influence 
 
 * /.«., over the Italians, who were Prussia's allies in this 
 war. — Translator. 
 
86 THE REAL FRANCIS-JOSEPH 
 
 of his mother, that centralist principles cannot be 
 applied to an empire made up of scraps and frag- 
 ments. He had, indeed, seen the Hungarians 
 ready to unite their fortunes with those of Prussia, 
 and this was one of the reasons which most cer- 
 tainly urged him to hasten negotiations for peace. 
 
 Two consequences of the recent occurrences 
 were clear to him : firstly, the need of reforming 
 the Administration, and of making the Army fit for 
 other purposes than the parade-ground; and, 
 secondly, the necessity of conciliating Hungary. 
 With the latter object in view, he decided to 
 have himself crowned King of Hungary. The 
 ceremony took place on June 8, 1867, in the 
 cathedral of Buda. When the Primate of Hungary 
 had received the oath which Hungary had waited 
 twenty years to hear, a long cry of joy rang through 
 the vaulted roof: " Eljen a Kiraly! Eljen a 
 Kiraly !" (Long live the King !). 
 
 Finally, on December 23 of the same year the 
 " King of Hungary " signed a compromise regu- 
 lating the rights and mutual relations of the two 
 countries. The ambition of the young Francis- 
 Joseph, which was still more the ambition of his 
 mother, the Archduchess Sophia, after passing 
 through so much storm and stress, came to a 
 lamentable end. 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 THE FIRST ACT OF A TRAGEDY 
 
 Drawn up in rough array along the bank of the 
 Danube hnes of peasantry, men and women, were 
 gazing anxiously upstream. Then men, pic- 
 turesquely clad in short jackets, tight breeches, 
 and little round felt hats with turned-up brims, 
 manoeuvred among groups of women whose shawl 
 head-dresses terminated in wide stiff wings upon 
 their necks. Suddenly a cry burst forth, ran along 
 the ranks, and broke out into a roar : " Here they 
 are ! here they are !" Beating the water with a 
 wheel on either side, a steamboat came into view, 
 cutting a white trail of foam through the swirling 
 blue waters. Already could be read in shining 
 gold letters on the prow the name Francis- Joseph. 
 At a distance from the gathering of peasantry a 
 fleecy cloud of smoke shot out, pierced by a ball 
 of flame, and a loud report rent the air. A move- 
 ment was seen on board the steamer, and a 
 woman's figure, tall and slim, was observed to 
 hurry forwards to the ship's nettings. In the 
 interval between two salutes a volley of cheering 
 went up from the bank, and the little hats waved 
 
 87 
 
88 THE REAL FRANCIS- JOSEPH 
 
 in the peasants' hands. The slight figure re- 
 sponded with graceful acknowledgments. 
 
 She had been sitting in a dream, her eyes lost 
 in space, on the hurricane-deck of the Francis- 
 Joseph, but at the first sound she had leapt quickly 
 to her feet, crying : " What is happening ? What 
 is it ?" 
 
 Undisturbed in his calm repose, and without 
 ceasing to puff lazily at his huge pipe, the Duke 
 Maximilian of Bavaria replied : " They are the 
 subjects of your new Empire welcoming their 
 future Empress." 
 
 " Their respect for me is shown in rather violent 
 fashion, don't you think, father ?" 
 
 The cheers from the river-bank grew louder and 
 louder as the steamer came on. Elisabeth, whose 
 bright hair shone brighter still in the sunlight, 
 watched with amusement now the picturesque 
 scene before her eyes. The Duchess Ludovica 
 broke in : " Their cheers are for you, my daughter ; 
 you must acknowledge them." 
 
 Elisabeth, with a docility not devoid of pride, 
 bowed gracefully. On the river-bank there was 
 a perfect frenzy of joy. The Francis-Joseph 
 steamed majestically on its way, while the cries of 
 the peasants furnished a strident accompaniment 
 to the thundering bass of the cannons. 
 
 Gradually all the uproar died away in the 
 distance. 
 
 " Where are we now ?" asked Elisabeth. 
 
 " Near Linz, one of the chief towns of your new 
 
THE EMPRESS ELISABETH 
 From a portrait by Winterhalter 
 
 To face i>age is 
 
THE FIRST ACT OF A TRAGEDY 89 
 
 Empire, madame," answered the Duke Maxi- 
 milian. 
 
 His words stirred the young girl's heart, for they 
 recalled to her that romantic encounter in the park 
 at Possenhof en, and it was with a softening of her 
 voice that she replied : 
 
 " Madame ? Not yet !" 
 
 " Oh, very soon. . . ." 
 
 " Three days off," said the Duchess. " In thtee 
 days you will be Empress of Austria and Queen of 
 Hungary." 
 
 " Queen of Hungary ! I do not know why, but 
 somehow that title is dearer to me." 
 
 " Take my advice," interrupted the Duke, " and 
 don't mention that too loud in the presence of 
 your husband." 
 
 Elisabeth was about to ask why, but she stood 
 between two dreams — ^yesterday's and to-morrow's 
 — and so she suffered herself to be lulled by the 
 ship's gentle rocking, closed her eyes, and sank 
 back into delicious self-communings. 
 
 At Linz, the capital of Upper Austria, while the 
 cheering broke out again on both banks of the 
 river, a gorgeously-clad officer stepped on board. 
 It was the Emperor come to meet his fiancee, or, 
 rather, it was not the Emperor, but Francis-Joseph 
 the lover, offering his heart to the beautiful girl of 
 Possenhofen. The official welcome, the Emperor's 
 visit to the Duchess Elisabeth, was to take place 
 next day, April 22, 1854, at the gates of Vienna. 
 
 It was at some distance outside Vienna that the 
 
90 THE REAL FRANCIS-JOSEPH 
 
 steamer's journey ended and Elisabeth came 
 ashore. The first kiss which she received was that 
 of her aunt, the Archduchess Sophia, mother of 
 the Emperor — a formal, cold, and almost hostile 
 greeting. This was not the bride, it must be re- 
 membered, whom the Archduchess had chosen 
 for her son, and Elisabeth bore the blame from 
 her aunt for the disappointment for which Francis- 
 Joseph was alone responsible. 
 
 The young girl was conducted in very simple 
 state to the " Theresianum," a building used at 
 the time as a high-school for the aristocracy. She 
 spent there the day of the 22nd and the following 
 night. Next day she made her state entry into 
 Vienna. The city was all gay with flags, banners, 
 hangings, floral decorations, and triumphal arches. 
 As she crossed a bridge she was told that it bore 
 her name, and a deputation from the Municipality 
 came forward to offer it to her formally. To-day 
 the Empress is dead, and the bridge has been pulled 
 down. The same night, stUl further in her honour, 
 St. Stephen's Tower and all the churches of Vienna 
 were illuminated. On the evening of the 24th 
 the marriage was celebrated with no great display, 
 for it is only at middle-class weddings in Vienna 
 that there is much display. The ceremony took 
 place at the Church of St. Augustine, and the 
 blessing of the Imperial pair was delivered by 
 Monseigneur von Rauscher, Prince-Archbishop of 
 Vienna, the former professor of philosophy and 
 morals to the heir-apparent. 
 
THE FIRST ACT OF A TRAGEDY 91 
 
 If the ceremony was devoid of pomp, it was 
 also because it was the desire of the young couple, 
 and especially of Elisabeth. The marriage took 
 place at a time of great scarcity — it might almost 
 be said of famine. Francis- Joseph and Elisabeth 
 presented from their privy purse £16,000 for the 
 purchase of corn for the starving peasants, and it 
 was further decided to expend on the sufferers 
 the money intended for the public festivities. 
 The comparative simplicity of the wedding was 
 due to this even more than to the wish to conform 
 to Viennese aristocratic prejudices. 
 
 On the night of the marriage, while rejoicings 
 continued throughout Vienna outside the Hofburg, 
 the bridegroom and bride left their capital for a 
 trip through Moravia and Bohemia. There is 
 nothing to be told about the details of their 
 journey. No untoward incident seems to have 
 been recorded, and all appeared to pass off fairly 
 satisfactorily, except that there was too much 
 ceremony for Elisabeth's liking. It is, however, 
 definitely known that, after their return to Vienna, 
 grounds for disagreement between husband and 
 wife became manifest. The unhappy Empress- 
 child was setting her feet upon the first steps of 
 her Calvary. We must be just to Francis- Joseph, 
 and admit that it was not so much he who drove 
 her along this dolorous way as the Archduchess 
 Sophia and the crowd of vassal courtiers of the 
 Emperor's mother. 
 
 It must be remembered that the age of this 
 
92 THE REAL FRANCIS- JOSEPH 
 
 proud, haughty, and clever girl was but seven- 
 teen when the Imperial crown was put upon her 
 head. She had, therefore, no experience to fit her 
 to struggle against petty Court conspiracy, and, 
 what was worse, the cruel Machiavellian designs of 
 her mother-in-law. Instead of coming forward 
 and making known the desires of her heart, she 
 took refuge in an attitude of hostile dignity, to 
 which both pride and timidity contributed their 
 shares. Love had brought her to Francis- Joseph, 
 and it was the realization of this love, above all, 
 which she innocently craved. Her hopes were for 
 charming sensations and romantic satisfactions, 
 and she thought that the story which had opened 
 so poetically would continue like a real fairy-story. 
 The truth was soon borne in upon her, in the 
 harshest manner, that fairy-stories cannot be 
 expected to materialize. On the very threshold of 
 her life as woman and Sovereign she was met by 
 disillusion. She had believed at Possenhofen, and 
 even as late as on the boat which carried her to 
 the capital, that she was about to become a Queen 
 — was it for this reason that she vaguely preferred 
 Hungary, which offered her this title, to Austria, 
 with her austerer title of Empress ? — a little golden- 
 haired Queen, beautiful and adored. She was a 
 Queen in name, but she was bound to recognize 
 that the Archduchess Sophia meant to keep the 
 power. As for love, it took her no long time to 
 discover that this same Archduchess, although 
 she had become her " mother," was doing her 
 
THE FIRST ACT OF A TRAGEDY 93 
 
 best to rob her of the fickle heart of Francis- 
 Joseph. 
 
 Scarcely had she returned from the wedding 
 journey — the journey which she had hoped would 
 be so sweet and tender, and had found so full of 
 official etiquette — when annoyances began to be 
 hers at the Hofburg. The whole Court, taking its 
 cue from the Archduchess Sophia, learnt to seize 
 every opportunity to vex, wound, and humiliate 
 her, whom they were already calling, on the initia- 
 tive of the Archduchess, " the little goose from 
 Bavaria." Never was a name less justified, though 
 it pleased the shallow, carping fancy of the 
 courtiers. Poor Elisabeth, with her simple middle- 
 class upbringing, could not take long to feel the 
 effects of the ill-will of those around her. As soon 
 as she opened her mouth or made a gesture, she 
 heard ironical whispers around her, and was 
 greeted with polite sneering smiles. And, then, 
 there was the terrible Spanish etiquette of the 
 Austrian Court, the full rigour of which she was 
 by no means allowed to escape. 
 
 A few hours after her return from the Moravian 
 trip she wished to have a moment alone with her 
 husband, and left her apartments to go to the 
 private study in which she knew she would find 
 Francis- Joseph by himself. In the antechamber 
 an usher stopped her, and, in the presence of 
 several courtiers who had followed her, respect- 
 fully barred the way to the door of the Imperial 
 study. 
 
94 THE REAL FRANCIS- JOSEPH 
 
 What did he mean ? she inquired. She was going 
 to her husband, and expected to be allowed to pass. 
 
 " I beg Your Majesty's pardon," said the usher, 
 with a ceremonious bow, "but Your Majesty 
 cannot enter into the presence of His Majesty the 
 Emperor without being announced." 
 
 As Elisabeth protested and tried to pass on, a 
 gentleman-in-waiting came forward and corrobo- 
 rated what the usher had said. Vexed, ashamed, 
 and hurt, the young Empress was compelled to 
 wait, feeling all the while that the courtiers were 
 laughing at her, until she had been announced and 
 could enter at last her husband's room. She 
 complained bitterly to him, but the Emperor also 
 took the other side, and defended the necessities 
 of " etiquette." In the evening, when news of the 
 affair had spread over the palace, the girl-Queen 
 had to submit to a disguised lecture from her 
 mother-in-law, who requested her, in the presence 
 of the whole Court, to conform herself hencefor- 
 ward to the customs of the household. 
 
 This etiquette it was which first caused her the 
 most suffering, and along this narrow path she was 
 made to walk slowly toward the broad road of 
 sorrow which was to be hers, without relief, until 
 that most tragic of all days when she died. 
 
 This etiquette it was which always stood in the 
 way of her wishes and her freedom. She loved to 
 jump on horseback, and, giving reins to her steed, 
 to take long solitary rides over the country ; but 
 it was objected that she could not go out by herself. 
 
THE FIRST ACT OF A TRAGEDY 95 
 
 and that she must behave in seemly and orderly 
 fashion when she rode. She was passionately 
 devoted to walking, but the Empress, she was 
 told, was not at liberty to indulge in such vulgar 
 occupations. Then, since she adored her husband, 
 she would have liked to be alone with him at least 
 at meal-times ; again etiquette forbade, and the 
 table was never without the presence of officials. 
 
 It was a case of etiquette, etiquette, and always 
 etiquette ! This was the petty means, torturing 
 and cruel, which the Archduchess Sophia employed 
 from the very first to crush any possible resistance 
 on the part of her daughter-in-law. The effects of 
 her system were well foreseen by this Bavarian 
 Princess of the Italian school. Too proud to com- 
 plain, too inexperienced to resist, the unhappy 
 Empress drew back into herself, and rebelled no 
 more. The Archduchess Sophia thus attained her 
 object, which was to maintain the ascendancy 
 which she exercised over Francis- Joseph by every 
 means in her power. If she had consented to her 
 husband's renunciation of the crown in favour of 
 his son, the reason was obvious. As wife of an 
 old and enfeebled Emperor, her chances were 
 slight of remaining Empress long, and her son 
 would grow up, assume authority, and reach the. 
 throne at an age when the spirit of a Prince is less 
 amenable to a mother's control. On the other 
 hand, as mother of an eighteen-year-old Emperor, 
 her ascendancy was preserved, and she ruled under 
 the shadows of her son's crown. She had there- 
 
96 THE REAL FRANCIS- JOSEPH 
 
 fore urged her husband to waive his rights, instead 
 of keeping him on the throne which normally 
 would have been his. Her calculations were 
 correct, as the first years of Francis-Joseph's reign 
 proved. Under the direct inspiration of the 
 Jesuits, whose tool she always was, and sheltered 
 behind a son whose absorption in the pursuit of 
 pleasure she had encouraged, she was the sole 
 director of Austria-Hungary. Only once did this 
 son, so uncontrollable by others, but so pliant in 
 her clever hands, break away from the dominion 
 of his mother. This, as we know, was when he 
 married. The Archduchess had chosen for him 
 the Princess Sophia, a sweet, characterless creature, 
 who inspired him with no love ; and he had 
 brought to her in Vienna the Princess Elisabeth, 
 an intelligent, liberal-minded woman, whom he 
 adored. The Archduchess trembled, but soon re- 
 covered herself, and prepared a terrible plan of 
 campaign against the enemy. The first part of this 
 plan at least succeeded, for after a few months 
 the young Empress abandoned aJl resistance. 
 
 This very lack of resistance, taking refuge in a 
 haughty silence, was turned to account by the 
 Archduchess, when, calling her an insignificant 
 " little goose," she proceeded to the second part 
 of her plan, which was to separate the Imperial 
 couple. Had Elisabeth at the beginning, refusing 
 to be stopped by the first obstacle, confided in her 
 husband, the great unhappiness of her life might 
 doubtless have been avoided, or at least very much 
 
THE FIRST ACT OF A TRAGEDY 97 
 
 alleviated. Had she complained of the thousand 
 little wounds to her pride which she suffered at 
 Court and in the compulsory daily intercourse with 
 her mother-in-law, it is probable that Francis- 
 Joseph, with the aid of his love, would have sought 
 and found, in conjunction with her, a method 
 of protecting this poor little Fairy Springtime 
 both against the courtiers and against his own 
 mother. 
 
 Elisabeth preferred to revenge herself on her 
 foes by so marked a disdain that, instead of helping 
 her, it became a weapon for them to use in injuring 
 her in her husband's estimation. Although it was 
 ghe who had cause to complain of them, it was they 
 who actually complained of her. 
 
 To explain satisfactorily the reasons of the pro- 
 found and rapid disagreement between two people 
 who had married for love, it is necessary to touch 
 on a delicate question, which, so far from being 
 peculiar to this case, arises in many apparently 
 happy unions, and turns their promise to bitter 
 ashes, owing to the difference in education be- 
 tween the young of the two sexes. Like almost all ' 
 girls of her day (and like most girls of to-day also, 
 which is no credit to us !), EUsabeth had been 
 brought up in total ignorance of life and of the 
 material side of love, which to her was a poetical, 
 romantic, and purely ideal affair. She asked of 
 love, in fact, its most difficult gift. Moreover, as 
 was natural, this very attitude produced, in the 
 depths of her innocent heart, a seed of jealousy 
 
 7 
 
98 THE REAL FRANCIS- JOSEPH 
 
 which was ready to grow rapidly under the stimu- 
 lus of her first sentimental disillusionment. 
 Francis- Joseph, on the other hand, more than 
 most young men of his day and ours, thanks to 
 his mother's Machiavellian policy, had only too 
 thorough an acquaintance with love's material 
 aspect. He knew too much and she too little, and 
 the terms on which they met were not equal. His 
 desires asked of the young girl who had awakened 
 his passion on their first encounter in the park of 
 Possenhofen something which she was unable to 
 give him, while in his love-making there was not 
 enough of the charming quality to make him a 
 good teacher of her youthful and inexperienced 
 mind. Maxriage to him was a disappointment, to 
 her an awakening. Still, she loved him, with such 
 love as was possible to the fresh and innocent heart 
 which she had surrendered to him ; and in this 
 heart, unsatisfied and craving for the love which 
 could not be hers, jealousy sprang up. 
 
 Once more the Archduchess Sophia, a woman 
 of the world in every respect, was on the watch 
 to profit by the least misunderstanding, and to 
 strain it to the breaking-point. As she had in the 
 bright light of the throne-room waited for her 
 daughter-in-law's blunders against etiquette, so 
 she spied out, in the shadow of the antechamber, 
 her shortcomings in love. She looked for the 
 auspicious moment, which could not be long 
 delayed ; and as soon as she felt her son was ready, 
 she threw in his way those temptations which he 
 
THE FIRST ACT OF A TRAGEDY 99 
 
 had never been wont to resist. As a young man, 
 she had encouraged him in intrigue ; as a husband, 
 she urged him to infidelity. 
 
 A certain mystery envelops the first steps in the 
 plot. The mother wished her son to return gradu- 
 ally to the habits of his bachelor days, and to such 
 an extent as to put him beyond the influence of 
 EHsabeth's tears when she should discover the 
 truth. A city and a court like those of Vienna 
 could not fail to provide more than sufficient dis- 
 tractions for a pleasing and gallant young Emperor 
 like Francis-Joseph. The maternal task, there- 
 fore, if we may use such a phrase here, was met 
 by no difficulties of accomplishment. It must be 
 admitted that the son aided the mother, who soon 
 guessed that he was ripe for his first marital in- 
 fidelity. There was much talk in high Viennese 
 society at this time — it was January, 1855, when 
 the young Empress was first pregnant — of a very 
 beautiful Italian Countess, as striking a brunette 
 as Elisabeth was sweetly fair. Whence she had 
 come and how she had succeeded in getting an 
 introduction in the most exclusive houses in 
 Vienna nobody could say. All that was known 
 about her was her charm, which was irresistible. 
 As to the part played in the story by the Arch- 
 duchess Sophia, evidence is again lacking. Only 
 this is certain, that, while Elisabeth's condition 
 confined her to her private apartments and her 
 mother-in-law presided officially over entertain- 
 ments at the Hofburg, the Italian lady appeared 
 
 7—2 
 
100 THE REAL FRANCIS- JOSEPH 
 
 at a grand Court ball. Naturally the beautiful 
 stranger was introduced to Francis- Joseph, who 
 devoted himself so nearly exclusively to her during 
 the whole evening that next day semi-ofificial 
 report assigned a favourite to the Emperor — the 
 first since his marriage. As was to be expected, 
 and as, moreover, the Archduchess Sophia antici- 
 pated, it did not take long for the news to reach the 
 poor Empress. Within twenty-four hours some 
 kind person, with one of those tongues with which 
 kind persons are always gifted, informed her 
 mistress, in honeyed tones and with countless 
 reticences which made the communication still 
 more grievous, how peculiarly attentive Francis- 
 Joseph had been to the beautiful Italian at the 
 Imperial ball. So violent was Elisabeth's sorrow 
 that she fell ill, and had to keep her bed for nearly a 
 week. She did not abandon, however, her attitude 
 of silent dignity, the cause of so many pains to her. 
 
 The day when she rose from her bed one of her 
 ladies of the bedchamber was helping her to dress 
 in her favourite boudoir. She was very sad, and 
 paid little attention to the echoes of the Court 
 tittle-tattle which her lady was retailing to her. 
 
 " Have you heard the great news, madame ? It 
 is only one day old." 
 
 " What great news ?" 
 
 " Her Imperial Highness the Archduchess 
 Sophia has a new maid of honour." 
 
 " Yes ? No doubt she wanted one." 
 
 " She's a real jewel, as far as beauty goes. But 
 
THE FIRST ACT OF A TRAGEDY loi 
 
 I think you have not seen her yet, though she is 
 the one topic of conversation in Vienna." 
 
 " And who is this perfect jewel ?" 
 
 " The famous Italian Countess." 
 
 The Empress swayed heavily against her lady, 
 on the point of faUing ; but she had strength 
 enough to say : 
 
 " The Italian woman ? That adventuress ?" 
 
 Elisabeth was so pale that the other was 
 about to call for assistance, when, crying, " No, 
 no, it's no good — but this must not be, this cannot 
 be !" the Empress raised herself with a violent 
 effort, took a few steps toward the door, and, 
 without a word, fell fainting on the floor. 
 
 Once more she was put to bed, where she re- 
 mained several days in so critical a state that fears 
 were entertained for her life and that of her unborn 
 child. A few weeks later, however, on March 5, 
 1855, she gave birth to a daughter, who received 
 the name of Sophia. The young mother was only 
 eighteen, but already she had shed all the tears of 
 which her heart was capable. 
 
 Elisabeth must assuredly have been born under 
 an evil star. With almost all women motherhood 
 is followed by a lofty and perfect joy, which is 
 really the pride of the flesh over the new lease of 
 life which it has obtained. The young Empress 
 found in her child-bearing not happiness, but 
 disillusion. It is ordained that Queens shall have 
 no right to the same glad transports as other 
 women. They are, more than any others, man's 
 
102 THE REAL FRANCIS- JOSEPH 
 
 bondwomen, and must offer to their lords offspring 
 made in their image before they receive the thanks 
 which are bestowed on the majority of mothers 
 in recompense for the sufferings of childbirth. 
 Now it was not a male child with which Elisabeth 
 presented her husband, and she realized that the 
 little one born of her would drive still farther from 
 her the man whom she continued to love ; while 
 a son and heir — so she hoped, at least — would 
 have brought him back, loving and repentant, to 
 the fruitful beauty of her young motherhood. 
 Still, maternity in the majority of cases is the 
 strongest of aU sentiments, and Elisabeth was no 
 exception to the general rule. She sought refuge 
 in an intense love for her child, a feeling which 
 was all the more necessary to her since the Em- 
 peror, in his disappointment at the sex of the 
 infant, drifted farther and farther away from her. 
 Yet her refuge in this love, in spite of all her 
 efforts to cling to it with fast-shut eyes, could not 
 bring back peace to her heart. A terrible anguish 
 gained possession of her, and she beheved that 
 the husband to whom she had failed to give a son 
 would divorce her, as Napoleon had once divorced 
 Josephine. The idea haunted her — haunted her 
 so strongly that one day, in her imperious need of 
 revealing her sufferings, she poured out her un- 
 happiness to the person who was sitting with her 
 at the moment, who happened to be her mother, 
 the Duchess Ludovica. The middle-class Duchess, 
 an easy-going, methodical woman, more fitted for 
 
THE FIRST ACT OF A TRAGEDY 103 
 
 making pastry than for calming a crisis of the 
 soul, understood nothing of what her nerve-sick 
 daughter told her. Instead of soothing Elisa- 
 beth, she scolded her, and finally addressed her in 
 some such terms as these : 
 
 " What are you complaining about ? What 
 would you say if you were in my place ? I have 
 always lived in an almost precarious position, and 
 had to count every penny to make both ends meet. 
 Your father left me the work of keeping up the 
 house, but never let me express an opinion. I 
 was at once his cashier and his chattel. I never 
 got anything out of it. Still, I was not unhappy, 
 and I have no grievance against either your father 
 or life." 
 
 EUsabeth tried to explain to her mother with 
 what a psychological crisis she was struggling, and 
 told her, too, the daily annoyances with which she 
 had to put up, and how she suffered from the con- 
 stant ill-will of the Archduchess Sophia. This let 
 loose the tempest. Ludovica would not at any 
 price come into conflict with her sister Sophia. 
 She remembered her girlhood, and knew that she 
 was bound to be defeated in the struggle. She 
 declared that it was aU a case of pure imagination. 
 
 " As for me," she continued, " I consider that 
 you have reached the height of human happiness 
 in becoming Empress. Just think of it — for a 
 little Bavarian Princess, with no dowry ; it is a 
 splendid dream ! You are free ; you are sur- 
 rounded by every possible luxury, and I cannot 
 
104 THE REAL FRANCIS- JOSEPH 
 
 understand why you cannot bow to the necessities 
 of your position. People must learn to grow 
 accustomed to their surroundings, and it gives me 
 great pain to see you trying to pose, without a 
 real reason, as a saint and martyr. Reflect upon 
 it, and I hope that you will see that the faults 
 must lie — partly, at least — on your side. You 
 know that in life we must make compromises." 
 
 The Duchess got up, and, in response to her 
 daughter's " You are right, mother ; I will reflect 
 upon it," rewarded her with a kiss on the forehead, 
 saying : 
 
 " That's right ; I am pleased to see you growing 
 reasonable." 
 
 The door shut behind the Duchess, and as soon 
 as she was left to herself, the Empress, " grown 
 reasonable," burst into sobs. 
 
 Yet Elisabeth was but on the edge of the inex- 
 tricable thickets of her life, whose cruel thorns 
 tore her heart at every step forward. One affair, 
 above all others, forced upon her the hateful diffi- 
 culties of her position. When the ceremonies 
 after childbirth had been concluded and she re- 
 appeared publicly in the Hofburg, she discovered 
 that not only had the Emperor a favourite, but 
 the Court had also adopted one for her. Count 
 L., a fine-looking young hussar officer, popular 
 in the smoking-room, and an indefatigable dancer, 
 was much appreciated by the Archduchess Sophia, 
 and, of course, by the Emperor. He must, in 
 consequence, have met with a cool reception, if 
 
THE FIRST ACT OF A TRAGEDY 105 
 
 nothing worse, from the young Empress, but was 
 adroit enough to succeed in the end in gaining her 
 confidence. He showed her attention, amiability, 
 and kindness, but never gallantry, thus puttiiig 
 her suspicions at rest, and, being in addition a 
 perfect horseman, was soon accepted by his beau- 
 tiful Empress, who failed to see her mother-in- 
 law's hand in all this scheming, as the usual com- 
 panion in her rides, which for the moment the 
 Archduchess Sophia ceased to find reprehensible. 
 Gradually her need of someone to talk to, which 
 even her mother so unkindly denied, drove the 
 Empress to drop her fatiguing mask of reserve 
 for the benefit of her attendant cavalier, and she 
 did not hesitate to take him to some extent into 
 her confidence. Elisabeth was both marvellously 
 beautiful and unhappy. The role of consoler was 
 an agreeable one, and Count L. knew that in 
 his attempt he would not be abandoned by the 
 Emperor's mother at least. So, one summer's 
 night, while there was a small gathering at the 
 chateau of Schonbrunn, the Empress had come 
 out on the terrace by herself to drink in the fresh 
 night air, when Count L., following her, sud- 
 denly threw himself at her feet and made a violent 
 declaration of love to her. Elisabeth drew back, 
 and, when he seized her hands, broke away from 
 him and re-entered the house without a word. 
 With her usual habit of silence, she thought that 
 disdain would be sufficient. Nevertheless, when 
 she got back to her apartments she told her maid 
 
io6 THE REAL FRANCIS- JOSEPH 
 
 of honour, Countess X., what had happened. 
 The latter, misunderstanding the Empress's tone, 
 candidly confessed that a beautiful woman could 
 but be pleased at so bold a tribute to her charms. 
 Elisabeth was thunderstruck, but realized at once 
 that in such ^ society an attitude of disdain was 
 not enough. She sought Francis- Joseph without 
 delay, and informed him of the affair, adding that 
 she demanded the immediate dismissal of the 
 insolent Count. Although very much annoyed, as 
 he knew that his mother woiild be displeased, 
 Francis- Joseph granted the Empress's request. 
 Next day, in obedience to an Imperial command. 
 Count L. left the Court to go on. distant gar- 
 rison duty. Sure of having done her duty, and 
 all the more so because the young hussar officer 
 had not entirely failed to touch her desolate heart, 
 Elisabeth regained, with her proud carriage, a 
 greater self-confidence. Her action must certainly 
 meet with approval. But a fresh disillusionment 
 awaited her. Two dalys later she received a visit 
 from the Archduchess Sophia, who, without any 
 preamble, proceeded straight to the object of 
 her call. 
 
 " I have come, my daughter," she said, " to 
 express to you my great displeasure." 
 
 " What have I done, my mother, to vex you so 
 much ?" 
 
 "You have compelled the Emperor to banish from 
 the Court an officer with a great future before him." 
 
 " Count L. ?" 
 
THE FIRST ACT OF A TRAGEDY 107 
 
 " Yes ; Count L. Do you know that you 
 have ruined his career ?" 
 
 " But, my mother, you are aware that he grossly 
 insulted me." 
 
 The Archduchess began to laugh. Like the 
 maid of honour, she could not see why a woman 
 should consider herself insulted by a tribute to 
 her charms. She explained shortly to her daughter- 
 in-law that she looked upon her attitude as " ab- 
 surd and naive," and gave her to understand that 
 if a similar incident occurred in the future she 
 must not make a scene over " such follies." 
 
 The Archduchess Sophia's scheme had failed, 
 and she proceeded to look about for another way 
 of compromising her daughter-in-law, so as to 
 gain a surer advantage over her when circum- 
 stances shotdd favour her. At a Court ball the 
 following winter in Vienna a group of young officers 
 were amusing themselves by making spiteful 
 remarks about all the women present. The 
 Empress's name came up. 
 
 " Have you noticed what a horror our fair 
 Elisabeth has of low necks ?" asked one. 
 
 " Yes, that's true. Her baU-dresses are almost 
 as high as a charity schoolgirl's." 
 
 " So the eye has no distractions to take it 
 away from the golden masses of her hair." 
 
 " Ah, poet ! No, the truth is more simple. 
 That pretty corsage is like a balloon : there is 
 nothing but air inside !" 
 
 An officer of the Imperial Guard, standing in 
 
io8 THE REAL FRANCIS- JOSEPH 
 
 the group, had been showing signs of impatience, 
 and now interrupted the wretched chatterer with 
 a command to be quiet. A duel followed, in which 
 the offender was wounded. It is easy to under- 
 stand what capital the Archduchess Sophia and 
 all the Court .made of this incident. This was 
 quite sufficient to invent a lover for the " little 
 Bavarian goose." Elisabeth was deeply hurt by 
 the insinuation, but once again, after the failure 
 of her speech, she shut herself up within herself 
 and uttered not a word. Tortured by jealousy, 
 outraged in her modesty, and morally isolated 
 from all around her, she began to show a suUen 
 face to Francis- Joseph, and to assume what the 
 Duchess Ludovica had called a martyr's pose. 
 The Emperor in consequence drifted entirely away 
 from her. A feverish spasm of maternal love 
 seized on her, in which she sought refuge for her 
 nerves. But Fate was cruel to her, and at the 
 age of two the infant Sophia succumbed to an 
 attack of smallpox. 
 
 Amid the merrily racing waters of the Viennese 
 Court, Elisabeth's heart had no longer even a spar 
 to save it from the sorrow in the depths beneath. 
 Robbed of her living husband, of her dead child, 
 and of all her illusions, she was left in tremendous 
 solitude in the midst of the Empire upon which 
 three years before she had entered, in all the golden 
 glory of her sixteen years, borne over the gentle 
 waves of the Danube amid the ringing cheers of a 
 whole nation. 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 IMPERIAL AMUSEMENTS 
 
 Whilst Elisabeth sadly shivered in the gloom 
 of the Hofburg or in the park at Schonbrunn, 
 Francis- Joseph divided the time which was not 
 taken up by public affairs between the two 
 pleasures which seemed particularly dear to his 
 heart — sport and the theatre. There was a 
 common appeal to him, indeed, in the two pas- 
 times, for both gave his senses the free play which 
 they craved. Sport was for him a means of bodUy 
 expansion, bringing with it a fierce and violent 
 satisfaction. The theatre, not attracting him on 
 the artistic, Uterary, or intellectual side, raised 
 his spirits, and he was not above interesting him- 
 self in the interpreters of the roles played before 
 him. 
 
 Sport calls for attention first. The Habsburgs 
 from the remotest days had been enthusiastic 
 disciples of Nimrod. Consequently Francis- 
 Joseph, champion of tradition, could not but 
 conform to the ways of his ancestors. Very early 
 in life, with the same kind of stirring of the heart 
 which he experienced in war in the Italian cam- 
 log 
 
IMPERIAL AMUSEMENTS m 
 
 stiff and starched figure in full General's uniform, 
 surrounded by the pomp of Empire, but a gay and 
 smiling sportsman in the costume of the Tyrol, 
 with bare knees showing between his leather 
 breeches and his coarse knitted stockings, and his 
 head covered with a little green felt hat adorned 
 with a tuft of chamois-hide or a black-cock's 
 plume. 
 
 It would be a mistake to suppose that Francis- 
 Joseph's good-fellowship was genuine. If such a 
 quality did by chance exist somewhere in him, 
 his mother, and the tutors chosen by her, the 
 Bombelles and the Rauschers, had devoted them- 
 selves so sedulously to repress it that only the 
 slightest traces of it remained. In the Alpine 
 districts a whole string of legends has been invented 
 and passed on from mouth to mouth, designed 
 to portray His Imperial and Royal Majesty as a 
 man of simple character, modest demeanour, big 
 heart, and witty good-fellowship — all character- 
 istics which particularly appeal to the inhabitants 
 of these regions. It would be waste of time to 
 repeat these legends, which give an entirely false 
 picture of the Emperor. The real truth is shown 
 in an authentic story now about to be told, which 
 also explains shortly how the " good-fellowship " 
 of Francis- Joseph came to be believed when, 
 actually, nothing was so dear to him as the un- 
 compromising exercise of his authority. 
 
 In 1852, three years after his accession to the 
 throne, the Emperor was out with his gun on the 
 
112 THE REAL FRANCIS- JOSEPH 
 
 outskirts of Miirzzuschlag, near Vienna, where he 
 owned some shooting in the middle of other pre- 
 serves. As was his wont, he was alone, having 
 sent away . even his bearer so as to get the full 
 egotistical enjoyment out of his favourite pursuit. 
 In his excitement he failed to notice that he had 
 crossed the Boundary of the Imperial property. 
 Suddenly, a few paces ahead of him, a magnificent 
 pheasant got up. Francis- Joseph took aim, and 
 was about to fire, when a loud voice broke upon his 
 ears : " If you shoot that pheasant, I'll put a chager 
 of lead through you !" 
 
 Lowering his gun and scarlet with anger, 
 Francis- Joseph asked who it was who dared to 
 speak to him thus. 
 
 " I do, my young fellow," said a big man in 
 shooting costume, as he emerged from the wood. 
 
 Francis- Joseph was on the point of revealing 
 that he was the Emperor, but restrained himself 
 in rueful amusement over the unforeseen incident. 
 But it was with his customary haughtiness that 
 he replied : 
 
 " What have I done wrong, my fine fellow ?" 
 
 " Don't take the trouble to be humorous, or you 
 wiU tire yourself. You are shooting on my property, 
 that is all, and you are well aware of the fact. 
 Come on now, foUow me to the house, where I will 
 write out my statement of complaint. And, mean- 
 while, give me your gun." 
 
 " Suppose I decline ?" 
 
 " If you decline, all is quite simple. You come 
 
IMPERIAL AMUSEMENTS 113 
 
 from the Imperial preserves, and I shall complain 
 to the Emperor." 
 
 Francis-Joseph could not check a smile as he 
 asked : " Are you acquainted with the Emperor ?" 
 
 " No, I am not ; but you need not look clever. 
 His Majesty is fond of shooting, and he cannot 
 refuse to be just. He will understand my posi- 
 tion." 
 
 " Very well. You are right, and I admit that I 
 am to blame." 
 
 The Emperor handed over his gun, and followed 
 the surly sportsman without further talk to the 
 house, or rather the farm. 
 
 Now this country gentleman was Baron N., 
 and in the hall they met the Baroness, a sweet 
 and gracious young lady, who, for all her fragile 
 appearance, seemed to dominate her big burly 
 husband. The Baron told her what had happened, 
 as he led the way to his room. The young Em- 
 peror assumed his most winning air, while he con- 
 strained his handsome features to wear a submis- 
 sive, pleading, and sorrowful look. The lady of 
 the house was not proof against these wiles, and 
 when Francis-Joseph had extenuated his mistake, 
 sapng that he had sinned through ignorance and 
 his devotion to sport, she intervened to ask that 
 he might be forgiven. The Baron held out until 
 she begged him, in a soft, musical voice, not to 
 refuse her request. Then he caught her in his 
 arms, and in spite of her embarrassed struggles 
 planted a sounding kiss upon her neck, and, turning 
 
 8 
 
114 THE REAL FRANCIS- JOSEPH 
 
 to his prisoner, said, with a loud clumsy laugh : 
 " You ought to thank Heaven, young man, that 
 the Baroness presented me with a son only three 
 weeks ago. But for that you wouldn't get off. 
 Shake hands now." 
 
 Francis- J q^eph put his hand into the Baron's 
 great horny fist, and peace was declared. The 
 Baron proposing a drink to show that no ill-feeling 
 remained, a move was made to the dining-room. 
 As the glasses chinked, tongues became looser, and 
 after a long talk the Emperor (who had made 
 himself out to be an officer in the Imperial Guard), 
 learning that the baptism of the son and heir was 
 to take place in fifteen days' time, offered to be 
 the godfather. The offer was accepted with good- 
 will, and as soon as the young sportsman had taken 
 his departure the little house rang with praises 
 of his genteel manners and unaffected affability. 
 
 This estimate was doomed to be soon upset. 
 On the day of the baptism there was a gathering 
 at the farm-house of all the N.'s family and 
 friends. They were waiting for the promised god- 
 father, when, preceded by the Imperial outriders, 
 a state coach drove up to the door. The young 
 sportsman got out in full General's uniform, fol- 
 lowed by two aides-de-camp, while a footman 
 announced " His Majesty the Emperor !" The 
 confusion of the Baron and Baroness can be 
 imagined. Had he now been friendly and natural, 
 Francis- Joseph could have changed their embar- 
 rassment into gladness ; but he took good care not 
 
IMPERIAL^AMUSEMENTS 115 
 
 to, and did his best during his visit to increase 
 his poor hosts' trouble. To give just the finishing 
 touch to the gentleman farmer's discomfort, he 
 actually reminded him, before aU the company, of 
 his threat to put a charge of lead through him, and 
 of his declaration that if the gun were not handed 
 over to him at once he would complain to the 
 Emperor. 
 
 It is certain that Baron N., who had been 
 a devoted subject to the unknown Francis- Joseph, 
 whom he had only seen in that pleasing aspect 
 in which he showed himself to the mountain 
 peasantry, became his enemy from the day when 
 he realized that the seeming good-fellowship was 
 only a mask over a haughty and offensive arro- 
 gance. 
 
 Some of the mountaineers, too, and one of them 
 in particular, made a still more rude discovery 
 of the truth. During the war with Prussia in 
 1866, while the Austrian armies were being 
 decimated at the Imperial whim, and the country, 
 in consequence of this same infatuation of the 
 Emperor, was passing through a terrible domestic 
 crisis, there was a grand battue organized by the 
 Court in the Styrian forests, in which the Emperor, 
 the members of the Imperial family, and all their 
 suites took part. For several days an astounding 
 quantity of game was slaughtered, and the day's 
 successes were celebrated at night in the most 
 uproarious fashion, with floods of champagne, at 
 the Styrian shooting-box. 
 
 8-2 
 
ii6 THE REAL FRANCIS- JOSEPH 
 
 One morning Francis-Joseph, wearied of a kind 
 of sport which was not at all to his taste, escaped 
 from the rest of the party, and, with his gun under 
 his arm and his pipe between his teeth, followed 
 a little pathway through the wood. There was 
 but one thing to vex his soul : he had no light for 
 his pipe. A faint smell of tobacco smoke caught 
 his envious nostrils, and led him to the bank of a 
 rushing streamlet which turned the waterwheel of 
 a mechanical saw-mill. An old man was in 
 charge, who sat smoking over his work. The 
 Emperor called to him sharply, and asked for a 
 light. The old man did not stir until Francis- 
 Joseph in annoyance stepped up to him and rapped 
 him on the shoulder, repeating his request, or 
 rather his command. The smoker then struck a 
 light with his tinder-box, held it out to the Em- 
 peror, received it back, put it out, stowed the box 
 in his pocket again, and returned to his job without 
 uttering a word. The Emperor, whose curiosity 
 was aroused, began to make himself more agree- 
 able. Assuming the familiar pose which he could 
 adopt on occasions, he seated himself on a tree- 
 stump, and began to question the old man about 
 his work. But the same silence continued. 
 
 " Oh, so that saw of yours has cut off your 
 tongue, you old blockhead !" said the Emperor 
 at last, as he got up. 
 
 The old man rose in his turn, and measuring his 
 interlocutor from head to foot, let drop these words : 
 
 " From your tone, I see that you belong to the 
 
IMPERIAL AMUSEMENTS 117 
 
 Imperial shooting-party. Perhaps you are even 
 an Imperial huntsman ?" 
 i am. 
 
 " Well, I don't want to have anything to do 
 with people who amuse themselves and get drunk, 
 while the poor people are toiling and starving to 
 death to pay for the soldiers whom it is the Em- 
 peror's pleasure to have killed on the battle-field." 
 
 Francis- Joseph turned terribly white. It was 
 the first time that anyone had dared to tell him 
 so brutal a truth. It was the first time that he 
 had heard " the voice of his people," and its 
 resounding tone was doubtless unpleasant to the 
 man who, a few days previously, had spoken in a 
 military order of the day about the exalted duty 
 of getting killed for one's Emperor. He seized 
 the rash old man's arm as he was about to turn 
 his back on him, and, standing face to face with 
 him, demanded in a furious voice whether he knew 
 to whom he was talking. 
 
 " No ; but I don't care who it is." 
 
 " It is your Emperor who is before you." 
 
 He expected the old workman to collapse, but 
 it was a flash of anger which lighted up his eyes 
 as he replied : 
 
 " If you are really the Emperor, I am glad of it, 
 for whatever may happen to me, at least I have 
 been able before I die to tell you what I think, and 
 what many think with me." 
 
 Pale with wrath, the Emperor shook his fist at 
 the insolent speaker, and then turned his back on 
 
ii8 THE REAL FRANCIS- JOSEPH 
 
 him and plunged into the forest. Next day the 
 old man, an honest and conscientious labourer, 
 who had nothing but his work to live upon, was 
 brutally dismissed by the owner of the saw-mill at 
 the Emperor's request. 
 
 Another story shows Francis- Joseph in a dif- 
 ferent light, it must be admitted — shows him pas- 
 sionate, violent, and imperious, yet at least just 
 upon reflection. But (and this " but " is of some 
 importance, it will be seen) the incident was of a 
 different character, and the Emperor's justice was 
 rather the outcome of shrewd calculation than the 
 prompting of simple good-heartedness. 
 
 One Whit-Monday, on a clear and surmy spring 
 day, Francis- Joseph left Vienna at early dawn to 
 shoot at Miirzzuschlag. He was to be back the 
 same night, and the order had been given to the 
 station-master at Miirzzuschlag to have the Im- 
 perial train ready to leave for Vienna at 5 p.m. 
 The traffic on the mountain line of the great Siid- 
 bahn (built by the French engineer Boutoux) was 
 already very heavy on ordinary days ; conse- 
 quently, it was quite congested at this brilliant 
 holiday-tide. All Vienna had taken advantage of 
 the fine weather to spend the hours of freedom in 
 the mountains, and numerous excursion trains, in 
 addition to the ordinary service, were coming and 
 going in all directions. A change in the time-table, 
 especially in the evening, when the visitors to the 
 mountains were returning to diiiner in Vienna, 
 must inevitably have resulted in a shocking acci- 
 
IMPERIAL AMUSEMENTS 119 
 
 dent. Now, it happened that the Emperor, having 
 had a bad day's sport, wearied of his favourite 
 pastime before the appointed hour, and reached 
 the station a Uttle before 4.30. He was in a very- 
 bad temper, and immediately sent his aide-de- 
 camp to the station-master with an order to put 
 on the Imperial train at once. The Siidbahn's 
 official raised his hands to heaven at such an idea, 
 and swore that it was impossible to carry out the 
 Emperor's wish. It was in vain for the aide-de- 
 camp to declare that the Emperor was furious, 
 and did not mean to wait, and that any disregard 
 of the order would cost the station-master dear. 
 The latter insisted that, with the best wiU in the 
 world, he could not possibly despatch the train 
 to the Vienna terminus before the appointed hour. 
 Having spoken, he proceeded to sign the order for 
 departure of a train for Trieste, while the aide-de- 
 camp went back to the Emperor. Francis-Joseph, 
 we know, could not see beyond his own desires, 
 and the least obstacle in his way stirred him up 
 to the point of exasperation. The train for Trieste 
 had not yet left when a stir was seen on the plat- 
 form. The Emperor marched straight up to the 
 station-master, who was at the moment signing 
 the guard's papers. The official, alarmed but firm, 
 assumed the military attitude, saluted, and stood 
 waiting. 
 
 " I wish to leave at once," said the Emperor. 
 
 " Your Majesty, in spite of my earnest desire to 
 obey your orders, I cannot possibly do so." 
 
120 THE REAL FRANCIS-JOSEPH 
 
 " Why ?" 
 
 " My responsibility for the traffic prevents me." 
 
 " And I, your Emperor, command you." 
 
 " I beg Your Majesty's pardon, but I cannot 
 fulfil the command." 
 
 Francis- Joseph turned round to his suite, who 
 were listening, pale with excitement, to the con- 
 versation. With a short, dry laugh, frowning 
 brows, and an ugly look in his eyes, he said to 
 them : 
 
 " I must say, gentlemen, the position is at least 
 strange. You axe witnesses of an unprecedented 
 event. Your Sovereign is the prisoner of a rail- 
 way official." Still keeping up his ironical tone, 
 he asked the station-master, who remained stand- 
 ing like a soldier : " And when, sir, shall we be 
 permitted to leave ?" 
 
 " Your Majesty's train will leave the platform 
 at five o'clock sharp." 
 
 " Come, gentlemen," said the Emperor ; and he 
 strode back to the waiting-room between a double 
 line of curious witnesses, all respectfully removing 
 their hats as he passed. 
 
 At five minutes to the hour the station-master 
 came to announce that His Majesty's train was in 
 the station, and at five o'clock precisely it left 
 Murzzuschlag without the Emperor deigning to 
 acknowledge the salute of the trembling official, 
 whom only the fear of the probable accident had 
 prevented from obeying the angry monarch. 
 
 On the up and down lines between Vienna and 
 
IMPERIAL AMUSEMENTS 121 
 
 Trieste the guards were already spreading the news 
 of the altercation at Miirzzuschlag, and no one 
 entertained any doubt that the luckless station- 
 master would lose his post as a reward of his strict 
 adherence to his duty. Francis- Joseph, in the 
 meantime, sat silent amid his silent and nervous 
 suite, close to the window of his special car, and 
 was approaching Vienna at full speed. Every 
 moment trains literally packed with passengers 
 met his, and at all the stations were compact and 
 joyful crowds surging over the platforms and 
 filling the buildings with their riotous mirth. 
 
 Three hours after the Imperial train had left 
 Miirzzuschlag the station-master, who was ex- 
 pecting a letter of dismissal from his petty office 
 next day, received a telegraphic message announc- 
 ing to him that he was made Knight of the Im- 
 perial and Royal Order of Francis- Joseph by the 
 direct appointment of the Emperor, who, accord- 
 ing to the message, " had personally noted the 
 precision and attention to discipline exhibited by 
 the station-master in the exercise of his difficult 
 and most responsible duties." 
 
 The fact was that, Francis-Joseph's character 
 being such as it was, the station-master had merely 
 been lucky, first because the Emperor on the 
 journey back to Vienna had allowed the decisive 
 lesson to sink into his mind ; and, secondly, because 
 the scene had taken place in public. The Em- 
 peror loved to astonish the crowd. He had long 
 been fond on his solitary shoots, without an escort 
 
122 THE REAL FRANCIS- JOSEPH 
 
 or a companion (for he was too good a sportsman 
 to care for the official battues, which he mostly 
 avoided), of playing the part of Haroun-al-Rashid. 
 He would take his walks, in huntsman's dress, 
 among peasants, labourers, shepherds, and wood- 
 cutters, passing himself off as a keeper, talking to 
 them in the common tongue, garnished with slang, 
 chinking his glass with theirs, and then would 
 suddenly dazzle the poor fellows' eyes with a 
 revelation of his rank. On this particular day, 
 with his decoration of the station-master, Haroun- 
 al-Rashid had once more, in a somewhat different 
 way, dazzled the crowd. 
 
 It has already been said that in conjunction with 
 sport (and with military affairs, which were his 
 intensest joy) the theatre was Francis-Joseph's 
 chief taste. He had no particular preference for 
 one style more than another, it must be confessed ; 
 but apparently French comedy, especially the 
 works of Scribe and Pailleron, appealed to him 
 more than the German drama. No German house 
 put on so many French pieces as the Imperial 
 Theatre at Vienna — the Burgtheater, to give it its 
 proper name. 
 
 If Francis- Joseph, however, showed no great 
 liking for anything outside French drama, he cer- 
 tainly had very violent antipathies. The great 
 German classics, including the revolutionary 
 Schiller, found no favour with the Imperial critic. 
 Even Grillparzer, Austria's greatest dramatic poet, 
 was for a long time systematically banished from 
 
IMPERIAL AMUSEMENTS 123 
 
 the stage of the Burgtheater by the Emperor's 
 orders. It is true that in his " Bruderzwist im 
 Hause Habsburg " (The Imperial Brothers' Strife), 
 an historical play dealing with the life of the Em- 
 peror Rudolf, he had shown scant mercy to Francis- 
 Joseph's ancestors, and the Emperor never forgave 
 him for this. 
 
 Nowadays the Burgtheater is under the direction 
 of one of the most enlightened pioneers of the 
 drama in German lands — Dr. Paul Schlenther ; 
 but, in spite of this, the chief house of the Empire 
 is oppressed by Francis-Joseph's despotic will, and 
 a harsh exclusion from its boards is the lot of the 
 great modern playwrights when they select a 
 realistic or [horrihile didu !) a social subject. Thus 
 Ludwig Fulda's " Die Sklavin " (The Slave), which 
 deals with the modern woman's aspirations and 
 with free love, was forbidden at the Burgtheater 
 by the Emperor's express command, after a single 
 performance. The same fate befell, in 1904, Ger- 
 hardt Hauptmann, author of " Hannele " and 
 " The Weavers." These are only two examples 
 from a whole series of suppressions of the most 
 paltry and reactionary kind, which have led to 
 the Viennese public giving the Burgtheater the 
 nickname of the " Komtessentheater " — a name 
 which conveys nothing in translation, but means 
 something like " the theatre for young ladies." 
 And this is the special theatre of the Emperor, 
 who exercises over it a personal censorship, having 
 no connection with the Mrs. Grundy of the Vierma 
 
124 THE REAL FRANCIS- JOSEPH 
 
 censorship of plays, which is harsh enough, but 
 infinitely less harsh than that of the prudish 
 Francis- Joseph ! 
 
 The Burgtheater has, of course, a director and 
 a manager, and for the posts have been chosen 
 men of liberal views and literary tastes, as the 
 name of Dr. Schlenther proves. StUl, it is none 
 the less true that the artistic convictions of these 
 distinguished men are as nothing compared with 
 the will of the Emperor, who, moreover, looks 
 upon all the directors and managers of the Im- 
 perial houses, whether of the Burgtheater, the 
 Vienna Opera House, or the Buda-Pesth Opera 
 or National Theatre, as nothing more than em- 
 ployes to whom he pays salaries. 
 
 Of these houses the Burgtheater, whose ex- 
 penses are entirely paid out of the Imperial privy 
 purse, is under regulations not unlike those of the 
 Comedie-Frangaise, with the exception, however, 
 that the actors and actresses are not members of 
 a society, as at Paris. But from the point of view 
 of their duties, if not of their rights (about which 
 he does not care), the ordinary comedians of His 
 Majesty Francis- Joseph are very like the ordinary 
 comedians of France under the Third Republic. 
 The Burgtheater' s artistes are divided into two 
 classes — probationers and pensioners. The pro- 
 bationers sign contracts for limited periods, the 
 pensioners make an agreement covering the whole 
 of their lives. No one but the Emperor in private 
 audience can release the latter from their en- 
 
IMPERIAL AMUSEMENTS 125 
 
 gagement, and then only on the condition that they 
 go to no other Vienna theatre. Francis- Joseph 
 has taken a passionate interest in the Burgtheater, 
 which for nearly a score of years now has been 
 housed in a wing of the Hofburg itself. Many of 
 his most intimate friendships have been with 
 artistes of the Imperial theatre, and one of them 
 has greatly influenced his life, and remains un- 
 broken to this day. This is his friendship with 
 Madame Katharina Schratt, an actress of great 
 talent, who has achieved the improbable in re- 
 taining his regard for so long. 
 
 It is rather remarkable that the ballet has never 
 interested a man like Francis- Joseph, when Vien- 
 nese dancers have by no means failed in the point 
 of good looks. But as serious music appeals to 
 him very slightly, he had paid very little attention 
 to the Opera House. In the days when he paid 
 occasional visits to the Hofoperntheater he liked 
 to see a striking chorus on the stage. So it is 
 perhaps because of his aesthetic (?) susceptibilities 
 that he forsook the Vienna Opera House. Amongst 
 his intimate friends he would often say how little 
 he cared to see the famous singer Frau Wild ; but 
 she was enormously stout, and far nearer ugliness 
 than beauty. Francis- Joseph coiold not under- 
 stand, therefore, why the public should applaud 
 her. 
 
 In addition to the Imperial theatres, where he 
 has a large Court box, as well as a small private 
 one close to the stage, the Emperor used to go 
 
126 THE REAL FRANCIS- JOSEPH 
 
 often to the Theater an der Wien, a house 
 famous in the history of operetta at Vienna as 
 the birthplace of all Strauss' s productions. During 
 the first thirty years of his reign this theatre was 
 the home of a collection of comedy divas remark- 
 able alike for talent, faces, and figures, and the 
 connection between the Palace and the Theater 
 an der Wien was very close. One of these ladies 
 in particular, Marie Geistinger, the idol of the 
 Viennese public, for whom she created the leading 
 parts in the operettas of Offenbach, Strauss, and 
 Supp6, was a lively and impulsive person, who was 
 very fond of talking to her friends — and their 
 name in Vienna was legion — of her acquaintance 
 with the Emperor outside the walls of the theatre. 
 As has been said, there was something in common 
 between the Emperor's tastes for sport and for 
 the theatre, only at the latter place he substituted 
 an opera-glass for his gun. 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 THE empress's FLIGHT 
 
 Elisabeth lay in a long chair near the window 
 of her room. The book which she had been read- 
 ing slipped from her hands, and, with her head 
 among the cushions and her eyes far away, she 
 peopled with her dreams the autumn landscape 
 before her, bathed in the vague and tremulous 
 light of the setting sun. In the park of Laxen- 
 burg the great trees, swathed in mist, stood out 
 in shadowy bulk against the pale gold of the sky. 
 A vast silence was abroad, the birds had ceased 
 their song as night drew near, and the gentle 
 murmur of a small jet of water in a fountain was 
 heard as though it were a loud sound in the general 
 stillness around. 
 
 A cautious rap came at the door, so cautious that 
 Elisabeth, whose ears were straining to catch the 
 thousand tiny voices of the silence, did -not hear 
 it. A louder rap followed. Surprised and dis- 
 turbed (for the knock broke in upon her dreams), 
 Elisabeth was just about to answer the door, when 
 it turned upon its hinges, and revealed a visitor 
 contrary to all the rules of etiquette — the Dowager 
 127 
 
128 THE REAL FRANCIS- JOSEPH 
 
 Archduchess. Ehsabeth was rising when, with a 
 sign as she shut the door, the Archduchess Sophia 
 motioned to her not to move. She took a seat 
 close to the Empress's long chair, and opened at 
 once : 
 
 " I have come, my daughter, to have a friendly 
 talk with you over serious matters." 
 
 Elisabeth had vaguely divined that a battle 
 was preparing, but she was resolved this time to 
 make a stand against the terrible Archduchess, 
 and she replied with merely the suspicion of a 
 tremble in her voice : 
 
 " I am listening, my mother. What is it all 
 about ?" 
 
 " Will you allow me to start from the begin- 
 ning ?" 
 
 " I am at your disposal." 
 
 " Don't be alarmed; I will not take advantage 
 of you. Well, this is the point. After the two 
 girls, little Sophia, whom we lost, and the Arch- 
 duchess Gisela, who is two years and a half ..." 
 
 " Two years and three months." 
 
 " You have borne a son ..." 
 
 " Yes, the Archduke Rudolf, born here on 
 August 21, 1858 — that is to say, fifty-four days 
 ago." 
 
 " You reqkon very accurately, my daughter," 
 said the Archduchess, with a softness in her voice. 
 Then, with an abrupt change of tone, she went 
 on : " But it is to be regretted that you reason 
 so ill." 
 
THE EMPRESS'S FLIGHT 129 
 
 Elisabeth rose up, gripping the back of her 
 chair. Mastering her anger, she said :" I do not 
 understand you, madame. What is it you wish 
 to say ?" 
 
 " Merely this : This afternoon you had an inter- 
 view with the Emperor, and obtained from him 
 a promise that your son's education should be 
 entrusted to you personally." 
 
 " WeU, what then ?" 
 
 " What then ? I cannot agree to it." 
 
 " But, madame, he is my son." 
 
 The Archduchess rose in her turn. " He is not 
 your son," she said ; " he is the heir to the throne." 
 
 The two women stood face to face, reading in 
 each other's eyes the hatred which the approach 
 of night almost hid. 
 
 " So, madame," said Elisabeth, breaking the 
 awful silence, " you deny me the sacred right 
 which the lowest woman of the people is allowed. 
 She may guide the first steps and thoughts of her 
 child, while I . . ." 
 
 " You cannot do so, because you are the Em- 
 press. That is just the reason. And, further, I 
 must tell you, my daughter, that your — ^liberal 
 ideas would be fatal to one who must some day 
 ascend the throne of the Habsburgs. The tradi- 
 tion must be carried on, and your unfortunate 
 tendencies would not strengthen that tradition 
 in the mind of your child. Therefore I have firmly 
 decided that you cannot bring up your son your- 
 self." 
 
 9 
 
130 THE REAL FRANCIS- JOSEPH 
 
 " But the Emperor has given me permission to 
 do so." 
 
 " And I will not allow it." 
 
 Elisabeth had let herself sink upon a couch, 
 with her hands clasped between her knees, her 
 head bowed, <and her eyes wet with tears. 
 
 " I know, madame," she said, " what your in- 
 fluence is over my husband ; I know it because I 
 have had such painful experience of it. Therefore 
 I do not oppose you : I only beg, as you see ; and 
 you see also, for the first time, that I humble 
 myself even to tears before you." 
 
 " I know that you hate me." 
 
 " Why should you care, when I bow myself 
 before your power ? I will strive no further 
 against you, madame, I swear it ; but I beseech 
 you, leave me my child, my dear little Rudolf, to 
 be the solace of the melancholy and desolate life 
 which you have made for me." 
 
 A short ironical laugh was the answer to this 
 anguished prayer. 
 
 " A solace," said the Archduchess, " but for 
 what ? You should be the happiest woman in 
 the world. This is your fancy picture of yourself 
 again as the misunderstood and forsaken wife. 
 So you ought to be forsaken ! It would serve you 
 right for the weariness and boredom which you 
 spread around you with your perpetual martyr's 
 pose. Put off this funereal face, my daughter. 
 We are alone here, and you know well enough that 
 these waysMo not appeal to me." 
 
THE EMPRESS'S FLIGHT 131 
 
 " You axe right, madame. For the moment I 
 imagined that one mother might address herself 
 to another without fear, and that perhaps, how- 
 ever far apart we were from each other, we might 
 find a common bond in maternity. I had for- 
 gotten that your violent egotism crushed every 
 other feeling in you." 
 
 " You are insulting me." 
 
 " Am I ? But at least, since the unhappy op- 
 portunity is mine of telling you what I think, I 
 will go on to the end, whatever it may cost me." 
 
 Elisabeth proceeded to reproach the Arch- 
 duchess for the abominable upbringing which she 
 had given her son, and, to her listener's great in- 
 dignation, showed a clearness of sight which fairly 
 frightened her. It seemed to the Archduchess as 
 if it were her conscience which was accusing her 
 of the crime of treason against motherhood. She 
 recovered herself, and cut short the indictment 
 against herself by leaving the room, shutting the 
 door furiously behind her. She went straight to 
 the Emperor's study, and in a state of great 
 agitation told him the last part of the scene which 
 she had had with Elisabeth. She gave her own 
 version of it, of course, declaring that Elisabeth 
 had violently accused the Emperor of being a bad 
 husband and a bad ruler, reinforcing these same 
 accusations with a heap of insults against her, the 
 Dowager- Archduchess. So well did she succeed in 
 stirring up her son against the unhappy Elisabeth 
 that the same night he retracted the promise 
 
 9—2 
 
132 THE REAL FRANCIS- JOSEPH 
 
 which he had made to her, and a few days later 
 handed over the httle Archduke Rudolf and his 
 nurse to the charge of a governess chosen by the 
 Archduchess Sophia, who was, before many years 
 had passed, to follow the plan which she had 
 adopted in her son's education, and to give the 
 young Prince as superintendent Count Bombelles, 
 a worthy son of the Bombelles who had trained 
 Francis-Joseph. 
 
 Elisabeth had devoted all her capacity for love 
 to her son, and we can imagine her despair, her 
 wretched, helpless despair. She had a daughter, 
 the Archduchess Gisela, but, strange to relate in 
 one endowed with such emotional qualities, she 
 did not love that daughter. Indeed, it may be 
 said that she never loved her. When her first- 
 born's little coffin, all covered in white roses, had 
 disappeared into the tomb, Elisabeth had a sensa- 
 tion of so profound a void that she had thought 
 her heart would never beat again. The birth of 
 a second daughter, in place once more of the 
 hoped-for son, had been a fresh disillusion, and 
 had in no way succeeded in reawakening her tender 
 instincts. She continued to weep for the little 
 dead Sophia, and could not see close at her side 
 the living smile of little Gisela. That poor child, 
 whose entry into the world had certainly not been 
 through the gate of love which was open later for 
 her brother Rudolf, and later stiU for her sister 
 Marie-Valerie, was always left in the cold in her 
 mother's heart. 
 
THE EMPRESS'S FLIGHT 133 
 
 Rudolfs birth, on the other hand, rescued Elisa- 
 beth entirely from her sorrow, and with one stroke 
 lifted her to the summit of maternal joy. The 
 son had come, the long-desired son. Doubtless 
 Elisabeth had no hope that the birth of this boy- 
 chUd would bring Francis- Joseph back to her, but 
 she was filled with a deep, sweet pride at having 
 brought into the world one who was to mount the 
 Imperial and Royal throne of Austria-Hungary, 
 and to reign over a great people. She hardly 
 gave a further thought to the little white coffin, 
 and forgot that she had wept over the burial of 
 her heart. Her dead daughter and her estranged 
 husband only appeared to her now like dim 
 memories of old. She had a son. This son was 
 to be Emperor, and through him all the joys of 
 love and of pride would be hers. But, knowing 
 as she did what influence mothers can exercise 
 over Sovereigns, as over other men, she wanted 
 him trained by herself to goodness, honesty, and 
 fair dealing. How hard she would strive to 
 develop the conscience in the child whom she had 
 brought into the world ! Her whole life was 
 beginning afresh, for the day of her son's birth 
 was the birthday also of her happiness. 
 
 So she had thought, reckoning without the 
 mother-in-law whose cruelty was to rob her of 
 her child's mind as she had already robbed her 
 of her husband's heart. And now, while night 
 enveloped in its darkness the great trees in the 
 park of Laxenburg, she wept the most bitter 
 
134 THE REAL FRANCIS- JOSEPH 
 
 tearSj perhaps, which she had ever shed in the 
 course of her anguished life. 
 
 We know the results of the evil education which 
 the Dowager-Archduchess gave to Elisabeth's son, 
 the dissolute life of this weak Prince, and his 
 tragic, self-inflicted death. Instead of the Arch- 
 duchess Sophia bearing the blame for this, the 
 Empress was held responsible. People were not 
 wanting to insist, in country, town, and Court, 
 that if the Empress had devoted herself to her 
 son's education the catastrophe which put an end 
 to this spoilt existence would never have occurred. 
 Whatever may be thought about it, Elisabeth 
 most certainly was affected by this suggestion, 
 for those about her did their best, during her life- 
 time, to torture her heart and soul. But she never 
 betrayed herself, and the cruellest hints never 
 wrested a complaint from her. When her favourite 
 child's terrible death bound her living to the rack, 
 she had nothing but words of solace for the hus- 
 band against whom she had every right to turn 
 the hateful accusations made against herself. 
 
 But at present we are far from that tragic period 
 which was to reveal such nobility of mind and 
 generous philosophy in the daughter of Duke 
 Maximilian of Bavaria. For the moment we see 
 Elisabeth only as a poor lonely woman, struggling 
 to shake off the yoke under which she was soon 
 doomed to fall again, exhausted by the violence 
 of her effort. Married life had for her no further 
 promise, but, as she dreamed of no other romances 
 
THE EMPRESS'S FLIGHT I35 
 
 since the day when she met Francis- Joseph in the 
 park at Possenhofen, she continued to love, in the 
 depth of her soul, the husbajid who inflicted on 
 her so much suffering. During 1859, i^ which 
 year Austria was fated to lose in the Italian 
 campaign one of her most beautiful provinces, 
 Lombardy, a new growth of affection and pity 
 sprang up in the parched soil of Elisabeth's heart. 
 Francis- Joseph, who had a strong love for his 
 country, and, as we know, a special taste for the 
 pursuit of war, went forth to fight with his troops, 
 and, with no thought of the value of his life, 
 courted danger with single - minded, glorious 
 courage. Time after time Elisabeth, in her prison 
 at the Hofburg, trembled at the visions of battle 
 in which her husband's bravery made him play 
 so perilous a part. Her anguished heart leapt 
 within her breast as fear and admiration mingled 
 with memories of its old surrender to the power 
 of love. 
 
 One day in particular she thought her emotions 
 must overcome her when she heard how, in one 
 of the bloodiest battles of the whole campaign, 
 Francis- Joseph had put himself at the head of a 
 cavalry charge, leading the way to victory with 
 the simple words : " Forward, my brave men ! I, 
 too, have a wife and children to lose !" While 
 she trembled and rejoiced in turn, she almost 
 found it in her to expect, at the end of the war, a 
 repentant husband returning to her arms. As 
 years later she was to weep with him over the 
 
136 THE REAL FRANCIS- JOSEPH 
 
 loss of their son, so now she offered him tender 
 consolation when he came back to assuage, with 
 all the pride at his command, the wound which 
 his country, and he with his country, had received. 
 
 Her last illusion, or rather her temporarily 
 revived illusion, was destined to be shattered by 
 the heedless cruelty of Francis- Joseph as soon as 
 his passion came into play. Why should a new 
 infidelity have wrung Elisabeth's soul more than 
 those which had preceded it, many of them, 
 indeed, still more unkind ? Doubtless because 
 the pain was doubled by its infliction on hopes 
 newly born after the death of the old. Moreover, 
 the heart cannot hold out for ever, and suffering 
 does not strengthen it by repeated blows, but ends 
 by breaking it, as was now the case with Elisabeth. 
 
 In the year i860, when the Empress in all her 
 brilliant beauty had just reached her twenty- third 
 birthday, an event took place which overwhelmed 
 her with such disgust that she took on her own 
 initiative a step which man-made law would not 
 give her the power to take. A few weeks after 
 the Emperor's return to Vienna, which occurred 
 at a period of great internal disturbance in the 
 Empire, the first appearance was made at the 
 Burgtheater of Frau Roll, an unknown actress 
 from the provinces, with no claims to fame except 
 an astonishing beauty of face and figure. What 
 surprised Vienna most was that it was impossible 
 to discover the introducer of this wonderful beauty 
 to the stage of the Imperial theatre. There were 
 
THE EMPRESS'S FLIGHT 137 
 
 rumours about a high personage^ of course^ but 
 with nothing to confirm them. Besides, his grief 
 over the loss of Lombardy seemed so great, and 
 the state of affairs was so grave, that no one could 
 credit suggestions of frivolity. The question, 
 therefore, remained unanswered during the winter 
 season of 1860-61, although no one was talking 
 about anything else. At last the end of the season 
 arrived, when it was learnt that the beautiful 
 actress was to spend her holidays at Ischl, where 
 the Imperial family was also stopping. The re- 
 joicings were great, for Ischl is a small place, 
 where everyone meets everyone else, and Frau 
 Roll could scarcely conceal her private affairs 
 from the eyes of the curious. So it turned out. 
 Less than a week had passed before, to the general 
 astonishment, the name of the lady's mysterious 
 protector was discovered, and was wafted to the 
 Empress's ears. Without delay Elisabeth went to 
 her husband and told him that he must make a 
 choice — either Frau Roll must leave Ischl within 
 twenty-four hours, or she would depart herself. 
 The next day Frau RoU left the Imperial resort. 
 It must be added that she did not go very far. 
 But Elisabeth, although she was not duped, did 
 not refer to the painful subject again. She merely 
 waited, with that obstinate patience which a fixed 
 idea inspires, until some new incident, and one 
 that would not put her as now in a ridiculous light, 
 should arise to justify her in declaring that she 
 would no longer Uve with her husband. 
 
138 THE REAL FRANCIS-JOSEPH 
 
 She had not long to wait. The opportunity 
 came in November, 1861. Francis- Joseph left 
 Vienna one morning with certain gentlemen of his 
 Court for a day's shooting at Miirzzuschlag, mean- 
 ing to return the same night after the riotous 
 banquet which always wound up these excursions. 
 But night came, and the Emperor did not return. 
 Next day, toward evening, the shooting-party 
 reached the Siidbahn Station, but without the 
 Emperor. Vague excuses were made that Francis- 
 Joseph was tired or unwell, and would remain 
 another day at Miirzzuschlag to recuperate. One 
 of the courtiers, Count K., was less discreet than 
 his companions, and, yielding to the persistent 
 curiosity of his newly-married wife, let her know 
 after dinner that it was not through weariness or 
 illness that the Emperor had remained behind, 
 but in order to pursue an affair not at all to his 
 credit with a young peasant-girl. 
 
 As soon as she had got her choice piece of scandal, 
 the Countess K. made for the Empress's apart- 
 ments, where etiquette obliged Elisabeth to dis- 
 pense tea every night to the ladies of her Court, 
 including the Countess, who was a maid of honour. 
 She had promised her husband not to breathe a 
 word, but he had given her an example of indis- 
 cretion which she followed faithfully. In the 
 midst of a group of frivolous friends she related 
 her tale, with embellishments, to an accompani- 
 ment of stifled giggles and exclamations. The 
 Empress, who was chatting with a neighbouring 
 
THE IMPERIAL RESIDENCE AT ISCHL 
 
 THE PALACE OF SCHONBRUNN 
 
 To face page 138 
 
THE EMPRESS'S FLIGHT 139 
 
 group, did not lose a word of the story. She 
 turned pale, but did not otherwise betray herself. 
 When the tale was told, she went up to the 
 Countess K., and after talking to her on indif- 
 ferent matters, broke off to say, in the most 
 natural way in the world : 
 
 " You must excuse me, ladies, if I cut my 
 reception rather short to-night, but I am tired 
 and want a rest." 
 
 The usual hand-kissing took place, and the 
 Empress's fingers did not tremble as the Countess 
 K.'s Hps touched them. But hardly had the door 
 closed behind the last guest when, with a break 
 in her voice and dark rings of anguish about her 
 eyes, Elisabeth called to her the old nurse whom 
 she had brought with her from Possenhofen, and 
 bade her fill a travelling-bag with the necessary 
 clothes, and get ready to depart with her. 
 
 " Are we going for long ?" asked the nurse. 
 
 " For ever !" 
 
 " Oh, Miss Lisbeth ! . . ." 
 
 " Go and do as I tell you." 
 
 A quarter of an hour later the two left the 
 Hofburg unnoticed, called a carriage, drove to the 
 southern terminus, and caught the first train 
 leaving Vienna. It was not until next day that 
 the Archduchess Sophia learnt from the Empress's 
 chambermaid that she had not spent the night in 
 her apartments. Then, making instant inquiries, 
 she discovered the Countess K.'s exploit, and, 
 feeling sure of the flight of the " little Bavarian 
 
140 THE REAL FRANCIS-JOSEPH 
 
 goose," at once warned the police. Before an 
 hour had passed she was informed of the Empress's 
 departure on the Siidbahn, either for the palace 
 of Miramar or for a longer journey from Trieste, 
 where the Imperial yacht lay. A telegram was 
 sent to Trieste to stop the Empress's departure 
 at all costs, and to prevent the yacht from putting 
 to sea. At the same time a special train was 
 despatched to Trieste, carrying a high Court 
 official. The Empress was indeed at Trieste. 
 She had proposed to board the yacht at once, and 
 start for some foreign port, no matter where. The 
 captain had received his warning in time, and 
 made a slight breakdown in the engine-room the 
 excuse for a day's delay, in accordance with the 
 Do wager- Archduchess's orders. 
 
 It was on board the yacht, however, in Trieste 
 Harbour that the high official found the Empress. 
 What passed between them is unknown. It is 
 probable that he attempted to dissuade her from 
 her journey by pointing out what scandal it would 
 bring down upon herself, especially as she would 
 not be there to defend herself. If this was the 
 actual trend of his remarks, they can hardly have 
 appealed to a woman so convinced of the justifica- 
 tion of her conduct and so disdainful of what 
 people said about her. What she was more likely 
 to fear was that her flight might be attributed to 
 her terror of an explanation with her husband and 
 her mother-in-law. Anyhow, next day she re- 
 turned to the Hofburg before the news of her 
 
THE EMPRESS'S FLIGHT 141 
 
 flight had become public. A terrible scene fol- 
 lowed between the three actors in this drama. 
 It is asserted that Francis- Joseph, confessing his 
 misdeeds, but dreading scandal stiU more, fell at 
 Elisabeth's feet begging for pardon in terrified 
 tones, and promising, like a child, never to do it 
 again. It is even said that he dared for the first 
 time in his life to brave his mother's anger, re- 
 proaching her for her harshness and injustice to 
 Elisabeth, and accusing himself of weakness and 
 cowardice. Nothing could shake Elisabeth's de- 
 cision. All that she would agree to was that her 
 departure should be given an official character. 
 She refused for the present to play the part of 
 Empress before a Court whose cruelty to her was 
 equalled by her contempt for it. 
 
 The same night Dr. Skoda, the well-known 
 Viennese professor of medicine, was summoned to 
 the Hofburg, and, despite his reluctance to carry 
 out the Imperial wishes, was induced after a long 
 discussion to sign a report declaring that the 
 Empress's lungs were affected, and that she must 
 leave Vienna as soon as possible for a milder 
 climate. Next day Elisabeth, escorted to the 
 station by the chief Court dignitaries, left Vienna 
 for Antwerp, where a yacht was awaiting her with 
 steam up, ready to take her to sunny Madeira. 
 
 Francis- Joseph accompanied her in the train as 
 far as Bamberg, in Bavaria. When he had left 
 her, EUsabeth sat gazing through the window at 
 the mists of night falling upon the autumn land- 
 
142 THE REAL FRANCIS- JOSEPH 
 
 scape. The Bavarian forests lay before her eyes, 
 forests like the woods of Possenhofen, where was 
 born that dream which was now all shattered, and 
 the dusk of autumn which enshrouded them was 
 like that of the night at Laxenburg when her son 
 was stolen from her. In a corner of the carriage 
 sat the old nurse, fearful of breaking in on the 
 silence of the unhappy woman she had reared, the 
 Empress of Austria and Queen of Hungary, who 
 wept with soft, low sobs over the ruins of a life. 
 
.iiAii 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 THE IMPERIAL WANDERER 
 
 " Unless he is seeking for death, madame, I don't 
 believe that anyone would try to ride the dangerous 
 brute, whom I only keep as a curiosity." 
 
 " Who can tell ? Anyhow, my dear Count, 
 please remember that I mean to see this wonder, 
 and that I shall be at your stables to-morrow at 
 two o'clock." 
 
 " I will take care to remember so pleasant an 
 appointment, and it is unnecessary for me to say 
 that Your Majesty will be a most welcome visitor." 
 
 The Empress Elisabeth sat in the dining-room 
 of her favourite Hungarian chateau of GoedoeUoe. 
 Behind her back her lady-in-waiting was signalling 
 to Count Festetics, a big owner of horses in the 
 neighbourhood, that he must not pursue this topic. 
 Several times he had tried to turn aside from his 
 story, which concerned a three-year-old in his 
 stables that had already not only cut open his 
 rider's head, but also killed with a kick a groom 
 rash enough to come near him. Each time he 
 broke off, the Empress had contrived that the 
 Count should be brought back to the exploits of 
 143 
 
144 THE REAL FRANCIS- JOSEPH 
 
 this savage beast, whom so far no one had been 
 able to mount or even saddle without taking his 
 life in his hands. 
 
 It was the end of the summer of 1863, nearly 
 two years, therefore, since that autumn afternoon 
 when Elisabeth of Austria had left the Hofburg 
 with the 'intention of returning no more; and, 
 indeed, she was hardly seen there again until the 
 second half of 1867, when she returned to married 
 life, with the result that on Jvily 31, 1868, she 
 gave birth at Ischl to her third daughter, and 
 fourth and last child, the Archduchess Marie- 
 Valerie. That period was an interlude (if an 
 interlude of some diuation) amid the stages of the 
 Empress's mournful wanderings. 
 
 After leaving Vienna, Elizabeth had spent but 
 little time in Madeira. Scenery soon palled upon 
 her (for her weariness was in her own soul, not in 
 her surroundings), and she started upon a fan- 
 tastic cruise on the Imperial yacht, which had 
 been put at her disposal. She visited the Nor- 
 wegian coast, then made for Corfu and the 
 Mediterranean, and finished with the Adriatic and 
 Venice. Venice satisfied the artistic tastes which 
 had grown so strong during her solitary rovings, 
 and it was there that Francis- Joseph met her in 
 May, 1862, with a view to keeping up what 
 remained of appearances, and bringing her back 
 for a time to Vienna. She spent only a few days 
 at the Hofburg, but did not immediately travel 
 very far away, contenting herself with preparing 
 
THE IMPERIAL WANDERER i45 
 
 for hersdf a home of incredible luxury, but of 
 original and refined taste, surrounded by a fairy- 
 like park, at the hunting-box of Lainz, a nursery 
 for deer and wild-boars until she took possession 
 of it. Here in a few weeks she got through fabulous 
 sums of money, for with her constant craving for 
 change she had fallen a prey to a wild passion for 
 spending. When Lainz was at last fitted up, she 
 discovered that it was too near Vienna, and hence- 
 forward she had but one desire — to leave her new 
 residence for another, wherever it might be. To 
 find employment for her nervous energy while 
 awaiting the move upon which she had set her 
 heart, she devoted herself to a long course of 
 physical culture. She began with gymnastics, to 
 the horror of the Court of Vienna, and then, in her 
 mad love for horses, signified her wish to take 
 lessons in the haute ecole. Her teacher was the 
 head-huntsman of the Court, a Frenchman named 
 Gebhaxdt, until much later she met with that 
 celebrated horsewoman who became her intimate 
 friend, Eliza Renz. 
 
 Gebhardt, whose reputation in this difficult art 
 extended all over Europe, showed no enthusiasm 
 when he was first called upon to gratify what he 
 caUed " a mere amateur's caprice." It was not 
 long before he was compelled to make amends by 
 confessing that his pupil was a natural rider, gifted 
 beyond belief. Not only did she reach in very 
 short time a perfection which would have caused 
 envy in many horsewomen who were idols of the 
 
 10 
 
146 THE REAL FRANCIS- JOSEPH 
 
 ring, but she had also, beyond all doubt, a myste- 
 rious power whicht amed the most stubborn of 
 animals. In her own circle she was already known 
 as " Madame Orpheus," in recognition of her 
 ability to make the most vicious horses bow before 
 her will, almost with the utterance of a word. She 
 was so sure of herself that she was fearless of 
 danger, or rather one might have said that she 
 actually courted the most evident perils. Many 
 a time her terrified companions trembled at the 
 mad feats which she performed on horseback. 
 We can understand, therefore, the emotion of 
 Elisabeth's lady-in-waiting at the alluring tale of 
 Count Festetics as he painted for the daring 
 " Madame Orpheus " the picture of this untamable 
 steed who dealt out death around him. 
 
 At this period the Empress had left Lainz and 
 recently settled down in a new home at Goedoelloe, 
 in Hungary, the land of horses and horsemen 
 above all others, and the land of chivalry also — 
 another point which appealed to the bold and 
 romantic imagination of the Empress errant. 
 
 On the day following the conversation with 
 which this chapter begins Elisabeth presented 
 herself at the hour she had appointed at the stables 
 of Count Festetics. The latter had received a 
 communication from one of the Empress's rela- 
 tives, and had made up his mind not to show her 
 the dangerous animal. He showed so little 
 anxiety to lead the way to the stalls that she 
 said to him : 
 
THE IMPERIAL WANDERER 147 
 
 "Well, are we not going to see this terrible 
 steed ? You know, my dear Count, that I came 
 to-day expressly to see him." 
 
 " Forgive me, Your Majesty ; he will be brought 
 out to you. I would not trouble you to go inside 
 the stables." 
 
 " As you will," was all that EHsabeth replied. 
 The horse, or rather a horse, was then brought 
 out to her. 
 
 " Is this the famous charger who deals death to 
 all who come near him ?" she asked, with a smile. 
 " How is it that they have been able to tame him 
 for this one day, and bring him out here ?" 
 " I will explain. Your Majesty. . . ." 
 " Oh, I understand ! He is a bad mount, but 
 a good courtier." 
 At the Count's long face she broke into a laugh. 
 " Come, my dear Count, don't be so gloomy 
 with me," she said. " You would make a bad 
 courtier, for you do not know how to lie. It would 
 be better to take me to the horse about which you 
 were telling me yesterday." 
 
 As he stammered a protest, she put on her most 
 imperious tone, though without raising her voice, 
 and said : " I wish it." 
 
 The Count could but bow in submission, and 
 the party entered the stables. The Empress, 
 quietly resolute and without a trace of fear, 
 though in the depths of her eyes there glowed a 
 disquieting Uttle spark, stepped inside the box 
 and approached the horse. He was a magnificent 
 
 lo— 2 
 
148 THE REAL FRANCIS- JOSEPH 
 
 beast as he stood there, twitching and quivering 
 throughout his frame. The Empress uttered a 
 few soft words in a musical voice, and, marvellous 
 to relate, the horse stopped trembling. He even 
 deigned to take a lump of sugar from her little 
 hand. As, she left Count Festetics that day, the 
 Empress said to him, not without a shade of 
 gravity in the mockery of her speech : 
 
 " Within a week. Count, I will ride this horse 
 that kills aU who get on him." 
 
 " I beg Your Majesty not to think of it. It is 
 far too dangerous a sport." 
 
 " But come, he used to kiU also all who came 
 near him, and did not I go near him ?" 
 
 " You did." 
 
 " And he does not seem to have killed me. 
 Besides," she added in a low voice, more to herself 
 than to the others, " it would be no commonplace 
 death." 
 
 For a whole week she spent a few minutes daily 
 with the horse. On the eighth day she saddled 
 him with her own hands, led him from his box 
 and out of the stable, and quickly sprang into the 
 saddle. The beast whinnied, tossed his head, 
 pawed the ground, reared up, and burst into a 
 gallop. When he came back, still bearing his 
 Imperial rider, the untamable steed was walking 
 quietly as she murmured to him and patted his 
 neck. She rode him back that day to Goedoelloe, 
 so proud of her wonderful victory that she had 
 asked Count Festetics to give him to her. 
 
THE IMPERIAL WANDERER 149 
 
 It really seemed— and the little Court at Goedoel- 
 loe, knowing its responsibility, was in terror over 
 it — as if the Empress went in search of the most 
 terrible dangers, not merely for the sake of the ex- 
 citement, but with some object which she would 
 not confess. It was quite enough for something to 
 be declared impossible to make her attempt it as 
 soon as she heard of it. There was, for instance, 
 her visit to the mountain chapel of Mariazell, a 
 feat which nearly cost her her life. Mariazell is a 
 remote place in the Styrian Alps, and is almost 
 inaccessible. A chapel had been built there 
 recently in honour of some miraculous virgin. 
 The neighbouring mountaineers make a yearly 
 pilgrimage thither on foot with great difficulty. 
 A few, because they are cripples, just manage to 
 have themselves carried up on the backs of moun- 
 tain mules, accompanied by a guide. 
 
 No horse had ever reached the chapel, as Elisa- 
 beth learnt during the course of a stay which she 
 made in this region. Next morning, to the 
 astonishment of the country-folk, the Empress 
 started for Mariazell on horseback, followed by a 
 groom on a mule. For part of the route the faint 
 goat-track leading to her goal ran over tree-trunks 
 roughly squared and unprovided with a handrail, 
 across a precipice many hundred feet high, at the 
 bottom of which a torrent roared. Elisabeth 
 urged her mount along, in spite of his resistance, 
 until suddenly one of his hind-feet slipped between 
 two logs, and his terror, already aroused by the 
 
150 THE REAL FRANCIS-JOSEPH 
 
 sound of the torrent, caused him to rear up. The 
 peril of the situation was all the greater because, 
 owing to the narrowness of the improvised bridge, 
 Elisabeth could not jump from the animal's back. 
 All at once she felt herself lifted violently from 
 the saddle and carried back to the cliff which she 
 had just left, while the horse plunged into the 
 ravine. The groom, seeing his mistress in danger, 
 had snatched her from the jaws of death. Such 
 had been the poor man's fright that, when he had 
 set the Empress on her feet, he turned ghastly 
 white and fainted away. Elisabeth, calm and 
 indifferent to the most awful dangers, tended him 
 with her own hands — a beautiful Doiia Quixote 
 waiting upon her heroic Sancho Panza, whose 
 mule was peaceably browsing on the scanty 
 vegetation which forced its way up between the 
 stones of the track. 
 
 On her return to Goedoelloe after this Alpine 
 excursion, and before she went to Normandy for 
 a short sojourn, the wandering Empress took up 
 again her study of the haute tcole. She soon 
 abandoned it for a very inadequate reason, which 
 she could have got over but for her unvarying 
 kindness of heart. For her " performances " it 
 was necessary to have music, and the place of a 
 band was taken by a piano. One of the maids 
 of honour hastened every time to play for her 
 mistress, but unhappily always played so badly 
 that Elisabeth's musical ears were tortured. She 
 could have taken another pianist instead of the 
 
THE IMPERIAL WANDERER 151 
 
 one whose notes were so false, but this would have 
 pained the unharmonious lady, and her mistress 
 preferred, therefore, to give up her favourite pursuit. 
 She consoled herself by visits to the Czikos, that 
 race of Hungarian herdsmen who look after huge 
 droves of horses like those which are to be met 
 in Bolivia or on the Pampas. The Czikos, like the 
 South American Indians and the Patagonians, are 
 wonderful adepts with the lasso. The Empress 
 fell in love with the sport, and with her incredible 
 quickness at learning soon became a first-class 
 expert in the difficult game. 
 
 She now left Hungary for Normandy. She had 
 rented from a M. Perquer a comfortable chalet 
 near Petites-Dalles. This Chalet Sostot was 
 locally known as " the chateau." Here she lived 
 in great retirement, under the name of the Countess 
 Hohenembs, and the country people were unaware 
 that the black-robed lady whom they saw out 
 riding every day wore on her pale brow a diadem 
 far heavier than the heavy golden plaits which 
 encircled it. With the queer recklessness which 
 marked her, she narrowly escaped never returning 
 from this neighbourhood, for in leaping a boundary 
 wall between two fields her horse stumbled, and 
 threw her with such violence on to the stony ground 
 that she lay unconscious until picked up by some 
 fishermen, who brought her back, stUl motionless, 
 to her own people. It was not until this day that 
 the countryside discovered who was the strange 
 lady whom all had learnt to respect and whom 
 
152 THE REAL FRANCIS- JOSEPH 
 
 all the children loved, so sweet and tender had 
 she, the mother robbed of her son, always shown 
 herself to the young ones of others. 
 
 Wherever she appeared in her wanderings, 
 always in her robe of black, the " Countess 
 Hohenembs " left behind her the name of a good 
 fairy. The Arabs are not quick to recognize in 
 the women of other races any qualities save those 
 of an instrument of pleasure, but even they could 
 not withstand her mysterious fascination. In 
 Algeria, where she made quite a long stay on more 
 than one occasion, she won for herself among the 
 natives a superhuman reputation. The Arabs, 
 admiring both her incomparable skill in taming 
 horses and the perfect grasp which she had of 
 their language, put such trust in Elisabeth — the 
 white lady with the sun locks — that they grew 
 into the habit of looking on her as a kind of justice 
 of the peace. With her gentle firmness of manner, 
 her sweet reasonableness of speech, and her 
 delicate soundness of judgment, she was unrivalled 
 in her success in reconciling those who came to 
 lay their cases before her. So striking was the 
 charm which surrounded this exceptionally gifted 
 woman that she gained the confidence of a race 
 which despises women even more than the Arabs, 
 and is, too, even more hostile to Europeans than 
 they, the Gipsies. Almost all of them knew her 
 without being aware, for the most part, who she 
 really was, and aU respected and loved her, as the 
 Norman fishermen and children did. She de- 
 
THE IMPERIAL WANDERER 153 
 
 lighted in visiting the tribes and going from tent 
 to tent, and many a time she put a friendly end 
 to quarrels which threatened to lead to murderous 
 complications. More than once she risked her own 
 life, and no one else would have returned alive 
 from some of the excursions which she made in 
 serene confidence. 
 
 Being no longer under Court control, and freed 
 from the cruel despotism of the Archduchess Sophia, 
 the Empress could indulge in all the sports which 
 pleased her. Walking, as we know, was one of 
 these once forbidden pursuits. In the course of 
 one of her long journeys in the depths of Hungary, 
 she was resting on the edge of a wood after a tramp 
 of many miles. She caught the sound of moans 
 coming from the wood, at first very faint, but soon 
 turning to loud cries and then to absolute howls 
 of pain. Catching up her short black skirt in 
 her hands, she ran to the spot whence the noise 
 was coming. In a clearing a whole band of 
 gipsies was sitting in a semicircle on the ground, 
 in the centre being the chief and the " grand- 
 mother of the tribe." The grandmother is the 
 oldest woman of the band, the only representative 
 of the weaker sex to whom the gipsies pay honour, 
 though, to make up for this, her authority is even 
 greater than that of the chief himself. 
 
 In the middle of the clearing a woman, stripped 
 of her clothes and with blood all down her back, 
 was writhing in the bonds which fastened her to a 
 tree. Two men were gravely and calmly flogging 
 
154 THE REAL FRANCIS-JOSEPH 
 
 her, turn and turn about, with freshly cut twigs. 
 Without giving a thought to the fact that it was 
 a veritable sacrilege to interfere in a solemn scene 
 of gipsy life, and heedless of the risk to her life 
 to which . her boldness exposed her, Ehsabeth 
 threw herself between the woman and her tor- 
 turers, and boldly ordered them to stop the savage 
 punishment. The " grandmother," who recog- 
 nized the Empress, immediately took her under 
 her protection, and tried to draw her away quietly. 
 But Ehsabeth stood her ground, and pleaded so 
 well that she obtained forgiveness for the woman, 
 who had been suffering the usual penalty which 
 the gipsies inflict on those unhappy wives who, 
 ill-treated by their husbands, seek consolation and 
 forgetfulness elsewhere. 
 
 The wandering Empress also visited Great 
 Britain, where she made many friends among the 
 aristocracy. Here, again, it was a sport which 
 attracted her — to wit, fox-hunting. In one of 
 these hunts, which involve much hard riding, she 
 met with an adventure which was at least 
 picturesque. She was following a fox in the neigh- 
 bourhood of Maynooth College, in Ireland. The 
 fox, which was running in the direction of the 
 college, suddenly darted through a hole in the 
 wall, and shot into the midst of a game of football. 
 Hardly a moment later a horse leapt over 
 the wall, ridden by a woman in dripping garments. 
 In her pursuit of the fox Elisabeth had swum 
 across a river, and, still following him, she had 
 
THE IMPERIAL WANDERER i55 
 
 jumped the wall of Maynooth College — a pretty 
 jump of four feet. 
 
 The head of the college was most attentive, 
 and, having nothing better to offer her, gave her 
 a Doctor's robes to take the place of her wet 
 clothes. Elisabeth asked to be allowed to keep 
 the robes, adding, with her amiable tact, that she 
 regretted that she could not acquire with the robes 
 the knowledge of the pupils of the college. 
 
 This was, indeed, no mere graceful sally on her 
 part, for all through her life she showed a passion- 
 ate desire for ever learning something new. Up 
 to the very day of her death she went on perfect- 
 ing herself in the knowledge of the tongues of 
 the numerous countries which she had visited 
 and continued to revisit. She spoke with the 
 utmost purity German, French, English, Italian, 
 Modern Greek, Arabic, and Hungarian, and these 
 are only the languages with which she was ac- 
 quainted in all their intricacies. Just as in 
 sport she sought for a physical exercise to dis- 
 tract her somewhat from her ever-present troubles, 
 so, too, in the labours of the brain she sought for 
 a mental exercise of like tendency. 
 
 Her abilities were such that her various teachers 
 were always surprised at the rapidity of her 
 progress. Her Greek teacher. Dr. Christomanos, 
 was loud in his appreciation. StiU more so was 
 her Hungarian tutor. Dr. Max Falk, who is now 
 editor-in-chief of the Pesther Lloyd. And Hun- 
 garian is, perhaps, of all languages the most 
 
156 THE REAL FRANCIS- JOSEPH 
 
 difficult to learn, because it has no points of 
 similarity with any other. She studied also, and 
 with success, mathematics, philosophy, and poetry. 
 Her devotion to Heine is well known. Down to 
 the day when she fell a victim to the assassin's 
 knife, she never missed sending once a year a 
 bouquet of white roses for the poet's tomb, and 
 she made many soUtary pilgrimages to the ceme- 
 tery of Montmartre in Paris, where Heine sleeps his 
 last sleep.* 
 
 It is very curious that Ehsabeth, unhappy and 
 melancholy as she was, could never understand 
 Schopenhauer's pessimism, which seemed to her 
 inconsistent with the beauty and kindliness of 
 Nature. Doubtless she did not care to be plunged 
 deeper into the mourning which enveloped her 
 mind. Besides, it can be seen that a woman of 
 her superior character was capable, amid her 
 sorrows, of not arguing from particular to general 
 and concluding that life was necessarily evil 
 because it treated her cruelly. It is probable that 
 this was among the reasons which prevented her 
 from yielding to the temptation of suicide, a 
 temptation which certainly haunted her. She 
 exposed herself to death so often, so carelessly, 
 and so gratuitously, that we cannot but hold that 
 she sought for it. An off-hand remark of hers 
 
 * In the temple at Corfu, mentioned on p. 253, the Empress 
 Elisabeth erected a statue to Heine, which the German 
 Emperor, the present proprietor of the Achilleion, has just 
 (in May, 1909) sold for ;^500, making the temple into a 
 memorial chapel for the Empress herself. — Translator. 
 
THE IMPERIAL WANDERER i57 
 
 explains why it was that she did not take her 
 hfe. 
 
 " To die/' she would say, " is to put an end to 
 oneself, and one's end should be accompanied by 
 perfect serenity. There can be no beauty without 
 serenity, and death should come to us in beautiful 
 guise." 
 
 Suicide, mere brutal suicide, seemed to her 
 ugly. But what of suicide " in beautiful guise " ? 
 One evening in Brittany she thought she had 
 attained it, and it was not her fault that the 
 chance slipped by. She had rented a house 
 among the cruel rocks of Finisterre, on a lonely 
 point of the coast swept by the sea and the winds. 
 It was an old ruined chateau, \yhich appealed to 
 her romantic soul by the legend which it bore over 
 its door : 
 
 " A perfect knight, be sure 'tis so, 
 E'er striketh high and speaketh low."* 
 
 The tottering castle had been roughly and hastily 
 fitted up, and, after the outlay of a lot of money, 
 the ruin was handed over to her in a more or less 
 presentable state for the summer season. 
 
 Here Elisabeth spent days and nights of delight 
 in almost complete solitude, her suite being re. 
 duced to the very minimum. One night she was 
 awakened by the bellowing rage of the ocean — 
 that rage which it is wont to display so terribly 
 on this shore of the Bay of Shipwrecks. Elisabeth 
 
 * " Un chevalier, n'en douiez pas, 
 Doit fevir haut et parley has." 
 
158 THE REAL FRANCIS- JOSEPH 
 
 rose from her bed and went down to the beach. 
 All the village was out, watching, as the grey dawn 
 spread over the tempest-torn sky, a ship going 
 to its doom, impaled on a reef. All hope had been 
 abandoned of saving the poor wretches, whose 
 signals of 'distress could just be seen. Silent and 
 very pale, with the same strange light in her eyes 
 as on the day when she drew near to the murderous 
 horse of Count Festetics, Elisabeth suddenly, with 
 a proud and hopeless gesture, threw herself into the 
 sea. 
 
 She was saved by one of her maids of honour. 
 Countess C, an excellent swimmer^ who was 
 only able to bring her to shore after a great 
 struggle. 
 
 The unhappy Elisabeth had hoped on this 
 morning, as she had before in the stables of Count 
 Festetics, to meet death in beautiful guise ! 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 FROM TRAGEDY TO FARCE 
 
 In some of the principal theatres of the small 
 French provincial towns it is the custom for the 
 same company to act in one evening plays of such 
 widely different kinds as, for instance, " La Tour de 
 Nesle " and " Le Chapeau de paille d'ltalie," or, to 
 take more modern examples, "Les Deux Orphe- 
 lines " and " La Dame de chez Maxim's." Grave 
 and gay are freely mingled, and comedy alternates 
 with melodrama for seven or eight hours at a stretch 
 on the boards of these houses, where the audiences 
 take huge delight in regular exhibitions of 
 dramatic hard labour. Francis-Joseph's family 
 seems to have treated the gallery which watched 
 the drama of its existence to a similar entertain- 
 ment. Tragedy and farce took it in turn through- 
 out one grim, unbroken stretch of the second half 
 of the nineteenth century to excite the tears and 
 guffaws of the spectators. Some of the master- 
 pieces, for one performance only, were played, 
 partly at least, with open doors ; but for most of 
 them there was only a limited and (if one may 
 say so) a privileged audience. 
 159 
 
i6o THE REAL FRANCIS- JOSEPH 
 
 Tragedy first. The plot, in the Habsburg 
 family drama, is based on State policy, which is 
 closely bound up with the religious question. The 
 Catholic Empire of Austria could only seek 
 alliances for the scions of its Imperial house 
 among the reigning Catholic families, who were 
 all, like tfie Habsburgs and for the same reasons, 
 degenerate and blemished. Marriages, in fact, 
 had all to be made with near relations, because 
 there were only five reigning families within the 
 pale of the Church — the Habsburgs in Austria, the 
 Wittelsbachs in Bavaria, the Bourbons in Spain, 
 the House of Savoy in Italy, and the Albertine 
 line in Saxony. There were also the Coburgs 
 in Belgium, but, owing to its having a less un- 
 spotted origin than the other Catholic royal 
 houses, any connection with Leopold's family was 
 disclaimed by the proud lineage of Habsburg. 
 As such trivialities have a grave importance for 
 those who live in the midst of them, it must be 
 stated that the Belgian Coburgs are satisfied to 
 trace their beginnings to Leopold I., who came 
 to the throne in 1831, whereas the Habsburgs 
 carry their origin back to Everard III., Count of 
 Nordgau, Lower Alsace, in the year of robbery, 
 rape, and murder, 898. Further, for political 
 reasons, no marriage has been possible for more 
 than a century between the Houses of Habsburg 
 and of Savoy. The two families in which de- 
 generacy was most marked, because of the more 
 frequent unions between their members, were those 
 
FROM TRAGEDY TO FARCE i6i 
 
 of Habsburg and of Wittelsbach, those precisely 
 to which belonged Francis- Joseph and Elisabeth 
 respectively. So persistent had been weddings 
 between the two houses that the marriage of the 
 Emperor of Austria and of the daughter of Duke 
 Maximilian of Bavaria might be looked on almost 
 as incestuous through the closeness of blood- 
 relationship. Both Francis- Joseph and Elisabeth 
 brought charming presents to each other among 
 their wedding portions : he hereditary epilepsy, 
 she hereditary madness. The point has not been 
 cleared up whether, during her last visit to Corfu, 
 Elisabeth was not attacked by mental disease ; 
 but it is definitely proved that Francis- Joseph 
 is an epileptic, like the Emperor Joseph II. and 
 like his own grandfather Francis I. To conclude 
 for the moment this lamentable account, it must 
 be added that the Emperor transmitted his com- 
 plaint to his son, the hapless Crown Prince Rudolf, 
 and that his youngest daughter, the Archduchess 
 Marie- Valerie (who also married a cousin, Francis- 
 Salvator, Archduke of Austria- Tuscany), is epi- 
 leptic like her brother, father, and two ancestors. 
 
 The consequent anxiety felt by the Emperor 
 about his own family can be easily imagined. 
 Even if we omit the worst catastrophe of all, that 
 of Mayerling, where the Crown Prince Rudolf lost 
 his Ufe, tragic occurrences still appear numerous 
 throughout the Emperor's troublous life. The 
 most agitating of these, especially because of the 
 undying terror which it inspired in the Empress, 
 
 II 
 
i62 THE REAL FILA.NCIS-JOSEPH 
 
 was the mysterious death of Ludwig II. of Bavaria, 
 Elisabeth's cousin, a Wittelsbach, and therefore a 
 member of the most degenerate of the Catholic 
 houses of Europe. What makes the Berg tragedy 
 particularly awful is that it seems almost certain 
 that Ludwig not only killed himself, but also 
 committed murder before doing so. The eccen- 
 tricities in which he indulged proved that the 
 wearer of the Bavarian crown was attacked by 
 mental disease. It had even to be admitted that 
 his madness was such that it, might grow dangerous 
 to other people, and that it was necessary to keep 
 the King in confinement. Of course he was not 
 taken to an asylum. As happens in such cases. 
 King Ludwig was housed in turn in his favourite 
 palaces, the posts of chamberlain and gentleman- 
 in-waiting being filled by a well-known alienist, 
 Professor von Gudden, and by a number of male 
 nurses. The nurses wore Court liveries, to put the 
 royal patient off the scent ; but it was difl&cult 
 to deceive Ludwig, and in order to prevent his 
 escape (a desire which became an obsession with 
 him, so well aware was he of his imprisonment) 
 it was seen to be necessary to keep a very close 
 watch upon him. Although he was free to walk 
 in the parks attached to his palaces, he never 
 went out without finding himself followed by two 
 attendants, of muscular appearance, dressed as 
 footmen. 
 
 King Ludwig was, indeed, dreaming of taking 
 refuge in France or in Switzerland, after escaping 
 
LUDWIG II. OF BAVARIA 
 
 To face page 162 
 
FROM TRAGEDY TO FARCE 163 
 
 from his prison disguised as a Count. Every 
 evening in the summer he took a constitutional 
 after dinner, in the company of Professor von 
 Gudden, followed by the two footmen-nurses. 
 One evening, the day after his arrival at the 
 chateau of Berg, when he seemed calmer than 
 usual, he made a complaint, not about the watch 
 kept upon him (for madmen never make these 
 errors of logic and common sense), but about the 
 presence of the two footmen. 
 
 " These men interfere with my peaceful appre- 
 ciation of Nature," he said, loudly enough for them 
 to hear. " Do you not think that we might 
 disregard for one night the regulation which 
 attaches them to our person, and send them 
 back to the house ?" 
 
 " I must confess. Your Majesty, that I had not 
 thought about it, and that they do not trouble me 
 in the least." 
 
 " Well, they worry me, and I beg you to com- 
 municate my wish to them." 
 
 King Ludwig was a man of unusual muscular 
 strength, but Professor von Gudden was con- 
 sidered, not without reason, a regular athlete. 
 Trusting in his biceps, therefore, he humoured his 
 royal patient's whim, and sent away the nurses. 
 On receipt of the order, the two men went back 
 to the house, but, in spite of the exacting nature 
 of their day's duties, they did not go to bed, for 
 the King's madness had recently grown more 
 pronounced. A quarter of an hour passed, then 
 
 II— 2 
 
i64 THE REAL FRANCIS- JOSEPH 
 
 half an hour, and yet the others had not returned 
 from their walk. The nurses began to feel anxious, 
 and resolved to go back to the spot where they had 
 left the King and the doctor. A few yards away 
 from it, on the bank of the lake, they saw two 
 pairs of legs stretching out of the water on to the 
 grass. Running forward, they pulled out the two 
 bodies. The mad King Ludwig of Bavaria and 
 the alienist doctor. Professor von Gudden, were 
 lying side by side in death, suffocated by drowning. 
 Ludwig' s body was in a peaceful attitude, while 
 the doctor's limbs showed signs of a desperate 
 struggle. Von Gudden, immediately after the 
 nurses' departure, must have been treacherously 
 seized by the maniac and hurled into the water 
 without having time to utter a cry, for the two 
 attendants would certainly have heard him. 
 Then, as his convulsed body showed, his head 
 must have been held under water by Ludwig until 
 his heart's action ceased. Next the mad King lay 
 down at the doctor's side, and, with the fantastic 
 patience which only maniacs can show, drowned 
 himself in his turn in a foot and a half of water. 
 
 When the news reached the Viennese Court, 
 this awful death made a great sensation, and the 
 Emperor was profoundly stirred. But it was the 
 usually calm Empress who was most terribly 
 agitated by it. The tragedy made her remember 
 that she was also, like Ludwig II., a Wittelsbach, 
 and that she was under the curse like him, either 
 in her own person or in those of her descendants. 
 
FROM TRAGEDY TO FARCE 165 
 
 Although, therefore, she had never loved her 
 cousin, she fell seriously ill in consequence of his 
 death. It seems, too, that she had a warning 
 of this death at the time of its occurrence, a 
 phenomenon in no way more surprising than those 
 of wireless telegraphy and telephony, though the 
 manner in which the waves of thought act is 
 different and less familiar. The Empress was at 
 the time stopping on the banks of the Lake of 
 Starnberg, near Possenhofen, directly opposite 
 the chateau of Berg. On the night of the tragedy 
 she went to bed early, and fell asleep at once. 
 Suddenly she began to dream, and a picture 
 appeared to her of Ludwig II., with his features 
 distorted, his hair plastered down on his forehead, 
 his lips blue, his eyes glassy, and his clothes dis- 
 ordered and so wet that great streams of water 
 ran out of them over the floor and began rapidly 
 to creep up the walls of the bedchamber. This 
 nightmare vision of the drowned man bringing 
 with him death — a death like his own — startled 
 Elisabeth out of her sleep, and caused her to utter 
 so terrified a scream that it brought her atten- 
 dants running to her. She told them of her dream, 
 trembling all the while. They had great difficulty 
 in calming her. In the half-waking state which 
 follows slumber, dream life and real life seemed 
 to blend, and the rest of the night it was neces- 
 sary for her favourite waiting-woman to hold her 
 hand, like a frightened child's, before she could 
 get off to sleep. 
 
i66 THE REAL FRANCIS- JOSEPH 
 
 Next day she heard how her cousin had died 
 by drowning the previous evening. She asked for 
 a boat, and was swiftly rowed across the lake to 
 the chateau of Berg, where she was the first of 
 her family to reach the side of the dead man, whom 
 she had not*seen for so many years. On the way 
 from her residence to the house of death, while 
 the boat glided over the still waters in which her 
 cousin's life had passed away, Elisabeth gathered 
 water-lilies, which she laid beside the body when 
 she arrived at Berg. She then asked to be left 
 alone with the dead. A whole hour later she was 
 found unconscious, with her arms crossed, face 
 downwards on the floor. Many fruitless attempts 
 were made to bring her round. At last she re- 
 covered her senses, when, with a terrified glance 
 at the people and objects about her, and a nervous 
 trembling from head to foot, she cried in tones of 
 utter horror : 
 
 " Take him away, take him away . . . quickly. 
 He is not dead. He sat up just now, and told me 
 he was pretending to be dead ... so that they 
 should not torture him any longer." 
 
 And Lud wig's cousin fainted again. 
 
 Yet it is known that Elisabeth had not much 
 affection for her kinsman. He had, indeed, acted 
 very badly once to her elder sister, the one whom 
 the Archduchess Sophia had selected for Francis- 
 Joseph's wife, and who afterwards married the 
 Duke of Alenfon. Ludwig was at that time 
 courting his cousin, and was very anxious that she 
 
FROM TRAGEDY TO FARCE 167 
 
 shotild be allowed to share the crown of Bavaria 
 with him, giving her in the meantime a ring, which 
 he made her swear never to take off. Now, in 
 spite of his jealous disposition, he had in hand, 
 nevertheless, another affair as well as this en- 
 gagement. The lady involved was an ex-actress, 
 who had no wish that her royal friend should get 
 married. Knowing his morbid jealousy, she con- 
 ceived a bold plan, which she carried out with 
 equal audacity. She had managed to get into 
 the good graces of Lud wig's fiancee, and stole 
 from her the ring, which she proceeded to give to 
 a young officer in the royal household, a notorious 
 breaker of hearts. Ludwig noticed the ring on 
 his officer's hand without saying a word ; but the 
 very same day he broke off his engagement. A 
 few months later Ludwig was being rowed by 
 moonlight over the waters of a deep lake, dressed 
 in the garb of Lohengrin, with the ex-actress at his 
 side. In a spirit of foolish and dangerous bravado 
 she confessed to him what she had done to break 
 off the marriage between him and his cousin Sophia. 
 Suddenly Lohengrin sprang upon Elsa, and calmly 
 threw her into the lake. One of the boatmen 
 jumped in after her, and managed to bring the 
 indiscreet chatterer safe to shore. 
 
 This violent and ungovernable man, so jealous 
 and unreflecting, was therefore inclined to murder, 
 and was, in particular, haunted by ideas of death 
 by drowning from of old. Like all really insane 
 persons, also, this Wittelsbach was mad from his 
 
i68 THE REAL FRANCIS- JOSEPH 
 
 birth, and Elisabeth, being a Wittelsbach, was in 
 constant dread, from the day of Ludwig's death, 
 of herself succumbing one day to the hereditary 
 curse. 
 
 This was not the only nor the earliest tragedy 
 which befeU the already trouble-stricken house- 
 hold of the rulers of Austria. If the principal actor 
 in its most mysterious drama was the madman who 
 perished by drowning, the first tragedy centred 
 about a consumptive young girl who was burnt to 
 death. This hapless heroine was the only daughter 
 of the victor of Custozza, Francis-Joseph's uncle, 
 the Archduke Albert, the man really responsible for 
 the Revolution of 1848. Her grandfather was the 
 Archduke Charles, the first to break Napoleon's 
 long series of victories. The Archduke Albert was 
 a soldier of the old school, a feudal grand seigneur, 
 and the richest landed proprietor in Europe. He 
 treated his peasantry like his soldiers, and like the 
 Viennese townsfolk in 1848, with extreme harsh- 
 ness, yet not without occasional traces of justice. 
 Under his rough exterior he sometimes gave proof 
 that an almost generous heart beat in his warrior 
 bosom. Of all the Habsburg family, he was the 
 only one who, from the first days of his Imperial 
 nephew's marriage, frankly espoused the cause of 
 the unfortunate Elisabeth. His attitude was such 
 that he had an open rupture with his sister-in-law, 
 the Archduchess Sophia. This sentimental porcu- 
 pine adored his daughter, even though, in his in- 
 most soul, he would have preferred a son to carry 
 
FROM TRAGEDY TO FARCE 169 
 
 on his family. Having only one daughter, he 
 lavished on her frail form all the inarticulate affec- 
 tion of a rugged heart. Unhappily, the young 
 Archduchess, like every Habsburg, suffered from 
 one of the family taints, and had a weak constitu- 
 tion, showing in particular a distinct tendency to 
 bronchial and lung troubles. She was guarded 
 with the most assiduous care, and everything that 
 could be done for her in the matter of climate, sur- 
 roundings, and medical attention was called in to 
 fight against the consumption that threatened her. 
 The young girl herself was less careful than 
 others about her own health, and she had an abso- 
 lute passion for cigarette-smoking, which was very 
 dangerous to her in the state of her respiratory 
 organs. She was obliged, therefore, to smoke in 
 secret. One beautiful summer evening at Schon- 
 brunn she was leaning out of her window challeng- 
 ing the twinkling lights of heaven with the more 
 earthly glow of her cigarette. Her frail shoulders 
 were scarcely veiled in a dressing-jacket of white 
 gauze and lace, as she surrendered herself de- 
 liciously to the enjoyment of the warm night and 
 the forbidden indulgence. A crunching sound on 
 the gravel path reached her ears, and she cautiously 
 put her hand over her little red star. A dark 
 shadow drew near the window and stopped. The 
 little red star disappeared behind the white robe. 
 The Archduke Albert, the cause of the shadow 
 which alarmed her, stood talking for a moment to 
 his daughter, when suddenly he noticed smoke 
 
FROM TRAGEDY TO FARCE 171 
 
 respected. On the following February 9 the allied 
 troops disembarked on the soil of the Republic, 
 under the command of General Prim. Owing to 
 the unfriendly eye with which the United States 
 looked upon this action, Spain and England with- 
 drew their forces after April 14, leaving France 
 alone to carry on the military operations began 
 two months previously. 
 
 The idea of setting a Habsburg upon the re- 
 stored throne of the Empire of Mexico was already 
 in the mind of Monseigneur La Bastida, former 
 Archbishop of Mexico, whom the Republicans had 
 driven out and deprived of his ecclesiastical pos- 
 sessions, to the value of £20,000,000. The French 
 Government welcomed the Archbishop's sugges- 
 tion, hoping to turn it to profit, and negotiations 
 took place between the Tuileries and Miramar, 
 the residence of Francis- Joseph's brother-in-law, 
 the Archduke Maximilian, and his wife, the Arch- 
 duchess Charlotte. It took no less than eight 
 months to persuade the Archduke to accept the 
 distant throne which was offered to him. Bazaine, 
 however, who had succeeded General Forey in the 
 French military government in Mexico, succeeded 
 in re-establishing a certain amount of order in the 
 country. On the strength of this apparent pacifica- 
 tion, and by guaranteeing to support the Austrian 
 Prince with " a moral and material guarantee 
 by land and by sea," France at last induced 
 MaximiUan to set sail for his new Empire. Led 
 astray by the illusive mirages which had been con- 
 
172 THE REAL FRANCIS-JOSEPH 
 
 jured up before his eyes, he reached Mexico ready 
 to find awaiting him a land blazing with gold and 
 ringing with popular enthusiasm. But the gold 
 was destined for the Tuileries and the Mexican 
 priesthood ; while as for popular enthusiasm, it 
 took the fprm certainly of shouts, but of shouts 
 hostile to the Imperial pair who landed at Vera 
 Cruz on May 24, 1864. 
 
 The reign lasted for three years, succumbing 
 under the heavy burden of that budget which had 
 so dazzled Maximilian's eyes in the seclusion of his 
 palace at Miramar. Bazaine had temporarily con- 
 quered the evil instincts of the Mexicans, and 
 crushed by fear the tendency towards treason 
 which is a fundamental part of their character. 
 Maximilian's good-natured soul gave new oppor- 
 tunities to these instincts and tendencies. Mexico 
 needed a Louis XI. or a Cromwell, but found a 
 Louis XVI. And, like Louis XVI., Maximilian 
 was doomed to fall a victim to circumstances and 
 to his own weakness. It must be added that the 
 third Napoleon's Government contributed by its 
 conduct to the catastrophe. In spite of promises 
 and undertakings, the Sovereign at the Tuileries 
 gave no moral support to the Sovereign in Mexico, 
 and at the end of 1866 he even withdrew from him 
 his material support (represented by the Army of 
 Occupation) when confronted by a more definite 
 threat from the United States. It was an error of 
 the French Government to persuade the Archduke 
 Maximilian to accept the throne of Mexico, but it 
 
FROM TRAGEDY TO FARCE 173 
 
 was a betrayal of trust to recall the troops whose 
 duty it was to uphold the unfortunate Emperor. 
 
 The Empress Charlotte had already come back 
 to Europe. It was known that matters were going 
 from bad to worse in Mexico, and that the Revolu- 
 tionaries were arming against their Sovereign. 
 Charlotte made a desperate appeal to Maximilian 
 to return, which he was about to answer by em- 
 barking at Orizaba, when, yielding to the wiles of 
 the Clerical party, who saw the ruin of all their 
 hopes in his departure, he accepted a delusive offer 
 of soldiers and treasure to enable him to fight the 
 National and Republican movement. Napoleonlll. 
 should, and could, have intervened at this moment 
 to save by main force the life of his companion in a 
 venture which had turned out HI. He did not do 
 so, and the last act of the tragedy commenced. 
 Undecided, and with no one else's decision to take 
 the place of his own, weak, and with no outside 
 strength to sustain him, Maximilian went all un- 
 witting to meet his death. On June 15, 1867, on 
 the Cerro de la Campafia, looking down on Quere- 
 taro, the poor Emperor perished miserably, aban- 
 doned by all, including those who had enticed him 
 on the fatal adventure. At nine in the morning, 
 under the blazing sun, he fell pierced by the bullets 
 of the Revolutionaries, who shot with him his 
 Generals Miramon and Mejia. He suffered by the 
 decree which he himself had signed in October, 
 1865, prescribing the death-penalty against anyone 
 caught with arms in his hands. 
 
174 THE REAL FRANCIS- JOSEPH 
 
 The event which caused Maximilian's death also 
 caused the loss of his unhappy wife's reason. The 
 Empress has been mad from that, day to this, 
 hiding her condition from the world in a lonely 
 and gloomy palace. 
 
 This sorrowful history, revealing at once the 
 weakness of a man's character and the cowardice 
 of State politics, is, except for the mystery of 
 Mayerling, the last of the tragedies of the Imperial 
 House of Austria. We come now to what we may 
 call (and the title is suggestive of melodrama) 
 " The Affair of Johann Orth." The story concerns 
 the Archduke John, a scion of the Tuscan branch, 
 a person infinitely more reputable than the majo- 
 rity of his cousins. 
 
 The Archduke John naturally entered upon a 
 military career. A Colonel at twenty-four, Briga- 
 dier-General at twenty-six, and Lieutenant- 
 General at twenty-seven, this rapid promotion, 
 common to all members of his caste, must be ad- 
 mitted to have been less scandalous in his case 
 than in that of other Archdukes. Indeed, he gave 
 evidence of strict attention to his work, sound 
 abilities, and genuine understanding of the art of 
 war. His fault — or, at least, the thing which 
 ruined him — was that he combined with these de- 
 sirable qualities a remarkably critical mind and 
 an unswerving loyalty. These shortcomings (in 
 an Archduke) led him to publish, in 1883, a concise 
 and bitterly critical pamphlet dealing with the 
 regulations prevailing in the Austro-Hungarian 
 
THE ARCHDUCHESS CHARLOTTE 
 From a portrait by Winterhalter 
 
 To/acefage 174 
 
FROM TRAGEDY TO FARCE 175 
 
 Army. Its title, " Drill or Education ?" is a 
 sufficient indication of the liberal tendencies of the 
 work. The Emperor sent for the Archduke John, 
 gave him a severe lecture, and banished him from 
 the Court, where he was then living, to take up a 
 command at Linz, in Upper Austria. At this 
 period the Bulgarians, after Prince Alexander's 
 abdication, were looking for a Prince willing to rule 
 over them. The Archduke John, on whom mili- 
 tary inactivity weighed heavily, made an incursion 
 into politics, and suggested Prince Ferdinand of 
 Coburg, who accepted the invitation, and was him- 
 self accepted by the Bulgarians, in spite of the 
 official opposition of the Court of Vienna. The 
 Emperor sent a despatch relieving the Archduke 
 John of his post at Linz. The Archduke replied 
 with a despatch placing in the Emperor's hands his 
 resignation from the Army. He developed next a 
 great taste for the mercantile marine, took the 
 study seriously, and soon passed successfully at 
 Hamburg his examination for Captain in the 
 foreign trade. In October, 1889, he resigned his 
 title of Archduke, with all the rights and preroga- 
 tives pertaining thereto, and adopted the name of 
 plain Johann Orth, after a chateau belonging to 
 his mother on the shore of the Lake of Gmunden. 
 A few months later he took to share his lot a pretty 
 actress whom he loved, Fraiilein Margaret Stiibel. 
 With her he started on a sailing-ship, which he 
 christened, after her, the Saint Margaret, from 
 Hamburg for Buenos Ayres. Making that port 
 
176 THE REAL FRANCIS- JOSEPH 
 
 his base, he sailed next to Valparaiso, Thence he 
 set out on a third voyage, and from that day to this 
 nothing more has been heard of Johann Orth. As 
 was only to be expected, a legend has grown up 
 about him and his mysterious wanderings. He has 
 been pictured as a gentleman-farmer living a 
 homely lile on some sierra in South America. What 
 gives the lie to this hypothesis is the fact that his 
 mother, who was dearer to him than all the world, 
 has never heard a word from him. He would have 
 let her know at least that he was still alive. It 
 would seem more probable, therefore, that, being 
 an inexperienced navigator, he ran into a reef whUe 
 rounding Cape Horn, and that the Saint Margaret, 
 in spite of the religious and sentimental protection 
 of her name, went down with all hands. This ex- 
 planation is less mysterious, romantic, and attrac- 
 tive than the tale of the gentleman-farmer, but, 
 unluckily, it is also far more probable. 
 
 If it is necessary to speak at this point of the 
 more recent scandals in the Tuscan branch of the 
 family, everyone must recaU the stir made by the 
 flight of Her Royal Highness Louise of Saxony, 
 daughter of Ferdinand IV., Grand-Duke of Tus- 
 cany. After marrying the Crown Prince of Saxony 
 (who became King, subsequently to his matri- 
 monial mishap, owing to the death without issue 
 of his uncle Albert), the Princess Louise left the 
 Court of Dresden in the company of her children's 
 tutor, a young Belgian named Giron, and took 
 refuge in Geneva. At the same time Louise's 
 
FROM TRAGEDY TO FARCE 177 
 
 brother carried off an actress, Fraiilein Adamo- 
 vitch, whose talent was slight, and set up house 
 with her on the right bank of Lake Leman, at Mon- 
 treux. Accustomed as she was to play small parts 
 on the stage, this lady continued the habit in real 
 life ; for the tremendous scandal of the Princess 
 Louise's flight completely threw into the shade the 
 second-rate scandal of the Prince's elopement with 
 the singing-girl. 
 
 The curtain now goes up on the third part of the 
 show — flight comedy and coarse farce — ^the prin- 
 cipal actors herein being two brothers and a 
 nephew of Francis-Joseph. And first we have, by 
 reason of his seniority, the Archduke Charles- 
 Louis, third brother of the Emperor. He has been 
 married three times — first to Margaret of Saxony, 
 at Dresden, on November 4, 1856 ; next, to Anon- 
 ciada of Bourbon-Sicily, by proxy at Venice on 
 October 16, and in person at Rome on October 21, 
 1862 ; and lastly, to Maria-Theresa of Braganza, at 
 the chateau of Henbach on July 23, 1873. But, in 
 addition to his three marriages, the adventures of 
 the worthy Archduke appear to have been without 
 number. One story, at least, shows that the 
 wooings of this grand seigneur were not always 
 marked by extreme delicacy. 
 
 A blue-eyed and fair-haired young woman, of 
 elegant carriage and simple dress, was once return- 
 ing to her home in the heart of the "Latin Quarter" 
 of the Austrian capital, when a man approached 
 her. He had the upturned moustache, frock- 
 
 12 
 
178 THE REAL FRANCIS- JOSEPH 
 
 coated figure evidently built up by corsets, the 
 swaggering walk, and, in fact, all the character- 
 istics of a cavalry officer. The usual conversation 
 followed, suggestive on his part, indignant on the 
 girl's. She sent him about his business, showing 
 him plainly that he had " made a mistake." Next 
 day there was a knock at the door of the rooms 
 where the blue-eyed one lodged. Suspecting 
 nothing, she opened the door, to discover the frock- 
 coated cavalry officer of the previous evening. She 
 was about to shut the door in his face, but he gave 
 her no time. 
 
 " Please don't shut me out ; I have a most 
 important message for you." 
 
 " I can take no message from you." 
 
 " Still, listen to it ; that binds you to nothing, 
 and I am sure that you would regret not giving 
 me a hearing." 
 
 He stepped inside with deliberation, and told 
 the girl that her grace and beauty had attracted 
 one of the highest personages in the Empire, who 
 was quite ready to lay at her feet his love and all 
 the advantages which would of course accom- 
 pany it. 
 
 The young girl was by no means dazzled at the 
 vision, and declared she had a friend, a medical 
 student, whom she loved and had no desire to 
 betray. Her visitor's advice to her to reflect upon 
 the good fortune which she was despising only 
 elicited from her thanks for his " kind intentions," 
 and a request to bring the conversation to an end. 
 
FROM TRAGEDY TO FARCE 179 
 
 Two days later the gentleman reappeared, this 
 time in the uniform of a Colonel of hussars ; and 
 now he promptly revealed the name of the person 
 for whom he was acting — the Emperor's own 
 brother. He expected a sensation — and he re- 
 ceived one, for the door was promptly slammed 
 in his face. 
 
 This unceremonious act had a speedy sequel. 
 Next morning the girl was summoned before the 
 police, and informed, as she was a foreigner living 
 a secretly immoral life, she must leave Vienna 
 and Austrian territory within twenty-four hours. 
 It was not yet noon when the student in his turn, 
 though he had received no summons, entered the 
 ofi&ce of the Polizeirat, or Counsel for the Police 
 Department. He explained that the lady just 
 expelled was his fiancee, and that he hoped that 
 she would not be molested. The Polizeirat put 
 on a haughty air, but the student was not fright- 
 ened, and declared that he did not intend to be 
 separated from his love. He went on to make 
 such comments on the conduct of the Archduke 
 Charles-Louis that he was promptly arrested. He 
 took this very calmly, however, and with a polite 
 smile remarked that he thought it right to warn 
 the official that the American Ambassador was 
 aware of his visit, and would know where he was 
 to be found if he did not turn up at the Embassy, 
 with his fiancie, at four o'clock that afternoon. 
 Moreover, the Ambassador might not be as dis- 
 creet as he had been. 
 
 12 — 2 
 
i8o THE REAL FRANCIS- JOSEPH 
 
 Finding that he was an American citizen, the 
 Polizeirat admitted that the case wore a different 
 aspect, and, needless to say, neither was the 
 student kept under arrest nor was the lady ex- 
 pelled from the country. 
 
 The ways of the Archduke Charles-Louis, how- 
 ever, appear to have been modelled on a book of 
 manners for gentlemen when they are compared 
 with the conduct of his son, His Imperial and 
 Royal Highness the Archduke Otho-Francis, 
 Major-General commanding the Tenth Cavalry 
 Brigade in the Austro-Hungarian Army. This 
 gallant officer, who reached the age of forty in 
 April, 1905, was one of the wildest revellers in 
 the Habsburg family. Married at twenty-one 
 to a Saxon Princess, Marie-Josephe, plain and 
 bigotedly religious, he was at the time Colonel of a 
 dragoon regiment quartered at Enns, in Upper 
 Austria. This regiment had the reputation of 
 being the smartest of all cavalry regiments ; and, 
 of course, the cavalry is the smartest of all branches 
 of the service in all countries. Hence the idle, 
 roistering life of the dragoon officers at Enns. 
 The Archduke Otho was just the Colonel for this 
 brilliant band of warriors, the real " father of his 
 regiment," as every good Colonel ought to be. 
 His recorded exploits are more numerous than the 
 stars of heaven or the sands of the sea, and it is 
 therefore difficult to make a choice among them. 
 A tale must be selected at haphazard. 
 
 One night, when the merry company had drunk 
 
FROM TRAGEDY TO FARCE i8i 
 
 almost as much as usual in one of the restaurants 
 of Enns, it was decided to " have the next one 
 somewhere else." As the move was being made, 
 2 a.m. struck, and when the gentlemen reached 
 the cafe where they had arranged to break up 
 the crockery, they found the place closed in obe- 
 dience to the municipal regulations. A thundering 
 knock on the door produced no answer, so they 
 picked up some stones and started to hurl them 
 through the windows. This seemed too quiet a 
 proceeding, however, and they proceeded from 
 stones to revolver shots. When not a pane was 
 left whole, the gallant band, still with their Colonel 
 at their head, set to work to burn down the 
 building. At this point a cavalry picket arrived 
 on the scene, summoned by the proprietor of the 
 cafe, who was unaware what distinguished assail- 
 ants had been honouring him with their attentions, 
 and then it was discovered that the men had been 
 caUed out to arrest their own officers ! 
 
 Shortly afterwards, when this affair had been 
 hushed up, the noble Colonel, accompanied by his 
 most promising officers, was out riding in the 
 neighbourhood of Enns, when the party met with 
 a peasant's walking funeral. The Archduke 
 offered his subordinates a bet that he would jump 
 his horse over the coffin as it rested on its bearers' 
 shoulders. The bet was taken, and the Archduke 
 jumped, to the great terror of the four bearers, 
 who dropped the coffin on the ground. PubHc 
 opinion was this time revolted, and to such an 
 
i82 THE REAL FRANCIS- JOSEPH 
 
 extent that an echo of its wrath was heard even 
 through the baize on the doors of the Imperial 
 study. The Emperor's religious susceptibilities 
 were affected, and, having summoned his nephew 
 before him, he was so carried away by anger as 
 to strike him. He also recalled him from Enns to 
 Vienna, though it must be added that he promoted 
 him as he recalled him, giving him the rank of 
 General. 
 
 At Vienna the young officer had better oppor- 
 tunities of showing his originality. One of the 
 most charming of his schemes came to him after 
 making a night of it at Sacher's famous cafe. He 
 was at the time living at the Augarten, one of the 
 Imperial parks with a house in it, which had been 
 allotted to him. He determined to take all his 
 friends home, and up to the Archduchess Marie- 
 Josephe's room. However, on the threshold he 
 was met by an old servant, who declared that his 
 master should not enter without killing him first. 
 The Archduke drew his sword, and in his drunken 
 fury would have run the old man through had not 
 one of the officers with him, soberer than the rest, 
 prevented the execution of this crime. 
 
 Monstrous as they may appear, these stories 
 are absolutely authentic. They may be verified 
 from a speech made by the Deputy Pernerstorfer 
 in the Austrian Reichsrath in the course of a debate 
 on the civil list. It is true that, forty-eight hours 
 later, Herr Pernerstorfer, while returning home 
 by night, was attacked by some masked men, and 
 
FROM TRAGEDY TO FARCE 183 
 
 so violently handled by them that he was forced 
 to keep his bed for several weeks. 
 
 A later exploit of the Archduke occurred in 
 1904. An evening spent in quenching his thirst 
 at the above-mentioned restaurant had so warmed 
 him that he considered himself justified in adopt- 
 ing a cooler costume. His sudden appearance 
 from a private room, dressed in nothing but a 
 shako, a belt, and a sword, over which he stumbled 
 just as the British Ambassador, his wife, and two 
 daughters were passing down the corridor, led to 
 diplomatic representations, so grave was the inci- 
 dent considered. 
 
 There is certainly no lack of interest in these 
 performances of the Imperial comedians. The 
 entry on the scene of the Emperor's fourth 
 brother, the Archduke Louis- Victor, an old gentle- 
 man who has beaten the family record, would be 
 still more sensational, were it not that the author 
 would find it difiicidt to speak of his exploits 
 without recourse to the decent obscurity of, say, 
 the Latin language. It must sufi&ce to say that 
 the Archduke was a constant frequenter of the 
 luxurious Turkish baths at Vienna known as the 
 Centralhad, where he often met others of the same 
 character as himself. One day in 1903 he made 
 a mistake, and received a couple of stout blows 
 in return for his remarks, while a number of men 
 present who sympathized with the offended party 
 took the opportunity of administering to the 
 offender so sound a thrashing that he was carried 
 
i84 THE REAL FRANCIS- JOSEPH 
 
 home half fainting. The Emperor, who was not 
 at all pleased with his brother's vagaries, assigned 
 to him as his residence in future a house in the 
 small town of Meran in Southern Tyrol, where his 
 eccentricity has no great scope. 
 
 Such, then, is Francis-Joseph's family, which 
 has been playing its part on the world's stage for 
 over half a century. It must be confessed that 
 in the matter of variety of performances, in public 
 and stUl more frequently in private, the Imperial 
 troupe can give points to those provincial com- 
 panies who represent, in alternate acts on one and 
 the same evening, the most diverse of dramas, 
 melodramas, comedies, and farces. 
 
THE ARCHDUKE CHARLES-LOUIS 
 
 JOHANN ORTH 
 (the archduke JOHN) 
 
 THE ARCHDUKE LOUIS-VICTOR 
 To face page 184 
 
CHAPTER X 
 
 THE CROWN PRINCE 
 
 From his earliest infancy the heir to the 
 Austro- Hungarian throne, son of an epileptic 
 father and a mother in whose blood ran the 
 taint of madness, was of a puny, sickly, and ex- 
 cessively nervous appearance. Little Rudolf, in 
 addition to — ^perhaps because of — his poor 
 physique, had all the marks of the most perfect 
 type of spoilt child. His grandmother, the Arch- 
 duchess Sophia, who had assumed control of his 
 upbringing in the manner which has been de- 
 scribed above, gave him nine years of physical 
 and moral training of equally disastrous kinds. 
 The child became daily more and more feeble and 
 more intolerable. Then the Emperor, who was 
 suffering from the separation from his wife, con- 
 ceived the idea of bringing her back to the Hofburg 
 to entrust her with the care of her son. No doubt 
 his sentimental grief over his wife's absence was 
 small, but he appreciated the evil consequences 
 of the partial dissolution of the Imperial marriage. 
 Moreover, Elisabeth's conduct was so dignified 
 and so unassailable, in spite of the malicious 
 185 
 
i86 THE REAL FRANCIS-JOSEPH 
 
 rumours sedulously spread by some of the 
 Dowager Archduchess's friends without a shadow 
 of proof, that a considerable section of the Viennese 
 aristocracy, although it would probably have been 
 fiercely hostile to the Empress had she been in 
 their midst, was beginning to exhibit platonic 
 sympathy for her in her absence. 
 
 The moment seemed opportune to Francis- 
 Joseph to recall Elisabeth to Court. It was plain 
 that she would not have yielded to a husband's 
 appeal or to an Emperor's command, but he 
 hoped that she would listen to a father's prayer. 
 In the name of little Rudolf, deprived of a mother's 
 care, he begged her to come back to her place 
 beside her child. His calculation was correct. 
 Although she had sworn never to return to 
 married life, she returned to it so effectively that, 
 having re-entered the Hofburg in 1867, she gave 
 birth to her fourth and last child, the Archduchess 
 Marie- Valerie, at Buda-Pesth on April 22, 1868. 
 From that time untU 1874, when her son came of 
 age, she was to spend the greater part of her life 
 at the Imperial palaces. 
 
 Her home-coming, however, did not seem at 
 first either a happy or an easy task ; for the child 
 was not merely indifferent to a mother whom he 
 had never known, he was hostile to a mother 
 whom he had never understood. Once more 
 success had crowned the wicked work of the Arch- 
 duchess Sophia, now grown old and already close 
 to the grave; for she died five years later, on 
 
THE CROWN PRINCE 187 
 
 May 28, 1872. It had been no haughty self- 
 sufficiency, as in the case of her own son's educa- 
 tion, which had driven the Dowager Archduchess 
 to bring up so badly a child whom she could not 
 expect to see wearing the crown. The no less 
 detestable motive of jealousy was what influenced 
 her. She could gain no personal advantage by 
 perverting Rudolf's mind ; her only end could be 
 to alienate him from his mother. First of aU, she 
 delighted in sowing, in a soil only too well pre- 
 pared, the seed of an unhealthy self-will. She 
 indulged the child in the most reprehensible of 
 his whims, gratuitously explaining that all desires, 
 whatever they might be, were legitimate in a 
 Prince destined to rule over one of the largest 
 Empires in the world. She defended her conduct 
 by insisting that it was wrong to thwart so sickly 
 and nervous a little creature. When Rudolf, 
 badly brought up but very attached to the 
 grandmother whom his smaU will could sway, 
 was thus made ready to believe all that she told 
 him, the Archduchess Sophia got seriously to 
 work. She did her best (which meant a great 
 deal) to calumniate the absent Elisabeth, repre- 
 senting her to the boy as an indifferent mother, 
 who only cared for the satisfaction of her own 
 desires. Still more artfully, when she felt that her 
 influence over Francis- Joseph was weakening as 
 she grew older, and that the day was coming for 
 the return of " the other woman," she impressed 
 on the child that, if his mother came back, there 
 
i88 THE REAL FRANCIS- JOSEPH 
 
 would be an end of play and freedom^ an end of 
 the fine times of pleasure and indulgence which 
 his grandmother procured for him. He would 
 have to be " good." In short, to the child's eyes 
 the tender mother who, in her lonely, wandering 
 life, so oftep wept as she thought of her little son, 
 was represented in the light of a monster and a 
 bugbear. 
 
 For Elisabeth, as she crossed the threshold of 
 the Hofburg, one bright star of hope was shining 
 in the grey heavens — that with her rights as mother 
 would come back the opportunity for pouring out 
 the wasting treasures of maternal love. Her 
 heart was beating furiously, her tears were ready 
 to flow, and her lips and arms were yearning to 
 lavish embraces, as she cried rather than said to 
 Rudolf : 
 
 " Kiss me, darling. This time mamma has come 
 back for good." 
 
 The poor woman imagined that a shout of joy 
 would be the answer to her loving speech. Instead, 
 the child came forward coldly, scowling, sullen- 
 eyed, and tight-lipped, and did not even return her 
 kisses. Suddenly she recognized the quarter from 
 which the blow came. Wounded though she was, 
 she did not give way to despair. She had returned, 
 she meant to stay, and since there was to be war, 
 she would fight for victory to the utmost of her 
 strength. 
 
 A point of which she did not dream was to favour 
 her most remarkably in the struggle upon which 
 
THE CROWN PRINCE 189 
 
 she was entering. Rudolf, from his eariiest days, 
 had been strongly attracted by feminine beauty, 
 and delighted, in nothing so much as the company 
 of pretty women. His mother's loveliness made a 
 great appeal to him. In spite of the sorrows which 
 she had gone through, at the age of thirty her fair 
 beauty had blossomed out most wonderfully, and 
 she was more ravishing than ever. Her physical 
 charm influenced the child more than can be de- 
 scribed, and it was not long before he was the de- 
 voted servant of his lovely mother. There was an 
 element (far more common than our foolish pru- 
 dery is wont to admit) of the lover's feeling in the 
 neurotic passion of little Rudolf for her — a fact 
 which he always remembered whenever his abrupt 
 and unstable disposition allowed him to take any- 
 one into his confidence. The mother, moreover, 
 with a faint comprehension of this vaguely lover- 
 like affection which her son had for her, was not 
 embarrassed at it, but recognized in it a kind of 
 homage to her womanly qualities, and built upon 
 this material basis the moral superstructure of her 
 intense love for her son. Her feelings were no 
 more different from those of other mothers than 
 Rudolf's affection was different from other sons'. 
 A simple law of nature governed both mother and 
 child. 
 
 Nevertheless, the self-willed and capricious boy, 
 much spoilt and badly brought up, was often in 
 rebellion against Elisabeth. His sensitiveness was 
 morbid, and his gusts of temper were such as to 
 
igo THE REAL FRANCIS-JOSEPH 
 
 cause despair. Sometimes an argument, carried 
 as far as it could go, would reduce him to a most 
 obstinate condition of mind, from which five 
 minutes later he would emerge as emotional as some 
 nervous little animal. One of the most convincing 
 instances of this was seen in a small affair which 
 the Empress was fond of telling to her intimate 
 friends. She was in her sitting-room at Ischl, 
 reading, when Rudolf broke in excitedly, followed 
 less impetuously by his elder sister Gisela, the 
 child, it will be remembered, whom Elisabeth did 
 not love. Both of them had been picking bunches 
 of wild-flowers, and had brought their gay spoils to 
 their mother. Elisabeth kissed them both by 
 way of thanks — Rudolf lovingly, Gisela less 
 warmly. 
 
 " Mamma," asked the young Prince, " how is it 
 that I am more loved than my sister ?" 
 
 Elisabeth started. " By whom do you mean ?" 
 she asked. 
 
 " Oh, by everybody !" 
 
 " You must not say such things, Rudy. You 
 are not more loved than your sister." 
 
 " Oh yes, I am ! Don't you think I am nicer 
 than Gisela ?" 
 
 More with the intention of giving her son a lesson 
 than from her heart's promptings, Elisabeth took 
 Gisela in her arms and kissed her on the forehead. 
 Rudolf shook his head with a knowing air, and, 
 without waiting for an answer to his question, 
 went on : 
 
THE CROWN PRINCE 191 
 
 " It's no good ; no one will believe that you like 
 Gisela as well as your Rudy." 
 
 " My Rudy seems to me a very vain little man/' 
 said the Empress, half in earnest, half in jest. 
 " That is a very ugly fault, and God does not love 
 conceited children." 
 
 " Ah well," said the child, " I am quite sure God 
 loves me. I love Him very much without seeing 
 Him, and He, who sees me, cannot help loving me." 
 
 " And if He sees you capricious and disobedient 
 and naughty, as you sometimes are, how do you 
 suppose, Rudy, that God can love you ?" 
 
 The boy stood haughtily in front of his mother, 
 with a sullen look in his eyes and a frown on his 
 forehead, and, thrusting his hands deep into his 
 trouser-pockets, said determinedly : 
 
 " It is God who made me what I am, and He 
 must be content with what He has made." 
 
 He flew off in a rage, furious at the picture which 
 his mother had drawn of him. A few minutes 
 later, taking no further notice of him, Elisabeth 
 sat down at the piano, and began to sing one of 
 Schubert's songs in her sweet, deep, musical voice. 
 Music was her almost invariable refuge from 
 troublesome thoughts. As she sang, the child 
 trembled with emotion. When the last notes of 
 the song had died away, she looked round, to see 
 him standing near her, with his big earnest eyes 
 full of tears. He caught hold of her arm passion- 
 ately and cried : 
 
 " Forgive me, mamma ; I am sorry . . ." 
 
192 THE REAL FRANCIS- JOSEPH 
 
 There was still lurking a trace of the rebellious 
 and conceited child under the sufrace of the 
 charmed and tamed little animal, so Elisabeth 
 could not refrain from asking : 
 
 " What are you sorry for, Rudy ?" 
 
 " For what I said. When you sing, you know, 
 I always feel I am getting more good." 
 
 After this revelation of the depths of his emo- 
 tional little soul, he threw himself upon her neck 
 and smothered her with kisses. 
 
 The grandmother's influence continued to show 
 itself in the midst of all these violent sulkings, 
 passionate fits, and fiery gusts of temper. The 
 dominant trait in Rudolf's character, indeed, was 
 to be found in the importance which he attached to 
 his own small personality, to the rights which his 
 rank conferred upon him, and to the respect due 
 to him. Young as he was, he was as well up as 
 anyone at Court in the rules of etiquette and the 
 prescribed ceremonial. The remembrance of his 
 dignity as the future Emperor never ceased to 
 haunt him. One summer afternoon, in the park 
 at Schonbrunn, Rudolf and Gisela were " playing 
 at weddings" with some little friends, sons and 
 daughters of high personages at Court. Rudolf, of 
 course, who always took the lion's share, declared 
 that he would be the bridegroom. There was no 
 thought of changing this arrangement when once it 
 had been made, but there now arose a serious 
 difficulty. 
 
 " Whom shall I choose as my bride ?" he asked. 
 
THE CROWN PRINCE 193 
 
 " Me," " Me," " Me," cried a dozen shrill little 
 voices. 
 
 Rudolf reflected, and then, with perfect gravity, 
 he said : " I don't see anyone here except Gisela 
 who is worthy of me, because none of the others are 
 of royal blood. And I can't marry you, Gisela, 
 because you are my sister." 
 
 " What does that matter ?" she said. " This 
 is only a game." 
 
 " You can't do some things even in games." 
 
 " Well, choose someone else." 
 
 " I tell you, they aren't of royal blood." 
 
 " But it's only a game," repeated Gisela. 
 
 " No, it is impossible." 
 
 So there was no more playing at weddings that 
 day at Schonbrunn. 
 
 The Empress was terribly distressed at this turn 
 of mind, which robbed Rudolf of aU the ingenuous 
 charm and naivete of childhood. It was out of 
 harmony, moreover, with her liberal views and 
 general reasonableness of soul. She strove hard, 
 therefore, to give a new turn to her son's imagina- 
 tion. But, assiduously as she laboured, she suc- 
 ceeded in obtaining very little result — for the most 
 part, in fact, a result contrary to what she desired. 
 If she was able to conquer the boy's heart by 
 charming his eyes, she was powerless to change the 
 direction of his wtU by taming his spirit. 
 
 She did not have recourse to mere words, but 
 tried also the effect of giving him surroundings 
 quite different from those in which he usually 
 
 13 
 
194 THE REAL FRANCIS- JOSEPH 
 
 moved. Thus, when Rudolf evinced a violent 
 interest (aU his interests, indeed, were violent) in 
 horticulture, she had a corner of the garden given 
 to him, and insisted that he should cultivate it 
 himself, providing him with a teacher and assis- 
 tant in the person of a polite and well-brought-up 
 little boy, son of one of the grooms at Schonbrunn. 
 She watched personally that Rudolf should treat 
 John like a friend, not like a servant. The success 
 of her experiment cannot truthfully be said to 
 have been great. The Crown Prince proved in- 
 tractable in this respect, and all that the Empress 
 gained by her attempt at the suppression of caste 
 was to procure quickly for the unfortunate little 
 John a bad time at the hands of his pupil. Rudolf 
 gave orders, and John worked. He worked all 
 day, and then next morning Rudolf would gratui- 
 tously undo all his labour. Having planted once, 
 with great toil, a number of rose-bushes, John 
 found them a few hours later all puUed up and 
 thrown in a heap. This was Rudolfs way of 
 seeing if the roses were taking root ! 
 
 Nevertheless, the little Prince was proud of what 
 he called his garden. He often brought his mother 
 to see it ; and when she thought it wotdd certainly 
 look much better if it were more tidily kept, 
 Rudolf stamped, as his father used to do, and cried : 
 
 "It's John's fault. You can't think what 
 trouble I have to put it to rights after John has 
 been in it." 
 
 And then Rudolf thoughtlessly (so one hopes, at 
 
THE CROWN PRINCE 195 
 
 least) gave a severe lecture to poor John, who 
 forced back his tears and never said a word. 
 
 These childish doings give an insight into 
 Rudolf's character. Throughout hfe he always 
 blamed others, or else Fate, for all his vexations as 
 for all his faults, and never looked for the real 
 source of the evil, which lay in himself. 
 
 The Empress's maternal zeal was not checked by 
 the unfortunate experience with the garden, nor by 
 many others equally unprofitable, although she 
 was much upset by her ill-success. Christmastide 
 at the Hofburg gave her an opportunity of attempt- 
 ing to make her son more democratic. She in- 
 vited to the Palace fifty boys and fifty girls, all 
 children of the people, not merely because she 
 adored children herself, but in order to bring 
 Rudolf, Gisela, and the little Marie- Valerie, then 
 three years old, in contact with the poor. In the 
 banqueting-hall of the Hofburg had been placed a 
 huge Christmas-tree, reaching almost up to the 
 high arched wooden ceiling. About the tree, with 
 its coloured candles, ribbons, and flowery garlands, 
 were tables covered with presents both useful and 
 ornamental — warm clothes, toys, etc. The children 
 were ushered in with their parents, and the party 
 began. In spite of the disgust of Rudolf, who de- 
 clared that these people " smelt unpleasant," 
 Elisabeth obhged him, with the Archduchesses 
 Gisela and Marie- Valerie, to distribute the presents 
 among their poor little visitors. In the next room 
 was a buffet loaded with plates of bread and butter, 
 
 13—2 
 
196 THE REAL FRANCIS- JOSEPH 
 
 cold meats, gugelhupf, and rare fruits, brought by 
 the Empress at great expense from the South of 
 France and Algeria ; and she insisted on her three 
 children making a second distribution of these good 
 things also. The ice was now broken, and the 
 dining-rooip was filled with shrill cries and merry 
 laughter, although the scandalized Rudolf con- 
 tinued to show unconquerable disgust. 
 
 Once again poor Elisabeth had failed, especially 
 as all Vienna jeered with the Dowager Archduchess 
 at the democratic follies of " the little Bavarian 
 goose," and among the people all whose children 
 had not been invited openly talked of the Em- 
 press's affectation and pose. 
 
 But the Empress clung firmly to her ideas, and 
 would not admit herself beaten. On the contrary, 
 the struggle sharpened the spirit of contradiction 
 in her, and she resolved to brave public opinion. 
 At the Vienna Exhibition of 1873, one year after 
 the Dowager Archduchess's death, there was a 
 " Cairo house " on view in the Egyptian section, 
 with a little Arab boy in charge. The model, 
 which was a very successful feature of the show, 
 was offered, with its young guardian, to the Em- 
 press Elisabeth by the Khedive, Ismail Pasha, when 
 the Exhibition closed. After her frequent visits to 
 Algeria the Empress had a strong esteem for the 
 Arabs, and she took a great liking to this boy, even 
 nursing him herself through a long illness. When 
 he was restored to health, she made him playmate 
 in the games of the little Archduchess Marie- 
 
THE CROWN PRINCE RUDOLF AT FIFTEEN 
 
 To face fage ig6 
 
THE CROWN PRINCE 197 
 
 Valerie. Viennese high society was much shocked 
 at the association of the Princess and the slave. 
 As soon as the Empress heard of this, she took 
 Marie- Valerie and the little Arab to a well-known 
 photographer, and got him to photograph the two 
 children sitting arm-in-arm. She further per- 
 mitted the photographer to display the picture in 
 his window, and to sell copies to the print-dealers 
 in the Austrian capital. Of course there was a 
 great deal of gossip over this. In fact, it was the 
 topic of the hour, and an unpleasant caricature of 
 the photograph appeared, which threw the Em- 
 peror into such a rage that he had the parody 
 seized and the original picture withdrawn from the 
 shop-windows. 
 
 This was the last exhibition of Elisabeth's 
 maternal influence. A year later, on August 21, 
 1874, the Crown Prince, being sixteen, attained 
 his majority according to the regulations of the 
 House of Habsburg. Advantage was taken of 
 this fact to withdraw the Imperial children again, 
 and this time finally, from their mother's care. 
 Shortly after, the Empress, who for seven years 
 had practically settled down, began again her life 
 of wandering. 
 
 The Crown Prince was given at once a Court 
 of his own, which deUghted him vastly. He was 
 less pleased, on the other hand, to find himself 
 attached a few months later as Lieutenant to the 
 36th Regiment of the Line by Imperial order. 
 His promotion was rapid, for in 1880 he was 
 
igS THE REAL FRANCIS-JOSEPH 
 
 already a General. But if Rudolf's mother was 
 pained at the haughty ways and terrible vanity 
 of her son, his father, who lived for the Army, was 
 equally pained at his indifference to military 
 matters. Just as Elisabeth had striven without 
 success to«give a democratic tinge to the boy's 
 proud spirit, so Francis- Joseph struggled in vain 
 to convert the young man into a soldier. He, too, 
 had recourse to fruitless schemes to gain his 
 end. 
 
 Visiting Prague at the beginning of 1880, the 
 Emperor was received at the railway-station by 
 the officers of the garrison, of whom his son was 
 one in the capacity of Colonel. Rudolf had not 
 seen his father for several months, and therefore 
 expected to be called before him at once. Francis- 
 Joseph, however, seemed not to notice his presence. 
 After receiving the Commanding Officer's report 
 and passing in review the guard of honour, he 
 had the superior officers presented to him in order 
 of rank. When Rudolf in his turn came before 
 him, the Emperor said to him with the utmost 
 military stiffness, which calmed all inclination to 
 sentiment : 
 
 " I have nothing to say to you for the moment. 
 Colonel. Have you any report to make to me ?" 
 
 Receiving a negative reply from the Archduke- 
 Colonel, he allowed him to pass on, without be- 
 traying by his conduct that he had just been 
 speaking to his son. 
 
 Such proceedings did not inspire Rudolf's heart 
 
THE CROWN PRINCE 199 
 
 with a love for the Army, any more than the 
 Christmas party at the Hofburg had aroused in 
 him the shghtest affection for the people who 
 " smelt unpleasant." The discipline, regulations, 
 and ceremonial of the profession of arms became 
 more and more hateful to him. He looked on his 
 duties as a kind of forced labour from which he 
 could not escape, and as nothing more. His 
 young mind, like Elisabeth's, was most strongly 
 attracted by the sciences, and he also had a 
 passionate liking for travel. When his military 
 service permitted it — and, indeed, more often — 
 he fled from the barracks into the wide world. 
 His travel-letters, written to his mother and since 
 published in part, express in exalted and poetical 
 language the vivid emotions which he experienced 
 as he looked on the grand sights of Nature. The 
 love of scenery went farther with him than with 
 his mother. Her motive was the need of sensa- 
 tions ; but he, had he been allowed to foUow his 
 own bent, would have become an explorer. So 
 great was his craving for expressing himself that, 
 not content with writing long letters, he published 
 various works, notably, in 1883, a slim book of 
 impressions and studies entitled " Fifteen Days 
 on the Danube," and, in 1884, a stout volume, 
 illustrated with photographs taken by him on his 
 journey, and called " A Journey in the East." 
 In the latter there is much to do with his favourite 
 science of ornithology. Another work of quite 
 a different character, which was only brought to a 
 
200 THE|REAL FRANCIS- JOSEPH 
 
 completion after Rudolf's death, was inspired by 
 him, and included the fruits of his own active 
 labours. This was a monumental book on " The 
 Austro-Hungarian Monarchy in Words and Pic- 
 tures," and to it contributed, under Rudolfs 
 direction, the greatest writers and the most 
 learned men of his country. In connection with 
 this he was in continual relation with the worlds 
 of science, literature, and art, with the University, 
 and also with the Press — a word of Ul omen in 
 Austria. He recognized that professors and 
 learned men were not all pedants, writers and 
 artists not all Bohemians, and even journalists 
 (in spite of Bismarck's opinion, which Viennese 
 society adopted, like that of Berlin) not all failures 
 and ne'er-do-wells. 
 
 From the young Prince's incursions into new 
 circles there came about a transformation in the 
 Court receptions. There began to be seen there 
 a society less superficially brilliant, but intellectu- 
 ally vastly superior to what used to be met there 
 before. It was a strange spectacle to see ad- 
 vanced thinkers like Brehm and Homeyer rubbing 
 shoulders with gilt-laced and narrow-minded 
 courtiers. The latter, of course, looked with a 
 wrathful eye upon the new-comers, and " words " 
 ensued, which were not always to the advantage 
 of the Court folk. One night Brehm was ironically 
 addressed by one of them after he had committed 
 some small breach of regulations : 
 
 " I did not know that men of science were so 
 
THE CROWN PRINCE 201 
 
 well acquainted with the laws of etiquette," said 
 the courtier. 
 
 "I did not know that gentlemen of the Court 
 were so iU acquainted with the laws of politeness," 
 was the stinging reply, delivered in the most civil 
 of tones. 
 
 The courtiers, however, in the end carried the 
 day. The Emperor even forbade his son to 
 continue his acquaintance with certain savants 
 such as Brehm, whose lofty humanitarian views 
 were considered dangerous for the future Em- 
 peror. 
 
 StUl, it may be admitted that the appearance 
 of Liberalism occasionally exhibited by the son 
 of the militarist Francis-Joseph, when he had the 
 opportunity of airing political opinions, was due 
 partly to his mother's persistence in checking his 
 childish arrogance and partly to his acquaintance 
 with the learned men and writers whom he col- 
 lected round him. It must not be concluded that 
 Rudolfs mind was genuinely Liberal. We may 
 feel sure, indeed, that this supposed Liberalism, 
 which is attributed to him now that he is dead, 
 would have made not the slightest change in the 
 politics of Austria-Hungary if Rudolf had come 
 to the throne. The truest reason for the Crown 
 Prince's advanced tendencies was to be found in 
 the Emperor's extremely Conservative ideas. It 
 is an almost inevitable law that heirs-apparent, 
 the Kings of to-morrow, but the unemployed and 
 powerless Princes of to-day, should assume an 
 
202 THE REAL FRANCIS-JOSEPH 
 
 appearance of activity by going into opposition 
 against the policy of the reigning monarch. Not 
 to mention King Edwajd VII. (who as Prince of 
 Wales favoured a very different policy from that 
 of his mother), we may quote the Crown Prince 
 Frederick of Germany, a Liberal, while William I. 
 was a Conservative, and William II. a Conserva- 
 tive, while his father Frederick was a Liberal. Such 
 are the little amusements of Courts, which may 
 be alluded to because they are symptomatic ; but 
 one must not waste time over them. 
 
 Moreover, we have the Archduke Rudolf's life 
 before us to prove that his views about liberty 
 and justice were never for anything more than 
 show, even though he might be of superior in- 
 tellectual power to Francis- Joseph, the feudal 
 grand seigneur, with his neck permanently fixed 
 in the narrow cangue of caste prejudice. Above 
 all things, and in this respect following his father's 
 example, Rudolf was, apart from his flights into 
 the republic of thought, a gay liver. Only Rudolf, 
 puny in his childhood, weakly in his youth, and 
 in his manhood a prey to alcoholism, morphia, 
 and neurasthenia, failed miserably where his 
 father, epileptic but robust, had the strength to 
 resist. 
 
CHAPTER XI 
 
 Rudolf's marriage 
 
 Francis- Joseph, with the hereditary instinct 
 which prompted him to wish to see his race 
 perpetuated in the direct hne during his own 
 Ufetime, took upon himself early the duties of 
 marriage-broker for his only son. Nor was his 
 conduct dictated solely by his avowed desire to 
 become a grandfather as soon as possible. He 
 also feared the effect on Rudolf of the life of 
 debauchery on which he embarked so young, 
 with the assistance of his friend and master of 
 ceremonies. Count Charles Bombelles, and there- 
 fore wished there to be no delay in finding him a 
 wife. 
 
 The difficulty which attended the choice, less 
 than twenty years previously, of an Imperial 
 consort for Francis- Joseph, was present once more 
 in the selection of a princely bride for the Arch- 
 duke Rudolf. By some peculiar mishap it seemed 
 as if Catholic Princesses of royal blood and mar- 
 riageable age were all out of the way when the 
 Austrian Court required one to raise to the rank 
 of Crown Princess. The choice appeared very 
 
 203 
 
204 THE REAL FRANCIS- JOSEPH 
 
 poor and the shop- window most meagrely dressed. 
 There were still Wittelbachs available, for there 
 were always some of them on the market ; but 
 the Empress Elisabeth found the fears which 
 tortured her so more than sufficient that she 
 would not, willingly consent to exaggerate them 
 by a new marriage between a Habsburg and the 
 family from which she sprang. Her fears and 
 wishes alone would not have been enough to turn 
 the Emperor aside from one of these almost 
 incestuous unions, but Rudolf, warned and guided 
 by his mother, set himself against such a match 
 very decidedly. 
 
 Francis-Joseph then suggested to the heir- 
 apparent Mathilda of Saxony. The young man's 
 journeys in search of a wife were beginning. He 
 went obediently to Dresden to make up his mind 
 in twenty-four hours as to whether the lady 
 proposed appeared to him to fulfil the conditions 
 requisite to assure his lifelong happiness. The 
 first interview was enough to prove the contrary. 
 Such bigotry ruled in the Court of Dresden, in the 
 hands of Prince George of Saxony and his Spanish 
 wife Marie- Anne, that he was immediately afflicted 
 by a discomfort which he could not conceal. The 
 odour of the vestry was unpleasing to his senses, 
 to which the scents of outdoor life were so in- 
 toxicating, while he was no more taken by 
 the young Princess, silly and plump, whom they 
 exhibited to him in a semi-ecclesiastical sort of 
 attire. To a man whose undisguised adoration 
 
RUDOLF'S MARRIAGE 205 
 
 of Elisabeth's beauty made him declare that 
 the only type he could love was that of his 
 slim and graceful mother, a little, stout, 
 round-figured woman like the Princess could 
 make no appeal. So Mathilda of Saxony was 
 the first to be left on the bargain-counter by 
 him. 
 
 On his return from Dresden to Vienna he was 
 sent to the Madrid marriage-market. Here there, 
 were two ladies to bid for the custom of His 
 Apostolic Majesty in days to come. His Majesty, 
 however, showed not the slightest disposition to 
 acquire possession of either Infanta, Maria de la 
 Paz, or Eulalie-Francesca, the two daughters of 
 Queen Isabella, who were offered for his selection. 
 Queen Isabella, as is well known, possessed neither 
 good looks, nor grace, nor fine figure, nor distinction. 
 The two Infantas were exactly like their mother, 
 and it was easy for him to guess from Queen 
 Isabella what either of the brides proposed for 
 him would look like in a few years' time. Much 
 annoyed, he took his departure for the Austrian 
 capital again. 
 
 Had Francis- Joseph made up his mind to drive 
 his son in the way that a keen sportsman such as 
 he drives a covey of partridges, giving him not a 
 moment's rest ? Rudolf was scarcely allowed to 
 alight at the Hofburg before he was stirred up 
 afresh and sent flying toward Brussels. The 
 threefold disappointment at the Courts of Saxony 
 and Spain left no more immediately available 
 
2o6 THE REAL FRANCIS- JOSEPH 
 
 Princesses except at the Belgian Court. Of course, 
 the Coburgs were of a very inferior descent as 
 compared with the Habsburgs, but there was no 
 choice ; and, besides, there was at least no danger 
 here of mingling two stocks too frequently united, 
 although Marie-Henriette, wife of Leopold 11., 
 had been an Austrian Archduchess. So Prince 
 Rudolf set out for Brussels, where he was shown 
 the Princess Stephanie. Her sixteen-year-old im- 
 maturity gave scant promise of her magnificent 
 development at the age of twenty-five. She was 
 tall and thin, with the pallor of some forced plant ; 
 her eyelids were red, her lips colourless, her hair 
 flaxen, her movements clumsy and ungraceful, and 
 her manner timid and spiritless. Rudolf was not 
 at all charmed ; but at least she made him smile. 
 He confessed to Count Bombelles that the sight 
 of this tall girl, as smooth and straight as a broom- 
 handle, made him think of the first of his potential 
 brides, the little round Mathilda of Saxony, and 
 brought before his eyes the picture of a cup-and- 
 ball, with Mathilda as the ball and Stephanie as 
 the stem of the cup. 
 
 He returned to Vienna for the third time, quite 
 decided to remain a bachelor for the present. 
 But he saw that his father was so upset by his 
 resolve, and he was so pestered to marry, that at 
 last he gave way. He did not claim to make a 
 love-match (and his parents' example scarcely en- 
 couraged him to do this), and could only have 
 wished to marry a beautiful wife. Since, how- 
 
RUDOLFS MARRIAGE 207 
 
 ever, such were not to be found in Catholic Courts, 
 the only ones to which State policy allowed him 
 to go, he must therefore wed at random. Having 
 every intention of continuing after marriage his 
 wild Ufe, he fixed his choice light-heartedly on the 
 Princess Stephanie. 
 
 The betrothal was celebrated at Brussels on 
 March 7, 1880. The news was received in Austria 
 with joy. In the Empire of the Habsburgs, so 
 profoundly imbued are the people with the mon- 
 archical spirit that they have the affairs of the 
 Imperial family almost as much at heart as their 
 own. As for the Emperor, he was radiant. But 
 if the hearts of Emperor and people were glad, one 
 person at least did not share in the general re- 
 joicings — the Empress Elisabeth. The day of his 
 betrothal, indeed, was for her the first step in a 
 new stage of her martyrdom. In the first place, 
 her frank, loyal, and open heart had no welcome 
 for the bride, whom she knew to be mindless, 
 obstinate, underhand, jealous, coquettish, and 
 vain. Then, having no fear of love-matches (for 
 she knew that the ruin of her own was due to a 
 woman who had been laid in the grave eight years 
 ago), she would have wished for her son a marriage 
 in which affection held out some promise of happi- 
 ness, and would have helped the daughter-in-law 
 of her choice to save Rudolf. So bitterness 
 reigned in her heart, while circumstances were 
 preparing to fill her poisoned cup of sorrow to the 
 very brim. 
 
2o8 THE REAL FRANCIS- JOSEPH 
 
 The first pang was caused by Francis-Joseph's 
 thoughtlessness. It is distressing to think that 
 he ventured to utter, in Elisabeth's presence, the 
 following response to the complimentary deputa- 
 tion from the city of Vienna on the occasion of 
 the Crown Prince's betrothal : 
 
 " Our Son's betrothal fills Our heart with a joy 
 which is all the profounder because this is a case 
 not of an act of policy, but of a genuine affair 
 of the heart. For it is in love, and in love only, 
 that we must look for the foundation of all 
 married happiness." 
 
 It was with a kind of terror that Elisabeth 
 listened to these words. She had occasionally 
 had fits of hatred and attacks of disgust for 
 Francis- Joseph, but she had not altogether ceased 
 to love him. On this occasion he crowned his 
 work of destruction by showing himself to his 
 wife's eyes in an aspect which she had never yet 
 seen. She despised him, and her contempt was 
 reinforced by an anger to which, unhappily, she 
 could not give vent, for she was bound to remain 
 calm and dignified as the Emperor went on with 
 these false words : 
 
 " Our consort. Her Majesty the Empress, is 
 acquainted with the bride, and like Ourselves, is 
 enchanted at this touching union of two loving 
 young hearts." 
 
 Elisabeth's suppressed anger was all the greater 
 because that very morning she had written to her 
 son as follows : 
 
RUDOLFS MARRIAGE 209 
 
 " My Son, my poor dear Son, 
 
 " It terrifies me to see that you do not 
 understand what frightful misery there is in store 
 for you from this marriage which you are under- 
 taking so Ught-heartedly, and without the shghtest 
 feeling of love to guide you. Your father desires 
 you to marry. It is in his capacity of ruler of a 
 great Empire that he looks upon the political 
 aspect of such an affair. But I, dear boy, whq 
 am your mother, and nothing more than your 
 mother, have every right to look in a very dif- 
 ferent way upon so serious a question as your 
 marriage. What I look at in my son's marriage 
 is the kind of life which it guarantees in his home, 
 the amount of happiness which it will bring, the 
 future which it promises for my dear Rudy. And 
 I cannot but conclude, after mature consideration, 
 that Stephanie is not at all the wife for you, and 
 can never be so." 
 
 So deeply (and, it must be admitted, so justifi- 
 ably) convinced was Elisabeth that this match 
 would be for the unhappiness of her son, without 
 bringing happiness to the young bride either, that 
 she did her utmost to break it off. Nevertheless, 
 in the month of May, 188 1, Her Royal Highness 
 Stephanie, Princess of Belgium, set foot on Austro- 
 Hungarian soil. She was met by her intended 
 husband at Salzburg, on the same frontier which 
 one day she was to cross again on the arm of 
 another man, the choice of her heart — Count 
 
 14 
 
210 THE REAL FRANCIS- JOSEPH 
 
 Lonyay. There is great irony sometimes in the 
 most trivial details. Thus, at Salzburg, the first 
 triumphal arch which she passed under in Austrian 
 territory bore the inscription, " Tu felix, Austria, 
 nube " — although there was never any felicity, for 
 her or for Austria, in the nuptial act which she was 
 preparing to complete. At Schonbrunn she was 
 received by the Emperor, who had not yet met 
 her, and the same day a grand State ball was 
 given in her honour. 
 
 Next day one of the most cruel tortures of 
 Elisabeth's martyrdom was to take place. The 
 official entry into Vienna was made over the 
 Elisabeth Bridge, the same where, in precisely 
 similar circumstances, the unhappy Empress, then 
 only the Emperor's fiancie, had received her 
 wedding present from the municipality of Vienna 
 on April 24, 1854. In a State coach, drawn by 
 eight horses, Elisabeth went over her own former 
 tracks, seated at the side of her son's fiancee. 
 She was not even spared the ordeal of the halt, 
 on the bridge which bore her name, to hear ad- 
 dressed to another the same words which had been 
 addressed twenty-six years earlier to herself, on 
 the threshold of that married life in which she had 
 hoped to find all the warmth of love, and in which, 
 as she now looked back, she could see nothing 
 but cold grey ashes. About her the banners 
 streamed in the breeze, the horses pranced, the 
 gold of uniforms and caparisons sparkled in the 
 sun, and the joyous peals of bells mounted up to 
 
RUDOLF'S MARRIAGE 211 
 
 the blue sky. She closed her eyes to hide her 
 tearSj and kept them shut after the procession 
 had started again. It reached the Imperial 
 quarter and the Hofburg. The way was led by 
 the resplendent figures of the Imperial Guard and 
 the Court officials in full dress, mounted on horse- 
 back. Next came the Austrian Guards ; then the 
 Hungarian Guards, with their two leopard-skins 
 apiece — one for the horse and one for the man's 
 shoulders. Last rode the State carriages and the 
 great Imperial coach, which had belonged to 
 Charles VI., father of Maria - Theresa, all of 
 crystal and gold, and decorated, inside and out, 
 with paintings by the most celebrated artists of 
 their day. 
 
 When the procession stopped at the Hofburg, 
 the cannons thundered, the bells rang out, and 
 the cheers of the populace went up on every side. 
 Somewhat taken by surprise, but flattered in her 
 vanity, Stephanie mounted to the great Hall of 
 Ceremonies, where stood the Emperor, surrounded 
 by a group of officers in brilliant uniforms. 
 
 The day had been hard upon the unfortunate 
 Elisabeth. The morrow. May 10, was to be 
 more cruel still. At noon, while the bells pealed 
 from every steeple, she entered the Augustinian 
 Church and knelt with Francis- Joseph in the 
 same place where she had knelt with him at her 
 own wedding twenty-six years before. How con- 
 fidently had her young mind then, so eager to 
 learn the meaning of life, looked forward to the 
 
 14—2 
 
212 THE REAL FRANCIS- JOSEPH 
 
 future ; and now what disillusion reigned in her 
 heart, and communicated itself to her still too 
 active mind ! These twenty-six years, whose 
 dawn had seemed so bright and joyous in her eyes, 
 now looked all dark and gloomy at their close. 
 Nor could her melancholy heart be cheered by the 
 sight of the couple at the altar's foot, for she 
 knew the tragic gulf between them, and all too 
 rightly feared the sequel of this loveless mar- 
 riage. When the two young people bowed their 
 heads to receive the blessing from Prince Schwar- 
 zenberg. Archbishop of Prague, poor Elisabeth 
 burst into tears, while the Emperor, far from 
 trying to comfort her, looked profoundly annoyed. 
 Rudolf turned his weary face toward his mother, 
 and Stephanie, whose appearance was that of a 
 victim led to the slaughter, grew paler than ever. 
 
 The wedding was none the less the occasion for 
 a great display of liberality. The polytechnic 
 schools, twenty-two in number, each received a 
 gift of 10,000 florins from the Emperor, who pre- 
 sented like sums to the colleges for officers' 
 daughters, and also set aside 20,000 florins for 
 the poor of Vienna. But he put the crown upon 
 his serene cynicism in an order of the day ad- 
 dressed to his friend Count Taaffe. Elisabeth's 
 stupefaction was renewed as she read this notable 
 paragraph : 
 
 " The treasure of love and faith which We, 
 together with Her Majesty the Empress, have 
 bequeathed to Our well-beloved children will be 
 
RUDOLF'S MARRIAGE 213 
 
 to them a guarantee of happiness. They can but 
 strive to preserve this legacy of conjugal affection 
 which We devise to them, that it may be a happy 
 omen to them on the threshold of that new life 
 which We pray Heaven rriay make tranquil and 
 kind to them." 
 
 Elisabeth was not a superstitious woman, but 
 it seemed to her as if Francis- Joseph were tempting 
 Providence, and it made her tremble. 
 
 The young couple spent but a brief honeymoon 
 at the Palace of Laxenburg. Rudolf soon realized 
 how right his mother had been when she wrote 
 to him in March, 1880, that Stephanie was not at 
 all the wife for him. He endeavoured, in answer 
 to Elisabeth's prayers, to be a tolerable husband — 
 or, at least, he so endeavoured during the first 
 months of his marriage. He took up his study of 
 natural history again, and interested himself once 
 more in literature. He hoped, in default of any 
 other means, to create a bond between Stephanie 
 and himself by interesting her in his researches and 
 writings. But the effort was vain. Stephanie and 
 Rudolf spoke different languages . When he talked 
 of science, art, literature, philosophy, and travels, 
 she replied with balls, receptions, dinners, social 
 entertainments, and frocks. The Crown Prince, 
 hoping, nevertheless, to guide his wife toward less 
 utterly frivolous ideas, invited to Laxenburg 
 savants, artists, and writers. Such " commoners " 
 provoked in Stephanie nothing but disgust. The 
 intellectual conversations held in her drawing- 
 
214 THE REAL FRANCIS- JOSEPH 
 
 room attracted her no more than her husband's 
 studies. Rudolf, for his part, could not take the 
 slightest pleasure in his wife's chatter, and he 
 refused to transform his home to the satisfaction 
 of Stephanie, who dreamed of it as all awhirl with 
 crowds and noise. Stephanie complained and 
 sulked. Rudolf said nothing, but took himself 
 off. Hunting had always had a charm for him, 
 and he returned to it again, preferring to spend 
 weeks at a time at his little chateau of Mayerling 
 rather than go back to Laxenburg, which he 
 abandoned to the scocial ambitions of the stranger 
 on his hearth. 
 
 Gradually Rudolf returned completely to his 
 bachelor life. When he went back to Vienna with 
 Stephanie, it was to make a very short stay there. 
 He left almost immediately on a sporting tour 
 in the game districts, first of Styria, then of Hun- 
 gary. During the time which he did spend at 
 Vienna he went out every day to play cards at 
 the Jockey Club, or else shut himself up in his 
 study to work, or to discuss with a few of his 
 friends subjects quite above Stephanie's head. 
 Stephanie lived her own life. Three years trans- 
 formed the girl whom Rudolf had compared to 
 the stem of a cup-and-ball to an attractive and 
 desirable woman, with a white skin, good figure, 
 and voluptuous curves. She knew she was pretty, 
 and loved to be told so. Her great preoccupation 
 was, in the first place, with her toilet. That com- 
 pleted, she wished to be seen; and when seen, 
 
RUDOLFS MARRIAGE 215 
 
 she could not do without gallants to court her. 
 They came in great numbers, and in the midst of 
 a worshipping circle of her adorers Stephanie was 
 radiant with joy. 
 
 So both husband and wife lived lives apart, 
 running on parallel lines which nothing could 
 bring together. But if there was no harmony, 
 neither was there any open quarrel, and all went 
 well, comparatively speaking, until the day when 
 Stephanie, after two years of married life, became 
 mother to a girl, to whom was given the name of 
 Elisabeth. During her recovery Stephanie, ren- 
 dered more ambitious by her social victories, 
 dreamed of conquering her husband's heart. It 
 was doubtless boredom which prompted the idea. 
 But the attempt failed, and Stephanie was very 
 out of humour over it. Not having intelligence 
 enough to recognize her own errors, she attributed 
 her defeat to circumstances. She laid on hunting 
 the whole blame for taking her husband away 
 from her, whereas Rudolfs devotion to hunting 
 was really the consequence of his previous es- 
 trangement from her. Every time, therefore, that 
 he went to Mayerling, Stephanie, like the clumsy 
 diplomatist she was, had violent scenes with her 
 husband. If she was lacking in self-control, 
 Rudolf, on his side, was little distinguished for 
 his patience, and harsh words passed between 
 them. 
 
 When he came back, instead of undoing the 
 mischief of these quarrels by a conciliatory atti- 
 
2i6 THE REAL FRANCIS- JOSEPH 
 
 tude, she would sulk for whole days at a time, and 
 steadfastly showed to Rudolf, already so little 
 attracted to her society, a sullen, scowling, and 
 unfriendly face. 
 
 And now the most unfortunate of ideas came 
 into her head. To punish her husband, she 
 locked her bedroom door against him, fully per- 
 suaded of her own desirability. Rudolf, one 
 would have said, was only waiting for this to give 
 way to indulgences which he had temporarily 
 ceased. He did not break open his wife's door, 
 but opened the hall-door and went out deliberately 
 to find pleasanter surroundings. 
 
 Stephanie's heart was not broken over this. At 
 this period of her life she was almost incapable 
 of love or of wounded affection either. But the 
 vain woman in her was hurt in her pride. A 
 furious jealousy, all the lower and baser for not 
 being inspired by love, burned within her, and 
 flashed out with terrible and indecent violence. 
 Rudolf could not approach nor speak a word to 
 another woman, nor even venture to cast a glance 
 at a pretty face, without bringing upon himself 
 noisy quarrels. The Empress Elisabeth, in spite 
 of her heart's griefs, in spite of her poor love's 
 sacrifice, in spite of Francis-Joseph's weakness 
 and the cruelty of the Archduchess Sophia for so 
 many years, had never let her complaints be 
 heard in the Hofburg. Living a life of martyrdom, 
 she had never raised her voice in public against 
 her torturer. The same discretion was not shown 
 
RUDOLFS MARRIAGE 217 
 
 by Stephanie, the loveless wife, stirred to jealousy 
 by her pride and to fury by her smaUness of mind. 
 The corridors of the old Palace echoed with loud 
 imprecations. The sentries heard ugly words 
 issuing from the fierce lips of the Crown Princess. 
 The footmen even picked up of a morning, in the 
 rooms of the Heir-Apparent and his wife, frag- 
 ments of valuable vases and pretty trinkets, inno- 
 cent victims of the mad jealousy of the beautiful 
 Stephanie. In so acting the unfortunate woman 
 was consulting her interests very ill, for, the more 
 violent she showed herself, the more Rudolf found 
 in her conduct justification for unfaithfvdness to 
 come. Moreover, there no longer existed the 
 family and State reasons which might just have 
 kept the future Emperor at his wife's side. The 
 doctors had declared that all hopes of further 
 children for Stephanie must be given up after the 
 little Elisabeth's birth. She could not carry on 
 the male line of the Habsburgs, and therefore was 
 like an official who had failed in his duty. The 
 husband had already ceased to care for his wife, 
 and now the Habsburg cared no more for her who 
 could not perpetuate his name. 
 
 Consequently, in spite of the furious cries which 
 woke the sleeping echoes of the Hofburg, in spite 
 of the broken fragments of old china and Dresden 
 ware which littered the carpets of his rooms, the 
 Crown Prince persisted in searching for distractions 
 for his libertine heart both outside and inside the 
 Palace walls. These affairs continued to occupy 
 
2i8 THE REAL FRANCIS- JOSEPH 
 
 him throughout the rest of his seven years of 
 married life, and would be too many to enumerate, 
 concerning as they did women of all ranks, from his 
 coachman's wife to a Princess of royal blood. 
 
 One morning Francis- Joseph was working in 
 his private study in the Hofburg, when the door 
 opened, and the usher announced that Her High- 
 ness the Archduchess Stephanie wished to know 
 if she could speak to His Majesty. Francis- 
 Joseph knitted his brows, gave a tired shrug to 
 his shoulders, and then in a weary voice told the 
 usher to show her in. Stephanie entered like a 
 whirlwind, and was about to speak when he 
 pointed to a seat near his desk and began : 
 
 " I would thank you, my daughter, to show 
 a little more self-restraint before the servants." 
 
 " That matters a great deal !" cried Stephanie. 
 
 " That always matters, above all ; and I shall be 
 much obliged if you will not forget it so often. 
 Now what is it ? Is it about some new folly of 
 my son's that you have come ?" 
 
 " Yes ; and this time it is past all bearing." 
 
 " I seem to know that phrase. Where have I 
 heard it before ?" 
 
 Stephanie's features grew rigid, and she hissed 
 rather than said : " Don't mock me, father. It 
 is serious this time. I tell you that the conduct of 
 your son ..." 
 
 " Pardon me, of your husband." 
 
 " How much is he of that ? Anyhow, I can 
 put up with no more of his insults. Do you know 
 
RUDOLFS MARRIAGE 219 
 
 that he is at this moment at Abazzia with 
 Madame K. ?" 
 
 " Who is Madame K. ?" 
 
 " Wife of the manager of the F Navigation 
 
 Company. Why, she is not even pretty ; she is 
 old, fat, ugly, plastered like a wall, and covered 
 with paint ! And he shows himself everywhere 
 with her — on the front, down on the beach, in the 
 hotel dining-room. And do you know to what 
 hotel they have dared to go ? The Hotel 
 Stephanie !" 
 
 " It is the best there." 
 
 " It may be, but it bears my name. The 
 Archduchess Stephanie's husband at the Hotel 
 Stephanie with his mistress. . . . Can you imagine 
 it?" 
 
 She struck the desk with her fist, crying : " Oh, 
 it's too much, too much !" 
 
 The Emperor laid a hand on his daughter-in- 
 law's, held it still, and said : " Yes, I know the cup 
 is full. Well, I must beg you, this instant, to let 
 it run over without making such a fuss, and, above 
 all, without bringing me into the affair." 
 
 " To whom would you have me go ?" 
 
 " To whomever you wish, but not to me. 
 Besides, these confidences which you make to me 
 are shared by your chambermaid, your atten- 
 dants — all kinds of people, as well as me. I want 
 no more of them from you in future. This is the 
 third attack of the kind which I have had to put 
 up with in a fortnight. It is too bad. I have 
 
220 THE REAL FRANCIS-JOSEPH 
 
 lectured my son, and I can do no more. I cannot 
 force him to remain in your room, can I ? That 
 is the wife's duty, not the father's. I may add 
 that there is nothing except love — and that you 
 have been unable to inspire him with — to keep 
 him at your side, as we have no longer any hope of 
 seeing you carry on the family." 
 
 Humbled at last, Stephanie murmured : " Can 
 I help that ?" 
 
 " Well, I certainly cannot," replied the Emperor. 
 " Besides, it is not a question of whether it is any- 
 one's fault. It is a fact, and facts cannot be gain- 
 said. Finally, I beg you, once and for all, to 
 spare me all such gossip as you come here to retail 
 to me about my son. I warn you that I wUl listen 
 to you no more unless you bring evidence of real, 
 uncontestable facts." 
 
 In her mad rage at the lesson which Francis- 
 Joseph had just administered to her, Stephanie 
 wrote at once to her father, asking for permission 
 to return to Brussels. She received in answer the 
 following brief and precise telegram : 
 
 " It is your duty to stay with your husband." 
 
 King Leopold, who could never understand 
 sentiment in others, could scarcely support his 
 daughter in the circumstances. He knew too 
 well what sort of rejoinder he would be likely to 
 provoke from his son-in-law if he were to risk a 
 remonstrance with him on the subject of women. 
 
 Stephanie, however, never able to see very far 
 

RUDOLFS MARRIAGE 221 
 
 in front of her, was pondering on the last words 
 of her father-in-law : "I will listen to you no 
 more unless you bring evidence of real, uncontest- 
 able facts." In her passion for destroying, one 
 after another, every chance of reconciliation be- 
 tween her husband and herself, she dreamed of 
 surprising him in flagrante delicto. She descended 
 to the vulgar course of bribing Rudolfs servants, 
 and employing private inquiry agents to catch 
 him. The Crown Prince, on his return to the 
 Hofburg, began an affair with a certain Frau- 
 lein H., a very charming vocalist at one of the 
 small Viennese theatres, with whom he often 
 dined at Sacher's before taking her to the stage- 
 door in one of the two-horsed private cabs — a 
 speciality of Vienna — driven by his favourite 
 coachman with the odd name of Bratfisch (" Fried 
 Fish"). After leaving her, and spending three 
 or four hours at the Jockey Club, he would drive 
 to her house. Stephanie learnt of his proceedings 
 through her private inquiry agent, and one night 
 she had a Court carriage made ready at i a.m., 
 with coachman and footmen in full livery, and 
 drove to Fraulein H.'s house. Here she got 
 out, and, telling the men to wait for the Prince, 
 went back to the Palace in a cab. When Rudolf 
 came out of his friend's house, he found the 
 Imperial carriage at the door, and with it quite a 
 crowd of passers-by and people of the neighbour- 
 hood, who saluted him respectfully — or appar- 
 ently so, for they knew who lived at the house. 
 
222 THE REAL FRANCIS- JOSEPH 
 
 Rudolf was in a terrible rage, which grew greater 
 when the Emperor, bound by his promise to 
 Stephanie, sent for him and reprimanded him. 
 A violent scene followed in the Crown Prince's 
 rooms, and henceforward there was a breach, 
 which nothing could heal, between husband and 
 wife, now irreconcilable foes. 
 
 This did not prevent Stephanie from continuing 
 her spying. Rudolf, after the affair of the car- 
 riage, had given his father a promise to see Frau- 
 lein H. no more, and he had a profound respect 
 for his word. He was attracted, however, by a 
 young Princess, the nineteen-year-old daughter of 
 one of the principal families in the Empire, and 
 very few believed that his feeling was quite 
 platonic, as he affirmed it to be. His constant 
 visits to Mayerling made Stephanie feel certain 
 that he met the Princess there, and one day, 
 learning from her detectives that the Princess had 
 just left for Mayerling, she took a carriage and 
 drove to the same spot. When she reached the 
 chateau, the servants, not recognizing her under 
 a thick veil, refused to let her in. The altercation 
 brought on the scene the Crown Prince's valet, 
 when the Princess Stephanie revealed who she 
 was. They were obliged to let her pass, and she 
 reached her husband's apartment, to find him — 
 alone. She was too late. 
 
 A terrible scene followed, for Stephanie paid no 
 attention to the servants who had collected in 
 the neighbouring room. At last, after her direct 
 
RUDOLFS MARRIAGE 223 
 
 accusation of an intrigue with the Princess had 
 almost provoked him to strike her^ Rudolf seized 
 her violently by the arm and pushed her through 
 the door, which he locked in her face. The upset 
 in the household was fearful. Stephanie refused to 
 cease warfare, and wife and husband strove their 
 hardest to wound each other as much as possible. 
 Then happened an event fraught with the most 
 disastrous consequences for Rudolf's already de- 
 moralized life. While out hunting he contracted 
 a sharp attack of rheumatism. His doctor gave 
 him injections of morphia. The Crown Prince, 
 finding in them not only relief from his sufferings, 
 but also oblivion, went on with the injections after 
 his recovery, and before long became a confirmed 
 morphinist. Already neurasthenic and utterly ex- 
 hausted, Rudolf supplemented morphia with ether 
 and alcohol, and so signed his own death-warrant. 
 In a year the Heir-Apparent of Austria-Hungary 
 became a mere shadow of himself. Morphia 
 ceased to relieve his physical sufferings, and while 
 he puzzled over the inextricable moral tangle 
 which confronted him, he plunged into a life of 
 folly, helping to deaden the pain of his sick soul. 
 For the last two years of his hfe there was but a 
 series of repulsive debauches. Many are the 
 elegant little restaurants of the suburbs of Vienna 
 which remember the orgies of the Prince and his 
 friends, Count Charles Bombelles, the Duke of 
 Braganza, Count Hoyos, and Rudolf's own 
 brother-in-law. Prince Philip of Coburg, who later 
 
224 THE REAL FRANCIS- JOSEPH 
 
 had his wife locked up because in her misery she 
 preferred the refined love of Lieutenant Mat- 
 tachich to the repulsive brutality of her drunken 
 husband. The revels were joined by the drivers 
 of the two-horse cabs, including always Bratfisch. 
 It should be said that the drivers of these cabs 
 (whicli are known in Vienna as "comfortables," 
 and are very expensive to hire) are often real 
 artistes — singers, whistlers, musicians, and re- 
 citers — and have sometimes as big a reputation 
 as the Montmartre chansonniers of Paris. This 
 peculiar Viennese type attracted Prince Rudolf, 
 who often took them to guide him on his nightly 
 excursions, and to share in his heavy potations of 
 champagne, or, if it was the season, of Heurigen — 
 unfermented wine. There was worse to follow; 
 and the venerable trees of the Prater often saw 
 by night the mad dances of princes, nobles, cab- 
 men, and their vile companions of the other sex, 
 in the most primitive of costumes. 
 
 These disgraceful revels took place two or three 
 times a week, and completely shattered so weak 
 a constitution as the Crown Prince Rudolf's. He 
 could only keep himself going by repeated injec- 
 tions of morphia, inhalings of ether, and draughts 
 of alcohol, which took the form of strong brandy 
 drunk in rummers; for champagne had no more 
 effect upon him. The senior male line of the 
 Habsburgs was coming to a close in one furious 
 drunken debauch. 
 
CHAPTER XII 
 
 THE MYSTERY OF MAYERLING 
 
 Elisabeth, whose morbidly acute mind had 
 divined that her son's marriage would turn out 
 ill, saw her worst expectations exceeded by the 
 reality. Her son — her Rudy — whose presence had 
 brought her a little peace in the midst of her 
 ceaseless, anguished struggles, grew now to be the 
 cause of new terrors for her. She stUl remained 
 the " little mother " to him, even after his mar- 
 riage, and would gladly talk to him as she used to 
 when, a sensitive child, he clung to her with the 
 burning tears in his eyes as she sang Schubert. 
 Did he not, with her, become once more a little 
 child through the fact of his mental trouble and 
 physicarsuffering ? 
 
 One night in the carnival season of 1887 he 
 was preparing to go to the baU. He looked weary 
 and ill, and dark fever-rings encircled his eyes. 
 She remonstrated with him gently : 
 
 " What, Rudy, are you going out again to- 
 night ? "I You are foolish, dear. Look in the glass, 
 and you will agree with me that it is unreasonable 
 to run after amusements with a face like yours." 
 225 15 
 
226 THE REAL FRANCIS- JOSEPH 
 
 " I know, mother. I have already seen the 
 dreadful sight in the glass. But, still, I must go 
 out." 
 
 " More follies, I suppose." 
 
 " No ; official duty. I am going, by Imperial 
 command, to represent the family at the Polish 
 Ball." ' 
 
 " You should have asked the Emperor to send 
 someone else instead. I don't know why, dear, 
 but I have a terrified feeling about something. . . ." 
 
 "Oh, mother, you must have met the White Lady 
 in the galleries of the Palace ! Or has a flight of 
 ravens hovered over the Hofburg ?" said Rudolf, 
 with an ironical smile, alluding to the two legen- 
 dary signs of a death in the Habsburg family. 
 
 Elisabeth kissed him on the forehead, and 
 walked sadly towards her own rooms. 
 
 Once more fact was mournfully to justify the 
 fears of the Empress's second-sight. At the 
 Polish Ball, the most elegant of the carnival 
 season, and always graced by some representative 
 of the Emperor, Rudolf set eyes for the first time 
 on a young girl who exercised an irresistible 
 attraction on him. Tall, slight, and willowy, with 
 graceful contours and a beautiful neck, she had a 
 delicate, pale amber face, with great, dusky, 
 voluptuous eyes, under the night of hair so silky 
 and dark that it looked almost blue in the brilliant 
 light. She had all the splendour of twenty-five 
 combined with the springlike freshness of her 
 eighteen years. Rudolf obtained an introduction 
 
THE CROWN PRINCE RUDOLF 
 
 To face page 226 
 
THE MYSTERY OF MAYERLING 227 
 
 through Prince Philip of Coburg, who was ac- 
 quainted with the lovely stranger. During the 
 whole of the evening, in defiance of all rules of 
 good manners, Rudolf danced with her under the 
 furious eyes of the Archduchess Stephanie, and 
 when he had left the ballroom he had obtained a 
 promise of a meeting next day. 
 
 This promise sealed the doom alike of the Prince 
 and the stranger ; for the lady of the black tresses 
 was none other than the Baroness Marie Vet- 
 schera, the heroine of the tragedy of Mayerling. 
 Her grandfather, a Greek financier of the name 
 of Baltazzi, had commenced his financial career 
 in the banking-house of Laffitte in Paris. Having 
 made a small fortune there, he went to Constanti- 
 nople, where he quickly improved his position 
 enormously. He left an inheritance of £1,000,000, 
 to be divided between his two sons Hector and 
 Aristide and his daughter, the widow of an 
 Austrian diplomatist. Baron Vetschera. The two 
 brothers and their sister came to Vienna, meaning 
 to force their way into the salons of its exclusive 
 society. Being very rich, bearing an aristocratic 
 name, and frequenting the Turf, the Baroness 
 Vetschera, with her brothers at her side, soon 
 established relations with fashionable circles in 
 Vienna, and played her cards so cleverly that in 
 the end she procured for herself invitations to the 
 houses of an aristocracy which is more distant 
 towards strangers than any in Europe. When the 
 siege was over and the citadel had capitulated, 
 
 15-2 
 
228 THE REAL FRANCIS- JOSEPH 
 
 the Baroness Vetschera vanished for a few months. 
 One fine day she reappeared with two lovely 
 girls, of twenty and eighteen years respectively. 
 They were her daughters, whom she had brought 
 from Constantinople to be launched into Viennese 
 society in search of marriage and fortune. 
 
 These Orientals, whose father had started from 
 nothing and had left a million at his death, these 
 commoners who had already carried the trenches 
 of high Viennese society, these gilded adventurers, 
 knew no limit to their ambitions. On the night 
 of the Polish Ball, after Prince Rudolf had been 
 introduced to her, the- beautiful Marie Vetschera 
 had gone to her mother and uncles, who held a 
 rapid consultation. The decision was prompt, and 
 Marie, returning to her Imperial partner, never 
 left his arm again that evening. What was the 
 scheme of the Baltazzis and their sister ? They 
 were aware of the domestic quarrels of the Heir- 
 Apparent. Perhaps they dreamt, in their re- 
 liance on the girl's irresistible charm, of separating 
 Rudolf from Stephanie, and placing the heavy 
 Imperial crown on the head of the Baroness Marie, 
 granddaughter of the once penniless Baltazzi. 
 They were the more justified in such hopes in that 
 Rudolf, exhausted by his excesses, was bound to 
 be as wax in the hands of a young and beauti- 
 ful woman, who cotdd easily teach the arts of 
 love. 
 
 Anyhow, the promised meeting came off at the 
 house of a lady who had been a friend of Rudolf, 
 
THE MYSTERY OF MAYERLING 229 
 
 and in a few days' time Marie Vetschera was on 
 the most intimate terms with the Heir- Apparent. 
 Although the beauty and her relatives were as 
 discreet as possible, it was not long before all 
 Vienna knew of the affair, for the Prince, exhibit- 
 ing his usual want of deUcacy, openly paraded his 
 new conquest — in this case a conquest of which 
 he was the victim. 
 
 Never had his over-excited nerves been stirred 
 to such an extent. During the last months of 
 his life, under the influence of his quasi-senile 
 passion, although he was but thirty, Rudolf gave 
 the impression of a man suffering from mental 
 disease. His eccentricities were most extra- 
 ordinary. At the Prussian grand manoeuvres, to 
 which he was invited on the suggestion of his 
 intimate friend. Prince William (now the Emperor 
 William H. of Germany), he had a violent alter- 
 cation with the Grand-Duke Vladimir, who repre- 
 sented his father, the Tsar Alexander III. The 
 Emperor William I. and the Crown Prince 
 Frederick were obliged to intervene personally to 
 prevent a hostile encounter between the two 
 Highnesses, and to apologize for the Archduke's 
 conduct as a temporary aberration of the brain. 
 A little later, at the funeral of William I., a fresh 
 quarrel broke out between Rudolf and another 
 Russian Grand-Duke, provoked by the former. 
 It was necessary to explain to him that any 
 sequel to so grievous a scandal would embitter 
 the sorrows of the Emperor Frederick, before he 
 
232 THE REAL FRANCIS- JOSEPH 
 
 delivered her son over to the fury of the Emperor. 
 But this is not the truth. It was no one but Arch- 
 bishop Ganglbaiier who took the step the conse- 
 quences of which were to be so deadly. 
 
 There is no more probability in the other version 
 than in the melodrama which has been invented 
 by someone as a prologue to the mystery of 
 Mayerling. It has been pretended that Francis- 
 Joseph, in an absolutely private interview with 
 his son, revealed to him the fact that he was him- 
 self Marie Vetschera's father. The truth, which 
 actually led up to the tragedy, is infinitely more 
 simple. 
 
 The Emperor, when the Archbishop paid his 
 visit to him, was already greatly exasperated 
 against his son. The evening before the German 
 Ambassador, Prince Reuss, gave a big dinner- 
 party, at which Prince Rudolf and Princess 
 Stephanie were present. The Ambassador had 
 been foolish enough, at Rudolf's express request, 
 to invite also the Baroness Vetschera and her two 
 daughters. Stephanie turned a ghastly white 
 when she saw them, and stupefaction reigned 
 supreme over all present — not so much at Marie 
 Vetschera's presence as at a point in her dress. 
 The formal etiquette of the Viennese Coiurt only 
 allows married women to wear diamonds. Rudolf's 
 mistress had come in a low-cut dress, with a mag- 
 nificent diamond collarette on her beautiful neck 
 and a diadem of the same forbidden stones on the 
 perfumed masses of her night-black hair. The 
 
THE MYSTERY OF MAYERLING 233 
 
 scandal was increased by her conduct and Rudolf's 
 throughout dinner. Rudolf sat on the right of 
 the Princess Reuss in his capacity of Imperial 
 guest, for here again he was the Emperor's 
 representative. But, instead of paying attention 
 to his neighbour, he did not address a word to 
 her, talking unceasingly, across half a dozen 
 people, to Marie Vetschera, who sat at one of the 
 ends of the table. So now it was not only 
 Stephanie's complaint which reached Francis- 
 Joseph, but an echo of the complaints of high 
 Viennese society, and, worse still, of the German 
 Embassy. 
 
 It seemed to the Emperor, who had not long 
 ago derided such a suggestion on the part of 
 Stephanie, that " the cup was full," and he made 
 up his mind to act with the utmost energy. The 
 result of this energy, of which he gave the Empress 
 no warning, was to bring the curtain down on the 
 tragedy. 
 
 On the morning after Dr. Ganglbaiier's visit — 
 January 29, 1889 — Rudolf was sent for by his 
 father, and solemnly ushered into the Emperor's 
 private study. There were present in the room 
 with the Emperor the Cardinal-Archbishop of 
 Vienna ; Count Taaffe, President of the Minis- 
 terial Council ; and Count Kalnocky, Minister for 
 Foreign Affairs. On Francis-Joseph's desk lay 
 Rudolf's letter to Pope Leo. This is all that is 
 known for certain about the details of the inter- 
 view, although it is known to have lasted quite 
 
234 THE REAL FRANCIS- JOSEPH 
 
 an hour and to have been of a violent nature, for 
 the baize on the double doors could not drown 
 the loud tones of the speakers' voices. Rudolf 
 came out of the room with pale, distorted features 
 and trembling hands, and, having closed the door 
 behind him with extraordinary nervousness, made 
 for his own apartments, staggering like a drunken 
 man. A quarter of an hour later he was found in 
 a dead faint in his study. 
 
 It is also known that his friend Edgar von 
 Spiegl, the celebrated Viennese journalist, who 
 was to have seen him that morning in connection 
 with their collaboration on the book about the 
 Monarchy, was not admitted when he pre- 
 sented himself at the appointed hour, a fresh 
 appointment being made for the following day. 
 Finally, at ii a.m.. Prince Rudolf was to have 
 presided over a military conference at the War 
 Office, in his capacity of Inspector-General of 
 Infantry, but postponed this conference also to the 
 following day, writing out a telegram which he 
 gave to his confidential valet, Loschek, to send 
 off. The same trusty man was given a long letter 
 to deliver personally at the home of the Baxoness 
 Marie Vetschera. On his way back Loschek went 
 to Bratfisch and brought him to the Hofburg with 
 his cab. The Crown Prince got into his favourite 
 driver's vehicle, in the company of Loschek, and 
 set out for Mayerling, his usual asylum at times of 
 crisis, after sending a message to the Emperor that 
 he would be back the same evening to be present 
 
THE MYSTERY OF MAYERLING 235 
 
 at a dinner-party of the whole Imperial family at 
 the Palace. At the same time he sent word to 
 his friends Prince Philip of Coburg and Count 
 Hoyos to come and see him at Mayerling, where 
 he would have a serious communication to make 
 to them. 
 
 Everything points to this communication having 
 to do with a breaking of his relations with Marie 
 Vetschera — a step for which the Emperor had ex- 
 tracted a promise from his son's enfeebled wUl, in 
 the solemn presence of three witnesses that morn- 
 ing, and which Rudolf, the slave of his plighted 
 word, both as Prince and as a soldier, had written 
 to reveal at once to the lady interested. 
 
 A few minutes after Bratfisch's cab had left the 
 Hofburg a slight, elegant young woman, of a 
 dark complexion, hailed a modest " comfortable " 
 in one of the streets of Vienna, and called out to 
 the driver : " The Siidbahnhof." While passing 
 through the Wiedner-Hauptstrasse, she stopped 
 the cab, went into a cutler's shop and bought a 
 razor, which she had carefully stropped, and set 
 out again for the Southern station. There she 
 took a ticket for Baden, stepped into a first-class 
 carriage, alighted at the station marked on her 
 ticket, got into one of the few conveyances wait- 
 ing there, and had herself driven to Mayerling. 
 On the way she several times put her head out of 
 one of the windows, of which she kept the glass 
 lowered, in spite of the great cold. She looked 
 up and down the road, especially behind her. 
 
236 THE REAL FRANCIS- JOSEPH 
 
 Suddenly, when quite close to the hunting-box, 
 she stopped the driver, paid him his fare, and 
 waited with her head and shoulders leaning out 
 of the window. Another vehicle was coming up 
 rapidly, drawn by two fine horses. It was Brat- 
 fisch's cab, carrying Rudolf and his faithfixl valet. 
 The dark lady made a sign to Bratfisch, who 
 halted his horses. She got out of her cab, went 
 up to the Prince's, and seated herself at Rudolf's 
 side, and the journey to Mayerling continued. 
 On his arrival at the chateau, Rudolf's first care 
 was to send a telegram to his father to let him 
 know that he would not be back that evening as 
 he had promised, alleging that he did not feel 
 very well. 
 
 The dark lady was none other than Marie 
 Vetschera, as the evidence of the Vienna cutler 
 and the Baden coachman positively shows. But 
 if precise and well-authenticated statements enable 
 us to follow the first steps in the tragedy of 
 Mayerling up to the moment when Marie Vet- 
 schera met her lover in Bratfisch' s cab, what fol- 
 lowed is infinitely more difficult to reconstruct, for 
 the family archives of the Hofburg have kept 
 their secret to this day. No doubt there were 
 several direct witnesses — Loschek, Prince Philip 
 of Coburg, Count Hoyos — and witnesses of secon- 
 dary importance, such as Bratfisch, two footmen, 
 and a few servants on duty at Mayerling. Not 
 one of these, however, has ever broken silence : 
 Loschek and Bratfisch, actuated by affection ; 
 
THE BARONESS MARIE VETSCHERA 
 
 MAYERLING 
 
 To face fagc 236 
 
THE MYSTERY OF MAYERLING 237 
 
 Philip of Coburg and Count Hoyos, by respect for 
 the Imperial dignity ; the footmen and servants, 
 by bribes and by threats, which might easily be 
 put into execution to make them dumb. More- 
 over, they were scattered to the four corners of 
 the Empire, furnished with new names and new 
 posts. 
 
 Many versions of the story accordingly spread 
 about. We may set aside at once those which 
 tell of a duel, a murder, or, again, an accidental 
 death. On one point the statement of the cause 
 of death was quite precise. It was a case of 
 suicide. The statement was drawn up and signed 
 by Professor Hoffmann, pioneer of medico-legal 
 science at Vienna, a man of upright and loyal 
 character, with an almost fanatical love of truth. 
 An attempt was made to induce him to sign a 
 statement attributing the death to a sporting 
 accident, but he refused. On this point, at least, 
 we are in a position to be quite positive, that Pro- 
 fessor Hoffmann's statement, buried in the Habs- 
 burg family archives, decides, without any possible 
 hesitation, in favour of the suicide of His Imperial 
 and Royal Highness Rudolf, Archduke of Austria, 
 born at Vienna on August 21, 1858, died at 
 Mayerling on the night of January 29-30, i88g, 
 in consequence of having blown his brains out with 
 a sporting-rifle. 
 
 On January 29, therefore, Rudolf, having 
 written to Marie Vetschera to notify her that he 
 was about to break with her finally, met her 
 
238 THE REAL FRANCIS- JOSEPH 
 
 (after she had furnished herself with a well- 
 sharpened razor) on the road to Mayerling, and 
 arrived in her company at his hunting-box. Next 
 morning in Rudolf's bedroom at Mayerhng two 
 dead bodies were found on a disordered bed — 
 Rudolf with his head blown off, Marie Vetschera 
 strangled. 
 
 What exactly happened between the moment 
 when the Baroness got intoBratfisch's cab beside 
 her lover and the moment when they were 
 found so brutally done to death on their bed ? 
 It would be possible to run through the various 
 conjectures to which the tragedy has given rise. 
 But it seems more interesting, and also more 
 honest, to attempt to deduce the truth with the 
 aid, firstly of logic, secondly (and especially) of 
 the statement to the present writer of an old 
 gentleman who was at the Viennese Court at the 
 time of the tragedy, and was in very close touch 
 with the Emperor personally. As this statement 
 is in accord with the logic of the case, we gladly 
 accept it ; and if we do not insist that it is officially 
 authenticated, at least we may say that the 
 reading of it carries such conviction that it must 
 be admitted to be very like the truth. 
 
 All things point to Rudolf having abandoned 
 his original intention, as shown in his messages 
 to his two friends, and having made no " serious 
 communication " to them. The evening passed 
 like any other with the quartette — that is to say, 
 that while the Baroness looked calmly on, the 
 
THE MYSTERY OF MAYERLING 239 
 
 three men drank as much champagne and spirits 
 as they could hold. According to Loschek's 
 evidence, Rudolf was in a state of advanced in- 
 toxication when he retired about ten o'clock, in 
 company of Marie Vetschera, who was holding 
 him up. An early shooting expedition had been 
 decided on for the next day. The start was to be 
 made at 6 a.m. At five, therefore, Loschek, who 
 had been awakened during the night by the report 
 of a gun, which he put down to one of the game- 
 keepers, entered the Crown Prince's dressing-room. 
 He used not to call his master, as Rudolf, suffering 
 from insomnia, always arose promptly at the 
 hour agreed upon. But at half-past five Loschek 
 thought it his duty to give a light knock on the 
 door. There was no answer. He knocked more 
 loudly. Still there was silence. He tried to 
 turn the handle. Contrary to all the customs of 
 the house, the Prince — or the Baroness — ^had 
 pushed the bolt. Loschek went to warn Philip 
 of Coburg and Count Hoyos, who, after some 
 fruitless calls, burst the lock and entered the 
 room. What a sight it was that met their eyes is 
 known. It seems that in addition to the gunshot- 
 wound in the head the Prince was frightfully 
 mutilated, and that the bed was covered with 
 blood. 
 
 This, then, is what is supposed to have hap- 
 pened : In the bedchamber Rudolf forgot, in his 
 intoxication, the oath which he had sworn to his 
 father, and succumbed to the terrible bewitch- 
 
240 THE REAL FRANCIS- JOSEPH 
 
 ment of Marie Vetschera. They then went to 
 sleep. But after his drunkenness had worn off, 
 Rudolf was attacked again by insomnia, and 
 began to think how, through the Baroness, he 
 had broken his word as an officer and a gentleman. 
 He must have awakened her, and, in one of the 
 fits of hallucination which frequently came over 
 him, made accusations against himself, and de- 
 clared that he was going to leave her, never to 
 see her again. In this state of mind he must 
 even have begun to dress himself. Marie Vet- 
 schera must have drawn him to herself again, and 
 finding him for the first time in his life proof 
 against all her seductions, the cruel daughter of 
 the East must have finally made a frightful attack 
 on him with the razor which she had bought in 
 Vienna. Mad with pain, Rudolf threw himself 
 upon his mistress and strangled her, and then, 
 taking his sporting-rifle and putting a drop of 
 water on the charge to render its explosion the 
 more shattering, put the muzzle in his mouth and 
 blew his head completely to pieces. 
 
 This explanation accounts for the otherwise 
 improbable purchase of the razor in the Wied- 
 ner-Hauptstrasse and for Rudolfs act, for mor- 
 phinists never have the strength of mind to 
 commit suicide, except under very special instiga- 
 tion, of a purely physical kind. And Rudolf was 
 a morphinomaniac if there ever was one. 
 
 We now leave hypothesis, and return to cer- 
 tainty. The Prince of Coburg and Count Hoyos, 
 
THE MYSTERY OF MAYERLING 241 
 
 having closed the door on the two corpses and 
 padlocked it, extracted from the only direct wit- 
 ness besides themselves, the valet Loschek (who 
 was deeply attached to his master, and was 
 weeping), a promise that he would never reveal 
 the truth to anyone under any pretext. After 
 this precaution, Prince Philip, who was aware of 
 the Emperor's violent antipathy towards himself, 
 begged Count Hoyos to take the fatal news to the 
 Hofburg. Count Hoyos had a carriage got ready, 
 drove to Baden, took the first train leaving for 
 Vienna, and reached the Palace early in the 
 morning. There, not daring to approach the 
 Emperor, he asked for the Empress. As soon as 
 Elisabeth saw the Count in her apartments at so 
 early an hour, in shooting attire, and with haggard 
 face, she uttered the cry of a mother wounded in 
 the person of her offspring : 
 
 " Something has happened to my son !" 
 Count Hoyos bowed his head in assent. So 
 as not to betray the tottering of her knees, the 
 Empress sat down, and, pointing out a chair to 
 her visitor, said in a voice which she strove to 
 make firm : " You may speak, Count. I am 
 strong. Do not be afraid. I am ready to hear all." 
 With eyes half closed, the mother, so tender 
 and so nervous, listened to the terrible story as 
 though she were only the Empress, without a 
 quiver or a tear. When the Count had ceased 
 speaking, she seemed at last to be making a great 
 effort to get her words out. Yet she asked : 
 
 16 
 
242 THE REAL FRANCIS- JOSEPH 
 
 " You have told the Emperor nothing yet ?" 
 " No madame ; but if Your Majesty wishes . . ." 
 " No. I thank you for coming to me first. It 
 is from me only that the Emperor can hear such 
 tidings." 
 
 All unaided, hardly even stumbUng, she reached 
 Francis-Joseph's rooms. The Emperor was work- 
 ing, with his officer in attendance. She begged 
 him to dismiss the officer for a minute ; and the 
 Imperial couple were alone, face to face, as they 
 had not been for years. 
 
 When Count Hoyos was summoned to his 
 Sovereign's presence an hour later, he found the 
 Empress, as pale as marble, but calm and digni- 
 fied, holding the Emperor's hand in hers. He, 
 poor man, looking ten years older, was leaning 
 over his desk, his eyes all red, his face bathed in 
 tears, gulping down short broken sobs. He made 
 the Count tell the tragic story again, interrupting 
 him with deep moans and cries of despair. When 
 the tale was ended, a great silence followed, broken 
 only by the Emperor's loud weeping. 
 
 The Empress was the first to speak again. For- 
 getting every grievance, and even the fact that 
 she, in her heart, held her daughter-in-law partly 
 responsible for what had happened, she said 
 simply : " The Archduchess Stephanie must be 
 told." 
 
 Francis- Joseph tottered, on the arm of his 
 wife, through the vast galleries to the Arch- 
 duchess's apartments. She was at her toilet, and 
 
THE MYSTERY OF MAYERLING 243 
 
 sprang up in surprise at such a visit. The looks 
 of the Imperial couple forced her to suppose that 
 something terrible was in store for her. She was 
 only told the facts (and it was Elisabeth who told 
 her) with the greatest delicacy. She fainted 
 away, nevertheless. Francis- Joseph knelt at his 
 daughter-in-law's side, and spoke to her as though 
 to a child. Elisabeth took it on herself to send 
 him away. " You are suffering so much, Francis," 
 she said ; " you must try to get some rest." Then 
 she remained alone with a daughter-in-law whom 
 she had never loved, a woman whom she blamed 
 for wrecking her dear Rudy's happiness, but for 
 whom at the present moment she felt nothing but 
 the deepest compassion. 
 
 It is impossible to describe all that she was 
 during this terrible time to her husband and her 
 daughter-in-law — these two persons who in their 
 different ways had rendered her so unhappy. 
 The Emperor, in spite of his usual indifference, 
 felt this so much that he tried to express it in an 
 order of the day addressed to the public. " What 
 I owe " (his words ran) " in this period of grief 
 to my beloved wife, and what profound consola- 
 tion she has given me by her presence and her 
 example, I could never describe nor express. It 
 is to her, and to her alone, that I owe it that I 
 have not succumbed to despair." 
 
 In this awfvil tragedy, which completed the 
 shattering of her heart and her life, the pity which 
 Elisabeth lavished on Francis- Joseph had a double 
 
 16 — 2 
 
244 THE REAL FRANCIS-JOSEPH 
 
 motive. In the first place, she saw an object of 
 the intensest compassion in the wounded man, 
 expiating so cruelly his faults and accusing him- 
 self of his son's death ; and, secondly, she con- 
 ceived it her duty to be gentle to the head of a 
 family into which she had introduced the germ 
 of madness — long a fixed idea with her, which 
 Rudolf's death served to confirm. 
 
 It was on a dismal winter afternoon, with a 
 wan sky above and a heavy clinging mist below, 
 that Rudolf's cofiin left Mayerling, the home of 
 sport and of love, drawn on a black, unornamented 
 hearse by two slow-stepping horses, and escorted 
 only by six gamekeepers, carrying tapers, whose 
 little yellow flames flickered out in the wind. Two 
 days later the unhappy Prince's body, amid the 
 Requiem Masses of all the churches in the Empire 
 (except at Ischl, where the Vicar refused to pray for 
 a suicide), was resting at Vienna, in the Capuchin 
 Monastery, amid the memorials to all his ancestors 
 in the vault of Neuermarkt. 
 
 The body of the Baroness Marie Vetschera was 
 not removed until two days later. It was taken 
 by night to Trieste, whence it was despatched at 
 once to Venice, lighted only by the lanterns of 
 the boatmen. It was from Venice that the 
 Baroness Vetschera first heard of her daughter's 
 " sudden death." The body was then brought, 
 by daylight this time, to Bohemia, where the 
 Vetscheras had a famUy vault. Here sleeps her 
 last sleep the beautiful girl who paid with her life 
 
THE HOFBURG 
 
 THE FUNERAL VAULT OF THE HABSBURGS AT VIENNA 
 
 To face fagi 244 
 
THE MYSTERY OF MAYERLING 245 
 
 for the ambitious dreams which were conceived 
 about her. The golden gleam of the Imperial 
 crown had never lighted up the black night of 
 her hair. 
 
 On the ground of the little chateau of Mayer- 
 Hng a convent was built by order of the Emperor 
 and Empress. Expiation for the crime is per- 
 formed by nuns of the Trappist Order, whose rule 
 enjoins on them eternal silence, except to say to 
 one another, when they meet in the cold shadow 
 of the cloister : " My sister, we must die."* 
 
 * On October 12, 1908, a monument to the late Crown 
 Prince was unveiled at Buda-Pesth by the Emperor Francis- 
 Joseph, having been presented to the town by a committee of 
 citizens and executed by Signor Ligeti. The reports represent 
 the Emperor as evidently deeply moved at the ceremony. — 
 Translator. 
 
CHAPTER XIII 
 
 THE END OF A MARTYRDOM 
 
 Elisabeth had once hoped to find in her love 
 for Rudolf at least a semblance of repose. Now, 
 after Mayerling, the very life-springs of her heart 
 seemed to have dried up, and wearily she returned 
 again to her feverish, wandering existence of yore. 
 
 At the time of the tragedy she was still beautiful, 
 though her charming blue eyes shone out rather 
 sorrowfully from under her heavy crown of golden 
 hair ; and she looked after her appearance care- 
 fully, dressing with great taste, if without 
 coquetry, and not disdaining to adorn her beauty 
 with jewels which heightened its effect. With 
 Rudolf's death there passed away for ever this 
 very legitimate desire of inspiring pleasure. In 
 future, down to her last day, the Empress wore 
 nothing but mourning, and her jewellery lay 
 buried as securely in their crystal caskets as 
 Rudolf's body in its iron sarcophagus in the vault 
 of the Capuchins. 
 
 Like her son in his coffin and her jewels in their 
 caskets, the Empress hid herself away from the 
 world. To secure for herself freedom to live as 
 she would, safe from the contact of husband, 
 
 246 
 
THE ENt) OF A MARTYRDOM 247 
 
 daughters, and daughter-in-law — and, still more, 
 from the condolences of all acquaintances, in- 
 timate or distant — she retired to her Hungarian 
 chateau of Goedoelloe, where for long months she 
 dwelt, plunged in the profoundest silence. She 
 neither spoke nor slept. For the last nine years 
 of her mortal life, until that day when the assas- 
 sin's knife brought her release, it may be said that 
 Elisabeth knew not sleep. Her long martyrdom 
 was exaggerated by prolonged insomnia. To ease 
 her sick nerves she would take most fatiguing 
 solitary rides about the neighbourhood of Goedoel- 
 loe. The peasantry, the Czikos, and the gipsies, 
 as they met her on the roads, in the pasturages, 
 and in the fields, respectfully saluted the lady, all 
 in mourning, sitting upright in the saddle, with 
 set features and dark-ringed eyes that gazed out 
 into space, while her horse galloped furiously over 
 the vast Hungarian plain. 
 
 On the first anniversary of her son's death she 
 returned to Vienna, when for the first time since 
 the affair she opened her lips. But not for long. 
 Having visited the funeral vault, she went with 
 the Emperor to the Trappist nunnery at Mayerling, 
 and was present at a Low Mass celebrated at an 
 altar erected on the exact spot where had stood 
 a year before the bed of love and of death. During 
 the whole service she maintained the same proud, 
 frozen attitude of body and fixity of gaze which were 
 hers until the end of her life, making even her rela- 
 tives doubt whether she retained all her faculties. 
 
248 THE REAL FRANCIS- JOSEPH 
 
 This problem of her mental condition has never 
 been solved. She was obviously abnormal. 
 Naturally expansive, soft-hearted, and impres- 
 sionable, she had been obliged all through life to 
 put constraint upon herself, for since the first 
 days of wifehood and motherhood she had never 
 met with anything except antipathy and enmity 
 on the part of her relatives. Thrown back upon 
 herself, she had seen in the agonies and the deaths 
 of those who were dear to her the agony and death 
 also of her desire for love, so superabundant and 
 so repressed. And insanity — her great terror — 
 and death continued to strike at those about her. 
 Before we come to the period of what has been 
 called Elisabeth's own madness, we may pause to 
 glance at the devastation wrought by sorrow, 
 mental alienation, and death among those about 
 her. 
 
 First there were her sisters : Sophie, Duchess of 
 Alengon ; Marie-Sophie, Queen of Naples ; and 
 Mathilda, Countess of Trani. The Duchess of 
 Alengon met with a horrible end in the charity 
 bazaar fire at Paris in 1897. The Queen of Naples, 
 widow of Francis II., was driven from her estates 
 by the revolution which united her country to 
 Italy. Mathilda, Countess of Trani, widow of 
 the Prince of Bourbon-Sicily, was also driven into 
 exile, and, like Marie-Sophie, welcomed death as 
 a deliverance. 
 
 Next there were her cousins, Ludwig II., and 
 Otho, the present King of Bavaria. We have seen 
 
THE END OF A MARTYRDOM 249 
 
 what was the end of Ludwig, the madman who 
 killed his physician and himself. Otho appears 
 to be still more insane than the unhappy brother 
 whom he succeeded. His royal robe is a strait- 
 jacket, and he has to be shut up in a completely 
 padded room, lest he should dash his head against 
 the walls. He does not walk, but crawls ; does 
 not talk, but barks. 
 
 We- have already spoken of her brothers-in- 
 law, Maximilian (with the madwoman he left 
 behind him, the Empress Charlotte), Charles- 
 Louis, and Louis- Victor. 
 
 Then there were her children, Gisela, Rudolf, and 
 Marie- Valerie. By some strange freak of fate, she 
 had no love for Gisela. Rudolf died at Mayerling, 
 and Marie- Valerie is an epileptic. 
 
 As if to set off these family tragedies, worthy of 
 a Shakespeare's pen, there were the political 
 disasters, Solferino, Sadowa, and the Treaties of 
 Villafranca and Prague. 
 
 The old Emperor held out ; but we should not 
 be astonished to learn that the mind of the un- 
 happy Empress, crushed also by domestic troubles, 
 showed less power of resistance against adversity. 
 
 Those who came in contact with her during the 
 last years of her life, however, and especially her 
 two Greek teachers. Professor Rhoussopoulos and 
 Dr. Christomanos, who succeeded him, insisted 
 firmly that the Empress retained her faculties 
 admirably. Both teachers have even published 
 Memoirs in support of this view, although it is 
 
250 THE REAL FRANCIS- JOSEPH 
 
 true that some have claimed, without the possi- 
 bility of proving their claim, that they were both 
 physicians attached to an Imperial patient. 
 
 The first-named Professor, in his " Memoirs," 
 deals particularly with the political conversations 
 of the Empress. Especially notable is the follow- 
 ing confidence which he reports her to have made 
 to him one day : 
 
 " It is claimed that a Republic is the best form 
 of government. Such a view seems to me very 
 plausible, but I do not, nevertheless, think a Re- 
 public possible for Austria-Hungary, owing to the 
 great number of different races in the country." 
 
 Professor Rhoussopoulos adds that such an 
 opinion was not at all surprising in an Empress 
 whose library included a complete and possibly 
 unique collection of all the revolutionary and 
 anarchist books and magazines published in all 
 languages, which her polyglot accomplishments 
 enabled her to read. 
 
 The other Professor speaks of her philosophical 
 conversations, recording in particular typical ex- 
 pressions which prove the persistence during a 
 great part of the Empress's life of a fixed idea such 
 as we have seen in its early form during her stay 
 in Brittany. Once she said in the course of a 
 conversation : " The instant that the love of life 
 has departed from a human being, death's cold 
 hand has already touched him." Another time, 
 during an extremely violent storm off the Algerian 
 coast, she said to Dr. Christomanos : " Are you 
 
THE END OF A MARTYRDOM 251 
 
 prepared to die an ordinary death, or do you 
 believe that death may be an heroic act ? I am 
 convinced that it is possible to die, morally speak- 
 ing, long before one ceases to breathe." And a 
 third time, with nothing to prompt her remark, 
 she murmured : " It is useless to seek for a charm- 
 ing death. It is enough to know that the soul has 
 died in beauty." 
 
 At this period, after a stay at Schonbrunn (to 
 which and to the Hofburg she paid a number of 
 visits between her journeys, during the closing 
 years of her life), she made a long sojourn at her 
 palace in Corfu, the Achilleion, that vUla which ' 
 she had built by the Italian architect Carito, after 
 her own plans. She was doomed never to see it 
 again. 
 
 The Achilleion, which will remain famous in 
 history, is perhaps the extravagant Empress's 
 greatest folly in luxurious and artistic prodigality. 
 Built on the site of a sumptuous house which 
 Elisabeth bought only to pull down, the villa cost 
 no less than ^f 3, 200,000. Perched upon a rock 
 commanding the sea, it has two stories on the side 
 lapped by the waves, and, in addition, a ground- 
 floor only on the land side. The base of the 
 building, therefore, follows exactly the natural 
 formation of the rock and the ascent to it. A 
 colonnade of twelve marble pillars fronts the blue 
 expanse of the sea. By every one of these pillars 
 stands some precious example of ancient statuary, 
 each piece bought by Elisabeth in Rome and trans- 
 
250 THE REAL FRANCIS- JOSEPH 
 
 true that some have claimed, without the possi- 
 bility of proving their claim, that they were both 
 physicians attached to an Imperial patient. 
 
 The first-named Professor, in his " Memoirs," 
 deals particularly with the political conversations 
 of the Empress. Especially notable is the follow- 
 ing confidence which he reports her to have made 
 to him one day : 
 
 " It is claimed that a Republic is the best form 
 of government. Such a view seems to me very 
 plausible, but I do not, nevertheless, think a Re- 
 public possible for Austria-Hungary, owing to the 
 great number of different races in the country." 
 
 Professor Rhoussopoulos adds that such an 
 opinion was not at all surprising in an Empress 
 whose library included a complete and possibly 
 unique collection of all the revolutionary and 
 anarchist books and magazines published in all 
 languages, which her polyglot accomplishments 
 enabled her to read. 
 
 The other Prof essor speaks of her philosophical 
 conversations, recording in particular typical ex- 
 pressions which prove the persistence during a 
 great part of the Empress's life of a fixed idea such 
 as we have seen in its early form during her stay 
 in Brittany. Once she said in the course of a 
 conversation : " The instant that the love of life 
 has departed from a human being, death's cold 
 hand has already touched him." Another time, 
 during an extremely violent storm off the Algerian 
 coast, she said to Dr. Christomanos : " Are you 
 
THE END OF A MARTYRDOM 251 
 
 prepared to die an ordinary death, or do you 
 believe that death may be an heroic act ? I am 
 convinced that it is possible to die, morally speak- 
 ing, long before one ceases to breathe." And a 
 third time, with nothing to prompt her remark, 
 she murmured : " It is useless to seek for a charm- 
 ing death. It is enough to know that the soul has 
 died in beauty." 
 
 At this period, after a stay at Schonbrunn (to 
 which and to the Hofburg she paid a number of 
 visits between her journeys, during the closing 
 years of her life), she made a long sojourn at her 
 palace in Corfu, the Achilleion, that viUa which ' 
 she had built by the Italian architect Carito, after 
 her own plans. She was doomed never to see it 
 again. 
 
 The Achilleion, which will remain famous in 
 history, is perhaps the extravagant Empress's 
 greatest folly in luxurious and artistic prodigality. 
 Built on the site of a sumptuous house which 
 Elisabeth bought only to pull down, the villa cost 
 no less than £3,200,000. Perched upon a rock 
 commanding the sea, it has two stories on the side 
 lapped by the waves, and, in addition, a ground- 
 floor only on the land side. The base of the 
 building, therefore, follows exactly the natural 
 formation of the rock and the ascent to it. A 
 colonnade of twelve marble pillars fronts the blue 
 expanse of the sea. By every one of these pillars 
 stands some precious example of ancient statuary, 
 each piece bought by Elisabeth in Rome and trans- 
 
THE END OF A MARTYRDOM 253 
 
 lous cost of the villa, and still less after visiting the 
 garden and park. The former is a dream of beauty 
 containing no less than 25,000 rose-bushes, of the 
 rarest kinds, merely on the terrace in front of the 
 entrance to the building. These roses, being con- 
 stantly in flower, owing to the exceptional climate 
 which Corfu enjoys, are a joy to the eye and a 
 delight to the nose. Beyond this forest of roses 
 stretches a park wherein mingle with the scented 
 shrubs of Europe the palms of Africa and the 
 fantastic growths of the tropics, while the limpid 
 air is musical with the sad plashing into marble 
 basins of tiny jets of water. More marble pillars 
 rise into view — a little Greek temple, all rose and 
 white, springing from the luxuriant greenery, and 
 looking down into the blue of the waves below. 
 In this charming temple's shelter Elisabeth, at 
 the time of her last voyage in 1896, used to sit 
 for whole days, a solitary crape-clad figure 
 plunged in the depths of her grief, facing the 
 immensity of the ocean. 
 
 A little harbour, guarded by a miniature light- 
 house, gives access to the villa from the sea, a 
 red marble staircase being let into the solid rock. 
 At the base of the stair is another little temple, 
 containing a memorial erected by the pious 
 Elisabeth to her favourite poet, Heine. 
 
 When leaving the Achilleion towards the end of 
 1896, Elisabeth had a presentiment that she would 
 never see it again. Tears rose to her eyes, burning 
 with the strange light kindled by perpetual in- 
 
254 THE REAL FRANCIS- JOSEPH 
 
 somnia ; and, as she watched from the bridge of 
 the Miramar the sea swallowing up the white 
 speck which was her splendid foUy, she let drop 
 these slow words : " Just as we desire to marry 
 in our lifetime a beloved daughter, to secure her 
 happiness, so we ought to sell before our death 
 a beloved home, to make sure that a worthy master 
 follows us." 
 
 Elisabeth was not destined to see this wish 
 realized, hard though she strove ; for there was no 
 purchaser to be found for so fantastically costly a 
 villa. Shortly before her death she had all her 
 furniture from the Achilleion brought to Lainz, 
 which was easier to reach than Corfu. She was 
 burying her dream in its grave. 
 
 After her departure from Corfu, as her artistic 
 frenzy abated, she became more cruelly aware of 
 her physical decline. Her incurable insomnia 
 was exasperated by unbearable nervous attacks. 
 She dreamed of curing herself by a diet of nothing 
 but fruit and nulk. This treatment weakened 
 her so much that she was obliged to give up her 
 favourite sport of riding, being unable to sit her 
 horse. In 1897, after a season at Biarritz, which 
 did not improve her health, she went to Paris 
 and put herself into the hands of a nerve-specialist. 
 A new manner of existence began for her, marked 
 by changes from climate to climate and from 
 doctor to doctor. The first specialist prescribed 
 massage for his patients. But massage did not 
 suit Elisabeth. She tried several other sysitems 
 
THE END OF A MARTYRDOM 255 
 
 before finally quitting Paris to return to the 
 Hofburg, where Professor Nothnagel took charge 
 of the Empress's health. Where she had dieted 
 herself he gave her more nourishment, obliging 
 her especially to take underdone meat, which in- 
 spired her with extreme disgust. In the end she 
 regained her strength, but nothing could bring 
 back the sleep which had fled from her for ever 
 on January 30, 1889. 
 
 She left Vienna for San Remo, where, ten years 
 earlier, another Imperial martyr, the Crown 
 Prince Frederick of Prussia, passed a few months 
 of his life in unbearable torture, before ascending 
 the throne of the German Empire for a reign 
 of one hundred days. From San Remo she made 
 several excursions into France. At Villefranche 
 one day, as a gardener was carefully trimming 
 some beds of magnificent carnations, he perceived 
 a lady in mourning watching him attentively 
 through the grating of the garden-door. He took 
 no notice of her until she began to speak to him. 
 Then, rough fellow as he was, he lifted his head, 
 for the sweet voice charmed his ears. 
 
 " I must seem to you very unceremonious," said 
 the lady, " but those flowers are so beautiful, and 
 I love them so much, that I cannot resist asking 
 you for one or two." 
 
 The man hesitated, for his orders were very 
 strict. His master did not allow anyone to pick 
 his beloved carnations. 
 
 " May I have them ?" the sweet voice went on. 
 
256 THE REAL FRANCIS- JOSEPH 
 
 The gardener succumbed to the charm like any 
 other man, picked the two most beautiful blooms, 
 intoxicating with their scent of cloves, and passed 
 them through the grating to the unknown lady. 
 Half an hour later, while Elisabeth was waiting at 
 the station for the train to San Remo, she saw 
 approaching at a run the same gardener, carrying 
 a bunch of lovely carnations. When he had 
 heard of the incident, the owner of the garden, 
 who was the Mayor of Villefranche, had rifled 
 his flower-beds and despatched the sweet-scented 
 spoil to the Imperial traveller, whom he had 
 recognized from his man's description. 
 
 Profoundly touched by this delicate attention 
 the Empress took one of her visiting-cards and 
 pencilled on it : " Thanks from the bottom of 
 my heart for your sweet and charming kindness, 
 which has made me very happy." From that 
 time, whenever she went to Villefranche, she made 
 a point of visiting the Mayor, who loved flowers 
 like herself. 
 
 A different sort of welcome was hers at the 
 watering-place of Nauheim, in North Germany. 
 The Northern Germans are not a courteous race, 
 either naturally or by training. Inquisitive to 
 the worst degree, they soon made a stay at Nau- 
 heim impossible for Elisabeth, whose greatest 
 desire was to escape notice. The report had been 
 circulated that the Empress of Austria had lost 
 her reason. So, to get a look at this poor, mad 
 Sovereign, crowds formed up in front of her resi- 
 
LAST WALK TOGETHER OF THE EMPEROR AND EMPRESS, 
 NAUHEIM, iSq8 
 
 To face ^age 256 
 
THE END OF A MARTYRDOM 257 
 
 dence, and when she went to the baths her atten- 
 dants had hterally to force a way for her through 
 the masses of sightseers. 
 
 Elisabeth next expressed a desire to settle in 
 Switzerland. The Emperor, who was on a visit to 
 his wife at Nauheim, as soon as he heard of the 
 plan, advised her strongly against it, inspired by 
 the counsels of his Court and the police reports. 
 Elisabeth being troubled about the motives of 
 his interference, Francis- Joseph told her that he 
 had bad reports from Switzerland, where there 
 was great activity in Anarchist circles, and the 
 lives of royal personages could not be safe. A 
 little spark flickered for an instant in her eyes, 
 the same little spark which might have been seen 
 in their depths on the day when she rode the 
 restive horse of Count Festetics, and again on that 
 stormy morning on the Breton coast when she 
 threw herself into the raging waves. But she 
 answered quietly, as her eyes regained their usual 
 calm : 
 
 " I am a poor woman, Francis, who have no 
 concern in politics. I have therefore nothing to 
 fear. If I tremble when I hear talk about 
 Anarchists, it is only on account of the Emperor 
 that I tremble." 
 
 She had many times, indeed, shown that she 
 did not fear the Anarchists by deliberately going 
 to meet danger. Some years before, when Francis- 
 Joseph and Rudolf were going to Trieste to open 
 an exhibition there, there was an agitation among 
 
 17 
 
258 THE REAL FRANCIS- JOSEPH 
 
 the Irredentists, and an outrage was feared. She 
 insisted on accompanying her husband and son, 
 saying that if she were present no crime would be 
 committed. A little later the correctness of her 
 view was proved at the trial of the Anarchist 
 Oberdank. In the course of the evidence it came 
 out that an attempt was to have been made on 
 the occasion of the Imperial visit, and everything 
 points to the presence of the Empress alone pre- 
 venting it. 
 
 Subsequently, when out for a country walk in 
 England, she met a poor woman carrying a baby, 
 who roused her pity. Without making herself 
 known, she several times brought assistance to 
 her in her home. She never met the husband 
 until one day, as she left the wretched dwelling, 
 she came upon him, with a gun on his shoulder. 
 Instead of thanking her, he began to revile the 
 rich, the nobility, kings and all. Elisabeth 
 broke in : 
 
 " You have every right to be an enemy of the 
 monarchy. But, unfortunately, such ideas don't 
 help you to keep your family." 
 
 " What's that to you ? It is just these black- 
 guards in crowns who prevent us from living !" 
 shouted the man. Then, brandishing his gun, he 
 added : " I wish I had one at the end of my gun !" 
 
 " Your wish is granted : I am the Empress of 
 Austria." 
 
 She looked steadfastly for one minute into the 
 eyes of the furious man, and then, without hasten- 
 
THE END OF A MARTYRDOM 259 
 
 ing or giving a glance behind her, she went on her 
 way. 
 
 Once again before she met Luccheni and his 
 knife, she had an affair with another Anarchist. 
 She was stopping at Mentone. As she strolled 
 out to Cap Martin, a man appeared from behind 
 a rock and demanded alms. Elisabeth took from 
 her purse a silver coin, and held it out to the beggar. 
 As soon as he saw that the purse contained gold, 
 he planted himself in front of her, saying : 
 
 " Aha ! the lady is rich. And is this all she 
 gives me ?" 
 
 " There are others, too, who need help." 
 
 " Oh yes ! Still, if I wanted, I could get all 
 the lady's money. I should only have to take the 
 pretty purse and drop the lady quietly in the sea." 
 
 " Bah !" said the Empress, with a smile ; " I 
 can swim, and should only risk a wetting, while 
 you would be in danger of the scaffold." 
 
 The man was startled. After reflecting for a 
 moment, he thrust out his dirty hand, loudly 
 expressing his admiration for her courage. Elisa- 
 beth shrugged her shoulders and turned her back 
 on him. At this moment a footman came up at 
 a run, exclaiming : 
 
 " What is the matter ? Is this person insulting 
 Your Majesty ?" 
 
 " No," said the Empress. " Let him alone." 
 
 She gazed into the sea, while the beggar went 
 up to the footman and asked him in a low tone 
 whether she was " a Majesty." 
 
 17 — 2 
 
26o THE REAL FRANCIS- JOSEPH 
 
 " Yes, the Empress of Austria," replied the 
 other. " And now you be off !" 
 
 " Didn't you hear your mistress, flunkey ?" 
 asked the beggar haughtily. " Let me alone. 
 It's nothing to you that this Majesty of yours and 
 I have had^a talk. She is an Empress, you say ? 
 Well, I'm an Anarchist ! I don't care a hang for 
 tyrants, but a woman like that ... I wouldn't 
 touch a hair of her head, not for a thousand 
 pounds. Good-day, lady," he added respectfully, 
 and disappeared among the rocks. 
 
 The Empress was justified in saying that she 
 did not fear Anarchists, since one of them had 
 thus paid his unconventional tribute to her 
 courage. She disregarded, therefore, the anxiety 
 of Francis- Joseph, and started for the shores of 
 Lake Leman. She settled down not far from 
 Geneva, at the Grand Hotel de Caux, situated in 
 a pine-wood clinging to the mountain-side below 
 Montreux. Here she began to feel better, and 
 seemed to be regaining her former health. Early 
 in September she heard talk of the hothouses 
 specially constructed for the cultivation of rare 
 orchids at the Baroness Rothschild's chateau of 
 Pregny, on the other side of Geneva. She knew 
 the Baroness, having met her in Paris at the 
 house of her sister, the Queen of Naples. She 
 made up her mind, therefore, to pay a visit to 
 the orchid-houses at Pregny. She engaged a room 
 at the Hotel Beaurivage, at Geneva, intending to 
 break her journey there on her return, and left 
 
THE END OF A MARTYRDOM 261 
 
 the Grand H6tel de Caux. She went through 
 Geneva to Pregny^ and came back to the Hotel 
 Beaurivage, meaning to leave next morning by 
 the lake-steamboat Geneve for Territtet-Montreux. 
 That evening she took a walk in the town^ dined, 
 and retired early to bed. On the following morn- 
 ing, September 10, 1898, after bathing and dress- 
 ing, she took another walk in Geneva, accompanied 
 by the Countess Sztaray, her lady-in-waiting, 
 sending her suite to the station to catch the train 
 for Territtet, and then, still accompanied by the 
 Countess, left the hotel for the steamer-wharf, 
 whither an old footman had already gone, carrying 
 the Empress's travelling-bag and cloak. 
 
 When the two ladies left the hotel, a young 
 workman, who had been watching the arrivals 
 and departures for over an hour from the seat 
 where he was sitting on the path to the wharf, 
 jumped up suddenly. Waiting until the travellers 
 had reached the pathway, he walked straight in 
 front of them, and, passing by the Empress's side, 
 struck her so violent a blow in the breast that 
 she fell to her knees. At this moment the Countess 
 Sztaray was a little in advance, waving to the men 
 on the boat not to lift up the gangway until they 
 should reach the wharf. She turned round to see 
 Elisabeth rising from the ground and the young 
 workman running off down the Rue des Alpes. 
 Taking him for a thief, the Countess pointed him 
 out to the passers-by, who set off in pursuit. He 
 was caught by two cabdrivers at the instant that 
 
262 THE REAL FRANCIS- JOSEPH 
 
 he was about to take refuge in the Square des 
 Alpes and hide himself among the bushes. 
 
 The Countess Sztaray returned to the Empress, 
 and, with the help of a bystander, set her on her 
 feet. Very pale in the face, the Empress told 
 the man not to trouble himself, thanked him, and, 
 taking her lady's arm, went on to the wharf. 
 Replying to the Countess's questions, she declared 
 that she was not hurt, or, at least, if she were, that 
 the injury was very slight. On the steamer she 
 sat down, but hardly had the boat left the wharf 
 when she fainted. They carried her on to the 
 upper deck, imagining that she had a heart- 
 failure, caused by her suppressed alarm. The 
 steamer went on, leaving a white track behind 
 it in the blue waters of the lake, while around the 
 big red lateen-saUs flashed out against the back- 
 ground of snowy mountains. On the lower deck 
 a gipsy band, taken on board for the first part of 
 the trip, began to strike up a captivating czardas. 
 
 The Empress grew paler and paler, and nothing 
 could restore her to consciousness. The Countess 
 Sztaray unfastened her mistress's dress, untied 
 the knot and loosened the laces of her corset. On 
 the chemise, just below the left breast, she per- 
 ceived a tiny stain of blood. She tore open the 
 chemise, and discovered a little triangular wound, 
 from which issued a drop of blood. " A doctor ! 
 quick, a doctor !" she cried. " The Empress is 
 hiurt." There was no doctor on board. The 
 steamer began to turn. Then the Empress 
 
THE END OF A MARTYRDOM 263 
 
 opened her eyes, and in a far-away but calm voice 
 asked : 
 
 " What is the matter ?" 
 
 " Are you in pain ?" was the Countess's 
 anguished reply. 
 
 Elisabeth seemed to listen to the frenzied sounds 
 of the czardas of her beloved gipsies, and she 
 answered gently : "No." 
 
 A sad, sweet smile hovered over her lips, her 
 hands made a gesture of thanks to Heaven, and her 
 eyelids closed upon two glad eyes that would open 
 no more. Elisabeth died in beauty. 
 
 At the wharf a stretcher was made from two 
 oars, some sailcloth, and a cushion, and the 
 Empress was laid upon it to be carried to the 
 Hotel Beaurivage. All the efforts of the doctors 
 summoned to her bedside were unavailing to call 
 her back to life, and at three in the afternoon, 
 without regaining consciousness, the Empress of 
 Austria breathed her last. 
 
 In response to a hasty summons, Elisabeth's 
 suite returned to Geneva. Baron Berzeviczy, 
 Grand-Marshal of her Court, after telegraphing 
 to Vienna, watched for the last time at his mis- 
 tress's side. To a journalist who, on the day after 
 the murder, expressed his surprise at the wife of 
 Francis- Joseph going about unattended by a body- 
 guard, the Grand-Marshal replied, with a shake of 
 the head and a despairing gesture : "A body- 
 guard ? No, that was impossible with the 
 Empress. Her Majesty could never bear police 
 
264 THE REAL FRANCIS- JOSEPH 
 
 about her, even — or especially — where it was most 
 dangerous for a Sovereign to take risks." 
 
 Elisabeth, Empress errant, heroine of the inci- 
 dents at Goedoelloe, Finisterre, and Cap Martin, 
 knew why she acted thus, but her secret is buried 
 with her in the tomb. 
 
 The Emperor Francis- Joseph was at Schon- 
 brunn when his aide-de-camp, Count Paar, who 
 had just received a cipher despatch from the 
 Countess Sztaray, communicated the terrible news 
 to him. He sank into a chair sobbing. When 
 he was able to speak, he said to Count Paar, who 
 was silent in the presence of such grief — grief 
 mingled, perhaps, with remorse at having been so 
 bad a husband to her who had become once more 
 dear to him in her last years : 
 
 " This is the most cruel hour of my whole life." 
 
 The old Emperor began to weep again. A few 
 hours later Count Goluchowsky, Minister for 
 Foreign Affairs, reached Schonbrunn with the 
 official intimation. 
 
 On September 13, at 7 a.m., the Emperor's 
 representatives reached Geneva. They were 
 Count Francis Aiiersperg, his Chamberlain ; Count 
 Bellegarde, Marshal ; the Countess Harrach, Grand- 
 Mistress of the Court ; and the Countess Festetics, 
 lady-in-waiting to the Empress. A private reli- 
 gious service was held in the death-chamber at 
 the Hotel Beaurivage in the afternoon. Next 
 morning, at 8.30 a.m., in brilliant sunshine, the 
 funeral procession left for the station by way of 
 
THE END OF A MARTYRDOM 265 
 
 the quay and the Rue du Mont-Blanc. The 
 coflBin of the martyred Empress was put into the 
 carriage prepared for it. Everywhere along the 
 line — at Lausanne, Fribourg, Berne, Zurich, Buchs, 
 Salzburg, and Linz — the church-bells toUed the 
 knell, while pickets of soldiers turned out with 
 flags to salute. Finally, on Sunday, September 17, 
 after having been exposed to view for twenty- 
 four hours at the Hofburg Chapel in a coffin with 
 a glass top, the body of the unfortunate Elisabeth 
 was placed in the vault at the Capuchin Monastery, 
 close to the coffin of her well-loved and unhappy 
 son Rudolf. The murdered mother was sleeping 
 her last sleep beside her son, the suicide. 
 
 Meanwhile the assassin's identity had been 
 established. He was an Italian, born in Paris 
 in 1873, and known by the name of Luccheni. 
 He professed Anarchist views. He had come to 
 Geneva to kill the Duke of Orleans ; but the Duke 
 not being there, and the Empress of Austria 
 happening to be on the spot, he kiUed her. He 
 committed the deed with a kind of triangular file 
 familiar to shoemakers, which he had carefully 
 sharpened. The file had passed under the fourth 
 rib, breaking it and penetrating right into the heart, 
 which it pierced. The Anarchist had made no 
 mistake about the Empress. 
 
 The present writer had the fortune to see 
 Luccheni just eight days after the murder. Many 
 subterfuges and repeated applications were neces- 
 sary before a letter was successfully obtained from 
 
266 THE REAL FRANCIS- JOSEPH 
 
 the Attorney-General to the Judge in charge of 
 the case, M. Lechet. A very vivid recollection 
 remains in the writer's mind of what happened. 
 
 On reaching M. Lechet' s room, I expressed my 
 wish to see Luccheni. The magistrate, who had 
 the appe|rance of a retired police-officer, scratched 
 his head, pulled at his long white goatee beard, and 
 remarked : 
 
 " To see Luccheni ! Oh yes, I understand ; you 
 would like to see him. But I ought to tell you, 
 I think, that he has a perfect horror of journalists." 
 
 His goatee got another pull and his head another 
 scratch before M. Lechet said : 
 
 " Well, see here. He is very quiet and well- 
 behaved, but he doesn't like people to visit him. 
 I will have him brought out to you." 
 
 A few words scribbled on a printed form were 
 given to an attendant. As I waited I grew bolder, 
 and asked the Judge if it would be possible for 
 me to have a couple of lines in Luccheni' s hand- 
 writing. Once more M. Lechet was perplexed, 
 but once more he gave way. M. Baretta, one of 
 the ushers, was sent for', and commissioned to 
 obtain the autograph. The usher in his turn 
 showed his perplexity. 
 
 " What pretext can I make ?" he asked 
 anxiously. 
 
 " Tell him the truth," replied the honest 
 magistrate. 
 
 " He will never do it for a journalist. He can't 
 bear them." 
 
THE END OF A MARTYRDOM 267 
 
 This was certainly true. But now we were 
 informed that Luccheni was here. We went out 
 to see him standing between two policemen, with 
 a faint, artless smile in his half-closed eyes and on 
 his small mouth, shaded by a slight, reddish 
 moustache. Luccheni, still smiling, took off his 
 hat. M. Lechet went up to him. 
 
 " Will you be so good, Luccheni, as to give me 
 a few lines in your handwriting and your signa- 
 ture ?" he asked. 
 
 " What for ?" 
 
 " Someone I know wants them." 
 
 " No, no. It's another journalist, I am sure. 
 No, no." 
 
 M. Baretta broke in. He could speak Italian, 
 and to him only Luccheni consented to tell any- 
 thing about himself. The autograph was for 
 himself, he said. So Luccheni agreed to sit down 
 in the usher's chair and write four lines, while 
 M. Lechet went to fetch three cigarettes as a 
 reward for him. 
 
 " Thank you very much, M. le zouze" ijuge), he 
 said, with his curious pronunciation of French. 
 
 " That's all right, that's all right." 
 
 As I held out a match to Luccheni, I rapidly 
 interviewed him. 
 
 "What did I kill her for? That's easy to 
 guess. I said to myself : ' You never worked, 
 you never unhappy. Me always work, always 
 unhappy. So ' " — making the gesture of stabbing 
 — " ' there's one for you, and here's one for me !' " 
 
268 THE REAL FRANCIS- JOSEPH 
 
 A door opened, and, while the Judge and usher 
 looked at him in almost admiring wonder, Luccheni 
 passed through, still smihng, accompanied by his 
 two policemen. 
 
 I have added nothing to this account, I have 
 not embroidered or embellished it, and this is 
 exactly how I saw Luccheni and the men who had 
 him in their custody. 
 
 Although he expected it, or said that he ex- 
 pected it, Luccheni was not executed, for the 
 death-penalty does not exist in the canton of 
 Geneva. Condemned to solitary confinement for 
 life, he occupies, in the Episcopal Prison, an under- 
 ground dungeon, with nothing in it except a mat- 
 tress and lighted only feebly from above. His name 
 exists no more. He has become No. 1,144. No. 
 1,144 lives in absolute solitude, interrupted once 
 a week only by a brief visit on the part of the 
 chaplain. The death-penalty being abolished, a 
 worse has been found. Surely the gentle Empress, 
 could she return to life, would beg for mercy to her 
 murderer ! 
 
 The great Hungarian poet, Maurus Jokai, in an 
 obituary article on Elisabeth, mentions an anec- 
 dote, which is worth quoting as corroborating all 
 that we have said about the Empress : 
 
 " At one period in her life Elisabeth wrote some 
 verses in Hungarian on the subject of the raven, 
 the bird of Ul-omen which plays a great part in 
 the history of the Habsburgs. According to the 
 Imperial poetess, a flight of ravens was hovering 
 
THE EMPRESS ELISABETH IN HUNGARIAN COURT DRESS 
 
 To face fage 268 
 
THE END OF A MARTYRDOM 269 
 
 over Olmiitz when Francis- Joseph received from 
 his uncle's hands the crown which was destined 
 to inflict upon him such miseries. A raven fol- 
 lowed Maximilian and Charlotte, and refused to 
 be driven away, on their last walk in the park at 
 Miramar before their departure for Mexico. When 
 Maria Christina got into the carriage to drive to 
 the railway-station on her way to receive the 
 crown of Spain, which was one day to be so grievous 
 a burden, a raven flew over the horses' heads and 
 never ceased wheeling round the carriage until it 
 had finished its journey. This was the subject 
 of the Empress Elisabeth's Hungarian poem. 
 Now, two days previous to September 10, 1898, 
 when she was preparing to start for Geneva, the 
 Empress was taking a walk at Territtet with her 
 reader, an Englishman named Becker. She had 
 brought some fruit with her, and as she sat on 
 the grass to rest, she cut a peach in two and held 
 out half of it to the reader. In an instant a raven 
 flew down, brushing her white forehead with his 
 black plumes, and snatched from her hand the 
 portion of peach. She laughed, and, recalling her 
 poem to the rather disturbed Becker, said : ' Don't 
 be alarmed. If anything happens to me, it will 
 not be the bird's fault. Besides, you know how 
 I feel about death. I fear it not at all. When 
 the soul is dead, it matters little when the body 
 follows it. And my soul has long been dead !' " 
 
CHAPTER XIV 
 
 SHATTERED PRINCIPLES 
 
 Throughout his life Francis- Joseph has stood 
 forth as the champion of tradition, and if he has 
 not himself always been scrupulous in respecting 
 it, at least he has insisted on others doing so. 
 The tragedies and misfortunes of his house, 
 although a great part of the responsibility for 
 them rests upon him, have passed over him almost 
 without touching him. But to the scandals which 
 have tarnished the fair name of the Habsburgs he 
 could not be indifferent, for, where the honour 
 of his name was damaged, the old Emperor's 
 violent pride and haughty arrogance were griev- 
 ously hurt. To prevent the misdeeds of his 
 relatives spreading within the bounds of the 
 Empire, he passed, or procured the passing of, 
 laws to restrict the freedom of the Press. He 
 could not, however, similarly muzzle writers in 
 other countries, nor prevent the entry into his 
 territories of publications from abroad. And so, 
 to his great annoyance, stories of the scandalous 
 proceedings of members of the Imperial and 
 Royal House of Habsburg came back to Austria- 
 270 
 
SHATTERED PRINCIPLES 271 
 
 Hungary with, comments and embellishments (of 
 which they stood in little need) acquired during 
 their circulation in other lands. 
 
 Gradually, as years went on, his appetite for 
 the struggle grew less. His principles doubtless 
 remained the same, but his vital forces grew weaker 
 and less able to uphold those principles and carry 
 them through to victory. With bitter sorrow he 
 saw his dignity assailed by his relatives and con- 
 nections, and his power assailed at the same time 
 by the domestic quarrels in his Empire, which 
 rent it asunder while diminishing the authority 
 of the monarch. The veteran fighter's energies 
 declined. Weariness began to overtake him at 
 the slightest opposition, and, notwithstanding the 
 grief of the discovery, he felt that his deepest and 
 most secret ambitions were those which made for 
 peace. 
 
 On one point, however, the Emperor remained 
 unshakable. He would consent to no compromise 
 regarding what he proudly called " the laws of 
 the House of Habsburg." In virtue of these laws 
 he retained such rights, in particular, as that of 
 choosing husbands for the Princesses and brides 
 for the Princes of his house. In spite of the 
 mournful examples furnished by his system of 
 marriages between close kinsfolk, he would not 
 consent to abandon it, but continued to im- 
 poverish the race in the cause of tradition. 
 
 Even this last principle, to which Francis- 
 Joseph clung as if to the only branch remaining 
 
272 THE REAL FRANCIS- JOSEPH 
 
 sound in the general decay of the ancient family 
 tree of the Habsburgs, was destined to be shat- 
 tered before his eyes by the fragile hand of a 
 girl, and that in 1890, when he had not yet 
 reached, as he has to-day, the period of physical 
 weakness. His eldest daughter, the Archduchess 
 Gisela, "had, through her marriage with Leopold, 
 Duke of Bavaria, given four grandchildren to her 
 Imperial parents, two boys and two girls. Francis- 
 Joseph had a great affection for his grandchildren, 
 and especially for his granddaughters, Elisabeth 
 and Augustine, the elder of these, Elisabeth, being 
 his chief favourite. The children were often seen 
 at the Court of Vienna, on their grandfather's 
 invitation. When the Princess Elisabeth had just 
 entered her nineteenth year, she asked, during a 
 visit to the Hofburg, for a private interview with 
 the Emperor. 
 
 "Is it such a great secret, then ?" asked the 
 Emperor, smiling through his heavy grey mous- 
 tache and whiskers. 
 
 " You can tell that, grandfather, by my not 
 daring to tell mamma." 
 
 " Good Heavens !" cried Francis- Joseph rather 
 anxiously. " So it must be very serious ?" 
 
 " Very serious, grandfather." 
 
 The Emperor took his granddaughter into that 
 famous study at the Hofburg which had wit- 
 nessed so many family scenes, courteously put 
 an arm-chair for her, and when she had seated 
 herself, sat down himself at his desk. 
 
THE ARCHDUCHESS GISELA 
 
 LEOPOLD, DUKE OF BAVARIA 
 
 ELISABETH, GRANDDAUGHTER 
 OF FRANCIS-JOSEPH 
 
 BARON VON SEEFRIED, HER 
 HUSBAND 
 
 To face page 272 
 
SHATTERED PRINCIPLES 273 
 
 " I am listening," he said. 
 
 The young Princess closed her eyes, tried to 
 still with her hand the beatings of her heart, 
 clutched the arms of the chair, and then opened 
 her eyes again, with a look of great resolution in 
 them. All she said was : 
 
 " Grandfather, I am in love, and loved in 
 return." 
 
 " You are eighteen, dear child, and that is very 
 natural. And, since I feel sure that my own 
 little granddaughter cannot have misplaced her 
 affections. ..." 
 
 " He whom I love is worthy in all respects of 
 my affection. He is young, handsome, brave, 
 and as true as his own sword." 
 
 " And what is Prince Charming' s name ?" 
 
 " He is not a Prince." 
 
 " Not a Prince ?" 
 
 " No ; he is Baron von Seefried, Lieutenant in 
 the Bavarian cavalry." 
 
 " You are mad." 
 
 " I haven't told you all, grandfather. Otho is 
 a Protestant." 
 
 "A Protestant!" shouted the Emperor, springing 
 up with his arms uplifted in the air — " a Pro- 
 testant !" and he fell back in his chair. He passed 
 his hand across his forehead, damp with sweat. 
 Then with a smile, but with a trembling voice, he 
 added : " This Baron of yours frightened me. But 
 as he is a Protestant, that is over. It is impos- 
 sible, my child — absolutely impossible. In future, 
 
 18 
 
274 THE REAL FRANCIS- JOSEPH 
 
 however, you must be more careful in your jokes, 
 you know." 
 
 He got up and walked towards the door, deeming 
 the conversation at an end now that he had 
 announced his Imperial decision. The Princess 
 Elisabeth laid her little hand on her grandfather's 
 arm and softly whispered that it was too late : she 
 was already Otho's. A hollow groan was the 
 Emperor's reply. He began to walk furiously up 
 and down the room, pulling at his whiskers, while 
 the little Princess sobbed quietly to herself. At 
 last he stopped in front of her, and, taking her lace 
 handkerchief from her hands, dabbed her eyes 
 with it, saying : 
 
 " Come, don't cry any more, darling. You 
 have done wrong — very wrong. But I cannot 
 scold my dear little granddaughter when there 
 are tears in her pretty eyes." 
 
 " Truly, grandfather, you forgive me ?" asked 
 the girl between two sobs, with the rainbow of 
 hope shining in her eyes. 
 
 He felt that he must forgive. And he proceeded 
 to unfold his plan, the only solution which 
 seemed to him possible, never dreaming that 
 he was making a monstrous suggestion in his 
 endeavour to " save the face " of the Habsburg 
 family. A husband must be found for her in 
 some minor Archduke of the blood, or perhaps in 
 some penniless Catholic noble of high rank, who 
 would take the Princess with a large dowry. Such 
 a thing had been known before. One of the 
 
SHATTERED PRINCIPLES 275 
 
 Princess's own cousins had, a few years previously, 
 been married to a poverty-stricken old Czech 
 noble. Count V., after an affair with a famous 
 actor at the Theatre Royal, Munich. The Count 
 was given a fortune with his wife, the actor an 
 engagement at the Burg- Theater. 
 
 Elisabeth of Bavaria listened without a word 
 to the Emperor's proposal. She was no longer 
 weeping. She walked to the door, opened it, and 
 saying, " Grandfather, you must reflect," went out 
 of the room. 
 
 TheEmpress happened tobe at the Hofburg. The 
 young Elisabeth bared her heart to the elder. 
 The Empress brought up as the last resource 
 against her husband the argument — never used 
 by her on any other occasion — drawn from the 
 tragic consequences of Rudolf's marriage of policy. 
 Francis- Joseph learnt also that, if he adhered to 
 his decision, the Princess was prepared to elope 
 with her Lieutenant. As he was little to be moved 
 by appeals to sentiment, it must have been this 
 which made him surrender, surprised to discover 
 a will capable of opposing his own. 
 
 To cut the story short, there took place at 
 Genoa on December 2, 1893, with the consent of 
 the Emperor (sacrificing the last of his principles), 
 the .wedding of Elisabeth-Marie- Augustine, Prin- 
 cess of Bavaria, and Otho, Baron von Seefried-zu- 
 Buttenheim, Lieutenant in the reserve. This was 
 the first misalliance to which the Emperor had 
 given his consent. It is also, perhaps, the first 
 
 18—2 
 
276 THE REAL FRANCIS- JOSEPH 
 
 really happy marriage in the family, for it has no 
 place in history. From that day to this nothing 
 has been talked about the little household which 
 hides, in the modest chateau of Znaim, in a small 
 Moravian town, a happiness which makes a bright 
 spot in the gloomy darkness of the Habsburg 
 annals. ' 
 
 On the other hand, the Emperor had taken a 
 revenge in anticipation by marrying Elisabeth's 
 sister, the Princess Augustine, to her cousin, the 
 Archduke Joseph- Augustus, who ill-treats her. 
 
 His own younger daughter, the epileptic Marie- 
 Valerie, he compelled to wed, in 1890, one of her 
 first cousins, the Archduke Francis-Salvator. It 
 would seem as if he regarded the perpetuation of 
 the family taint as a sort of tradition. 
 
 The young Elisabeth's boldness did not shatter 
 his powers of resistance nor make him cease from 
 directing the family alliances. Thus, he com- 
 pelled his cousin, the Archduke Joseph (who died 
 in June, 1905), to accept for his daughter, Maria- 
 Dorothea, the proposal conveyed by the Princess 
 Clementine of Belgium from Prince Philippe of 
 Orleans, King of France in partibus. The Arch- 
 duke Joseph was not enthusiastic, nor did the 
 Archduchess appear so either. The bridegroom's 
 character and prospects were none too good. But 
 for some unknown reason — perhaps for the 
 pleasure of imposing once more his failing will — 
 Francis- Joseph overbore his cousin's opposition ; 
 and a fresh victim was offered up to the arrogant 
 
SHATTERED PRINCIPLES 277 
 
 obstinacy of the Emperor. It is well known that 
 the unfortunate Maria-Dorothea has a very un- 
 happy life^ and has several times expressed a 
 desire to free herself. 
 
 This was the last manifestation of Francis- 
 Joseph's uncompromising principles. Since then 
 he has been obliged to give way, step by step, 
 before the waves of the great ocean of natural 
 love, ever mounting higher and higher as his life 
 draws to its close. The shock given to him by his 
 granddaughter was followed by an attack from 
 his son's widow. The life of the Archduchess 
 Stephanie was a very melancholy one after 
 Rudolf's death. The hatred with which she in- 
 spired Rudolf pursued her from beyond the grave. 
 His will stipulated that his only daughter Elisabeth 
 should be brought up by her grandparents, and 
 that she should not be allowed to cross the Austro- 
 Hungarian frontier before she came of age. 
 Thereby Stephanie was compelled to forego either 
 a second marriage or the society of her daughter. 
 Francis- Joseph, although he had no love for his 
 daughter-in-law, and was unjust enough to blame 
 her alone for an event in which he himself had 
 a very large share — namely, Rudolf's death — was 
 troubled by this uncharitable will, and conceived 
 the idea of making things right by giving a 
 second husband to Stephanie in the person of the 
 probable new Heir-Apparent, Francis-Ferdinand, 
 eldest son of the Archduke Charles-Louis. There 
 were two obstacles in the way — one that Stephanie 
 
28o THE REAL FRANCIS-JOSEPH 
 
 however, was watching over her, and replied by 
 authorizing the Countess Lonyay to retain the 
 rank of Imperial and Royal Highness which her 
 marriage with the Archduke Rudolf had once 
 given her. As for her father's allowance, his 
 suppression of it troubled Stephanie very little ; 
 for, if Cotlnt Lonyay' s quarterings are poor, his 
 wealth in lands and rent-rolls is great. 
 
 In order to prove that it was through weariness 
 at the struggle, not with a good grace, that Francis- 
 Joseph gave way, it must be added that, although 
 since Stephanie's marriage he has admitted her 
 to the Court when she comes to see the Arch- 
 duchess Elisabeth, he has never consented to 
 receive Count Lonyay. Even when the marriage 
 of Stephanie's daughter was celebrated a few 
 years later. Count Lonyay, though invited to be 
 present with all the rest at the religious ceremony, 
 was not one of the guests at the Emperor's 
 luncheon-party at the Hofburg. 
 
 The Emperor's first two surrenders to the might 
 of love were destined to cost him more dearly than 
 he imagined. The third attack on his principles 
 was made by the new Heir-Apparent, the Arch- 
 duke Francis- Ferdinand. After his return from 
 the tropics the Archduke was nominated In- 
 spector-General of Infantry, thereby taking up 
 one of Rudolf's posts ; and on several occasions 
 he was entrusted by the Emperor with the task 
 of representing the Imperial family. He was 
 thus semi-officially recognized as future occupant 
 
THE ARCHDUKE FRANCIS-FERDINAND, THE COUNTESS CHOTEK, 
 AND THEIR TWO CHILDREN 
 
 To face page 280 
 
SHATTERED PRINCIPLES 281 
 
 of the throne, to which the official heir was his 
 father, the old dotard Charles-Louis. Many times 
 Francis- Joseph, in his fear lest he should see the 
 power pass into the hands of Charles-Louis's 
 second son, Otho, the " coffin-jumper," discussed 
 with his nephew the question of the marriage 
 which was to establish a new line of heirs to the 
 Austro - Hungarian throne. Francis - Ferdinand 
 always managed to turn the conversation by some 
 rhetorical artifice. His repugnance against the 
 subject seemed all the more strange because he 
 was not known to have any liaison. But his 
 secret, jealously as it was guarded, was soon to 
 be revealed. After Stephanie's marriage, taking 
 heart at Francis-Joseph's behaviour in the cir- 
 cumstances, Francis-Ferdinand unburdened him- 
 self to the Emperor personally. He had also 
 given his heart entirely to someone below him in 
 rank, and would have despaired of ever admitting 
 his desire of regularizing the affair had he not 
 been encouraged by Stephanie's example. The 
 former Heir-Apparent's widow had married Count 
 Lonyay. Why should not the Countess Chotek 
 become the wife of the new Crown Prince ? 
 
 Accustomed though he was becoming to these 
 shocks, the Emperor on this occasion was more 
 violently upset than ever. Stephanie, indeed, 
 was not a real member of the Habsburg family ; 
 she was a Coburg who, on the Archduke Rudolf's 
 death, returned to the Coburgs. Her marriage, 
 moreover, had nothing to do with Imperial politics. 
 
282 THE REAL FRANCIS- JOSEPH 
 
 The case was entirely different with the Habsburg 
 Francis-Ferdinand, heir to the Imperial throne. 
 The law respecting the reigning house is precise. 
 In the Austrian Constitution it is formally laid 
 down that : 
 
 1. Every union contracted between an Emperor 
 of Austria* or an Heir-Apparent to the Imperial 
 throne, and a woman who is not a Princess of 
 the blood royal excludes the latter from the titles 
 of Empress or of Heiress- Apparent ; and 
 
 2. No children born of such a marriage can 
 claim, in any circumstance, to occupy the 
 Imperial throne. 
 
 On this point, whatever it might cost Francis- 
 Joseph's pride, the matter could be arranged. It 
 was sufficient for the Heir-Apparent to declare 
 solemnly, on behalf of his affianced bride and the 
 future issue of his marriage with her, that neither 
 she nor they would ever lay claiin to the Imperial 
 title, or to any rights over the throne of Austria. 
 But side by side with the Austrian Constitution 
 there was the Hungarian, which recognized the 
 wife of the King of Hungary as Queen of Hungary, 
 whatever her origin, and the children of the said 
 King, whatever their mother might be, as heirs, 
 by the very fact of their birth, to the Apostolic 
 throne of Hungary. Wherefore the situation was 
 as follows : If he married the Countess Chotek, and 
 had by her male issue, Francis Ferdinand (pro- 
 vided that he did not abdicate in favour of his 
 brother Otho, whom the entire Empire would 
 
SHATTERED PRINCIPLES 283 
 
 have rejected with disgust) would become, on the 
 death of his uncle Francis- Joseph, Emperor and 
 King, while his wife at the same time would 
 assume the Hungarian crown, but not the 
 Austrian. Further, on the death of Francis- 
 Ferdinand himself, his eldest son would ascend 
 by right the Royal throne of Hungary, while the 
 Imperial throne of Austria could ixever be his. 
 
 Thus before the terrified vision of the Centralist 
 Francis- Joseph rose a spectre of revolution, and 
 behind it the threat of a definite rupture between 
 Austria and Hungary. Nevertheless, and in spite 
 of this awful dream of ruin of all things, past, 
 present, and future, the old Emperor, after a very 
 short resistance, gave his consent to the mor- 
 ganatic marriage of the Archduke Francis-Fer- 
 dinand and the Countess Chotek — a consent which 
 outraged beyond all remedy his principles as 
 grand seigneur, his arrogant pride as Prince of the 
 blood royal, and his profound veneration for the 
 immemorial traditions of the Habsburgs. 
 
 It has been the fashion in France to attribute 
 too many events to " the hand of the Jesuits." 
 But if this mysterious and daring " hand " has 
 been too often invoked by Frenchmen where it 
 has not been at work, it must be admitted that it 
 is still all-powerful at the Catholic Court of 
 Vienna — as powerful as at the Catholic Court of 
 Spain. And it is this hand that we are obliged 
 to detect in the marriage of Francis-Ferdinand 
 and the Countess Chotek. Francis-Ferdinand, a 
 
284 THE REAL FRANCIS- JOSEPH 
 
 man of limited brain-power and narrow mind, is 
 very clerical in his sympathies. As for the 
 Countess Chotek, although she is ambitious and 
 more intelligent than her husband, she is entirely 
 under the domination of the priesthood, and 
 particularly of the Jesuits. They know that with 
 her help, when the Heir- Apparent comes to the 
 throne, they will have absolute control of the 
 affairs of the Empire. They used their influence 
 on the Emperor, therefore, and what a few years 
 before they could never have obtained from him 
 they now wrested from an old man, who, for all 
 his violent obstinacy, is ready to-day in sheer 
 weariness to let the will of others replace his own 
 tottering will. 
 
 The object which the Jesuits had in view in 
 bringing this marriage to pass has since been 
 clearly revealed in the ultra-clerical proceedings 
 of the princely couple. The Countess Chotek, 
 who should have been induced to efface herself 
 by her position of morganatic wife, has neverthe- 
 less put herself at the head of several religious 
 societies. She has even persuaded her husband 
 to accept the title of Patron of the Katholischer- 
 Schiilverein, or Catholic School League, which 
 was founded by the Jesuits as a counterpoise to 
 the Deutscher - Schulverein, whose objects were 
 the establishment of undenominational German 
 schools and the defence of the law concerning 
 schools against the attacks of the clericals. 
 
 The Countess Chotek, indeed, at the instiga- 
 
SHATTERED PRINCIPLES 285 
 
 tion of the Jesuits, to, whom she sold herself, 
 succeeded in making Francis-Ferdinand enter the 
 political arena and do what no Crown Prince 
 has ever dared to do — openly combat a law passed 
 by the Reichsrath and approved by the Sovereign. 
 The case is all the more serious because it made 
 so big a stir in political circles generally. All 
 through his life Francis- Joseph manoeuvred so as 
 not to take any part in the quarrels which rent 
 the Empire. The Czechs on the one side, and 
 the Germans on the other, were constantly at 
 variance, without the Emperor ever betraying his 
 preference for one or the other. But Francis- 
 Ferdinand, by becoming Patron of the Katho- 
 lischer-Schiilverein, ranged himself definitely under 
 the flag of the Czechs (his wife is a Czech by 
 birth), and declared war against the entire German 
 section of the Empire. Politically, this was a most 
 grievous error, and one whose consequences it is 
 impossible to estimate. 
 
 When giving his consent to the marriage, the 
 Emperor insisted that the Crown Prince's re- 
 nunciation of rights for his wife and children 
 should be ratified by the Hungarian Diet. The 
 majority, at that time very devoted to their 
 Sovereign, voted as Francis- Joseph wished. The 
 majority has since changed its views, and at any 
 time the Hungarian Diet might by a new vote 
 expunge from its Constitution this special law, 
 passed to oblige him. The old monarch once more 
 sees before his frightened eyes the threefold 
 
286 THE REAL FRANCIS- JOSEPH 
 
 menace of a bloody revolution, a foreign invasion, 
 and a dismemberment of the Austro-Hungarian 
 Empire. 
 
 Already defeated by a young girl, by his son's 
 widow, and by the Jesuits, Francis- Joseph was 
 to be forced for a fourth time to desert his prin- 
 ciples thrbugh the action of another young girl. 
 The Princess Elisabeth, Rudolf's only daughter, 
 the Emperor's direct descendant — she whom he 
 loved the most tenderly, trusted the most com- 
 pletely, and pictured as restoring the glories of 
 the Habsburgs by some brilliant alliance which 
 should wipe out all the shame of the unworthy 
 unions to which he had agreed — the Princess 
 Elisabeth it was who wrested from him his heart- 
 broken consent to a fourth misalliance. Elisa- 
 beth, following her mother's example, wedded a 
 mere cavalry officer. But he, at least, adored 
 her. She became Princess Windischgratz, and, 
 in spite of all evil rumours, passed to a life of 
 peaceful happiness at Prague, where her husband 
 was on garrison duty. 
 
 It is Love, the Love once triumphant in the 
 heart of the young Emperor Francis- Joseph, which 
 in his declining years has won its victory over the 
 cherished principles of the haughty old man. In 
 the cause of Tradition he trampled on Love. 
 Love's revenge over Tradition has been won 
 through woman, working her will around and 
 about him. 
 
THE ARCHDUKE FRANCIS-SALVATOR, ARCHDUCHESS VALl^RIE, 
 AND THEIR CHILDREN 
 
 ELISABETH, DAUGHTER OF THE CROWN PRINCE RUDOLF, AND 
 HER HUSBAND, OTTO VON WINDISCHGRATZ 
 
 To face f age 286 
 
CHAPTER XV 
 
 A BANKRUPT POLICY 
 
 Worsted by his own family and by the power 
 of Love, Francis- Joseph, the feudal Sovereign, 
 almost a figure of legends, has been compelled to 
 abandon his principles and surrender to the forces 
 of youth and of life. He has even allowed to be 
 dissipated that Olympian cloud with which he 
 loved to surround the radiance of his Imperial 
 and Royal throne. To-day he is nothing more 
 than an old gentleman of simple life, middle-class 
 manners, and insignificant conversation. Nothing 
 distinguishes His Apostolic Majesty from common 
 mortals, unless it be his unswerving fidelity to the 
 policy which he has always championed. The 
 Austro-Hungarian Empire, in the crisis of its 
 fever of separatism, is suffering from the same 
 disease which attacked it in 1848, with the kind 
 help of the Archduchess Sophia, burning to 
 gratify her ambitions. In fact, there has been no 
 change in the position of the Empire unless it be 
 that central government is appreciably weaker 
 than before, and that its foes are obviously much 
 stronger. 
 
 287 
 
288 THE REAL FRANCIS-JOSEPH 
 
 Francis-Joseph's political ideals are, quite as 
 much as his epilepsy, an hereditary disease in the 
 Habsburg family. When Francis I., after his 
 defeat by Napoleon, renounced the title of German 
 Emperor to assume that of Emperor of Austria, 
 he was only realizing the dream of the mild 
 Joseph II., son of Maria-Theresa and brother of 
 Marie-Antoinette. Yet what a folly is this 
 " Empire of Austria," so dear to the hearts of 
 Francis- Joseph and his mother ! It is only 
 necessary to look at the map of the realm which 
 the Emperor claims to sway with one sceptre in 
 order to realize the vanity of the idea. To the 
 west lies the mountainous region of the Tyrol, 
 inhabited by German peasants ; to the north, 
 Bohemia, Silesia, Moravia, industrial or mining 
 countries populated by Czechs ; to the south 
 stretch the fertile lands occupied by the Italians, 
 Slovenians, Croats, and Serbs ; to the east the vast 
 plain of Hungary, with its Magyars, and Galicia, 
 with a population peculiar to itself. 
 
 To this conglomeration there has just been added 
 a new element of discord by the definite annexa- 
 tion of Bosnia and Herzegovina. From the inter- 
 national point of view, this annexation has in- 
 volved Austria- Hungary in great embarrassments, 
 and may in the future involve her in more still. 
 It is almost sure to be followed by discordant notes 
 in the domestic harmony of the Empire. Bosnia- 
 Herzegovina is in itself a region ripe for the 
 development of intestine quarrels, for three races 
 

A BANKRUPT POLICY 289 
 
 live there side by side in mutual hate — the Mussul- 
 man people, the Croats, and the Serbs. The 
 constant outbreaks of strife in this unhappy 
 land, which its nominal rulers, the Turks, never 
 succeeded in stopping, decided the Powers at the 
 Congress of Berlin to entrust Austria,- Hungary 
 with the policing of Bosnia-Herzegovina. It 
 cannot be denied that the Imperial Government 
 succeeded in that task, to outward appearance at 
 least. The military rule — a rule of iron, like all 
 of its kind — reduced the warring races to quiet, 
 and they no longer massacred each other except in 
 treacherous darkness, unseen and unheard. 
 
 Austria- Hungary, moreover, spared no pains to 
 produce a very effective state of prosperity in the 
 country whose administration had been committed 
 to her care. Under the protection of the bayonet, 
 and the cannon, agriculture, manufacture, trade, 
 and education, developed. The three sister-races, 
 therefore, which so hated one another, had no 
 reason to complain against an occupation which 
 was " only provisional " — a phrase which satisfies 
 peoples as it does individual men. But with the 
 annexation all has changed. The lie has been 
 exposed, and what was going &n so well yesterday 
 to-day threatens to come to an end. 
 
 The Mussulmans, who tolerated a temporary 
 protection, now secretly refuse to recognize the 
 official domination of " the Giaour " when they 
 can no longer comfort themselves with the agree- 
 able fiction that Austria-Hungary is only the 
 
 19 
 
290 THE REAL FRANCIS- JOSEPH 
 
 vicegerent of the Turk. Doubtless they appear 
 to have submitted, but they will miss no oppor- 
 tunity of counter-plotting against their rulers. 
 
 As for the Serbs, the annexation shatters a 
 dream cherished for centuries by the race — that 
 of the union of them all under one government. 
 Effectually separated as they are to-day from 
 their brothers in Servia and Montenegro, they 
 passionately look forward to the accomplishment 
 of one sole object — the formation of a Serb 
 Empire out of Bosnia-Herzegovina, Servia, and 
 Montenegro. The two last-named countries have 
 the same aspiration. Austria-Hungary, therefore, 
 is no longer threatened on her south-eastern 
 frontiers by external enemies only, but also by a foe 
 which she has introduced within her own bounds, 
 and which will not hesitate to make common cause 
 with the foe without. This dream of reunion has 
 inspired with courage the Serb minorities in 
 Croatia and Slavonia, which up to now have felt 
 themselves too weak to hazard a serious effort, 
 seeing that they have been cut off from their 
 Servian and Montenegrin brethren by Bosnia- 
 Herzegovina, which, though policed by Austria- 
 Hungary, nevertheless remained a Turkish pro- 
 vince. That motive has vanished now that 
 Bosnia-Herzegovina has become Austro-Hun- 
 garian, and to-day the Greater Servian agitation 
 sullenly threatens the integrity of the Empire. 
 
 Furthermore, there is a serious risk of a division 
 between Austria and Hungary over the annexa- 
 
A BANKRUPT POLICY 291 
 
 tion. As soon as its political and economic 
 aspects come up for settlement^ there must be 
 an irreconcilable divergence of opinion, for both 
 portions of the Empire are bound to claim that 
 the new territory shall be incorporated with them. 
 From the historical standpoint, Hungary's case 
 wUl be just, but economically Austria will be in 
 the right. It is Austria who provided, during the 
 thirty years of occupation, the funds necessary 
 for the administration of Bosnia and Herzegovina. 
 In order to avert an immediate conflict, before 
 which both parties must recoil, the attempt is 
 being made to transform Bosnia-Herzegovina 
 into a kind of Austro-Hungarian Alsace-Lorraine, 
 that is to say, a province of the Empire under 
 separate government, belonging properly to neither 
 Austria nor Hungary. We may see an open 
 wound in the side of the Dual Monarchy which 
 will one day gangrene and infect the blood of the 
 whole Empire. 
 
 The important point, however, in a book like 
 the present one, is to discover what part the old 
 Emperor has played in the annexation of Bosnia 
 and Herzegovina. If, on the one hand, viewed 
 historically, the responsibility for this stroke of 
 policy falls upon him, as still master at least in 
 name, yet, on the other hand, this responsibility 
 is very much diminished when one learns that he 
 opposed with all his strength the carrying out of 
 the annexation. Francis- Joseph recognized better 
 than his ambitious Foreign Minister, Baron 
 
 19—2 
 
292 THE REAL FRANCIS- JOSEPH 
 
 Aehrenthal, what dangers to European peace and 
 to the security of the Empire were involved in 
 the act. But the aged Emperor's will is no longer 
 supreme in the balance of government, and the 
 word of his nephew, the Crown Prince Francis- 
 Ferdinan^j is now sufficient to incline the scale. 
 Francis-Ferdinand has undertaken to restore to 
 the Empire its old prestige, and is ready to pay 
 any price to secure Austria- Hungary's place in 
 the Concert of Europe. He has not hesitated, 
 indeed, to play a solo whose discordance could but 
 break up the harmony of that Concert. 
 
 The future alone can show whether the policy 
 of the irrepressible Archduke, who dominates 
 Austria before the death of her Sovereign, has 
 been good or evil for the fortunes of the Empire. 
 
 It is time to return to the consideration of the 
 principal types in the human patchwork of Francis- 
 Joseph's Empire. There are at least nine inde- 
 pendent races, with aspirations of their own, and 
 no desire to come to terms with their neighbours. 
 Joseph II. conceived the mad idea of uniting them 
 all under one flag. His desire was thwarted by 
 the passive resistance of the various elements. 
 Then followed the Napoleonic Wars. Under the 
 influence of the tremendous movement throughout 
 Central Europe, the hostile races drew together, 
 in temporary forgetfulness of their quarrels and 
 dislikes, feeling the necessity of combining against 
 the common foe. But this union was not destined 
 
A BANKRUPT POLICY 293 
 
 to endure. Already in the reign of the Emperor 
 Ferdinand separatist tendencies revealed them- 
 selves in appreciable force, and, as we have seen, 
 Francis-Joseph's reign commenced in the midst 
 of a revolution in which the spirit of race federa- 
 tion played its part. 
 
 We have seen, too, the "cause of this state of 
 affairs. Ferdinand, incapable and barely possessed 
 of full consciousness, could not be on his guard 
 against tendencies of which he knew nothing ; 
 while Metternich, whose time was taken up in 
 suppressing by all possible means the slightest 
 aspirations towards freedom, paid no attention to 
 the movement which, in the sixty years since that 
 day, has brought the unhappy Austro-Hungarian 
 Empire to its present pass. The Archduchess 
 Sophia, it will be remembered, in her desire to 
 procure Metternich' s disgrace and Ferdinand's 
 abdication, played a double game. Centralist as 
 she was, she stirred up the separatist agitation by 
 inciting the different races of the Empire against 
 one another. But she succeeded at least in 
 making Ferdinand's throne impossible for him, 
 and in setting the Imperial crown on the head of a 
 boy whom she might still continue to rule, and, 
 with him, the Empire. She brought to a favourable 
 conclusion her twofold scheme, recking nothing 
 of the consequences likely to result from so 
 dangerous a policy. 
 
 Arising first out of Hungary's Chauvinism, the 
 " question of nationality " started a blaze in the 
 
294 THE REAL FRANCIS-JOSEPH 
 
 home of absolutism ; and while the various peoples, 
 separated by the feuds which the Archduchess 
 Sophia stirred up, thought they were fighting for 
 liberty and constitutional government, they were 
 only upsetting one ruler to put another in his 
 place. So the product of the great revolutionary 
 movement of 1848, which cost Vienna so much 
 blood, was nothing, except the long, barren reign 
 of Francis-Joseph. 
 
 In the earlier chapters dealing with the separa- 
 tist movement we have seen how Prussia and Italy 
 showed Francis-Joseph his danger by snatching 
 from him some of his fairest provinces. But he 
 did not, or could not, understand their warning. 
 
 As soon as he was on the throne and had suc- 
 ceeded in crushing, with the help of Russia, the 
 Hungarian revolution, Francis- Joseph forgot his 
 grand promises of constitutional government and 
 political liberty. As early as January i, 1852, he 
 revoked the Constitution of 1849, abolished the 
 ancient Diets, and set up a reactionary system 
 with the frankly avowed object of forcibly bringing 
 about a fusion of the different races. What a 
 strange idea this seems ! Austria- Hungary con- 
 tains 11,000,000 Germans as against 9,000,000 
 Hungarians and over 22,000,000 Poles, Czechs, 
 Slavonians, etc. How could any man commit 
 the error of trying to melt them all down in a 
 crucible to make one race ? Francis- Joseph has 
 committed another error also, no less serious, in 
 failing to understand that a sternly centralizing 
 
A BANKRUPT POLICY 295 
 
 policy cannot fail to increase the want of harmony 
 already existing between the divers peoples. 
 
 It is to this point that we must look for the 
 cause of all the conflicts which, since the beginning 
 of Francis-Joseph's reign, have left the hapless 
 country without a moment's peace. It is true 
 that, after a twenty years' struggle, the Emperor 
 made a partial surrender to his subjects' demands, 
 and tried to reconcile their views to his. Once 
 more, however, one of the Habsburgs' hereditary 
 failings came out — that of never carrying ideas 
 to a logical conclusion, and of resting content with 
 half-measures. The Constitution of i860, which 
 gave the Empire a Parliament, created also Diets 
 in every province. But this apparent generosity 
 satisfied neither Germans, nor Czechs, nor Hun- 
 garians, nor anyone else. The first session of the 
 new Parliament, which opened on May i, 1861, 
 was graced by the presence of no Deputies from 
 Bohemia, Hungary, Transylvania, or Croatia. 
 When finally, in 1867, Francis- Joseph made up 
 his mind to divide the Empire into two parts, 
 Austria and Hungary, the evU had grown beyond 
 cure. While a large party in Hungary foundjit 
 difi&cvdt to be contented with the compromise 
 which, in spite of the establishment of an Hun- 
 garian Government, kept Hungary still bound to 
 Austria as far as finance, foreign affairs. Customs 
 regulations, and the army, were concerned, the 
 Czechs of Bohemia and the Poles of Galicia claimed 
 for themselves the same rights and privileges 
 
296 THE REAL FRANCIS-JOSEPH 
 
 which Francis- Joseph had granted to the Hun- 
 garians. If he had been crowned King of 
 Hungary, why could he not be crowned King of 
 Bohemia and King of GaHcia ? If he had granted 
 Hungary a Pariiament and a separate Govern- 
 ment, why did he not consent to Pariiaments 
 and Goveftiments for the Czechs and the Poles ? 
 This struggle has lasted forty years, and has grown 
 more severe. Neither Poles, nor Czechs, nor 
 Slavonians, nor Italians have abated their de- 
 mands. It must be noted that the problem was 
 easy for the Emperor to solve at the beginning 
 of his reign, for at that time the national demands 
 were as modest as national sentiment itself — and 
 that was like a mere infant wailing at the bap- 
 tismal font of Liberalism. To-day the problem is 
 quite different and beyond solution. If Francis- 
 Joseph had, fifty years ago, abandoned his dreams 
 of centralization, and had forborne to check for 
 twenty years the justifiable growth of nationalist 
 sentiment, the demands of the various races 
 would never have reached such a point as they 
 have reached nowadays, involving, that is to say, 
 nothing less than the complete dissolution of the 
 Empire. The Hungarians, who in 1848 only 
 asked for personal government, are already setting 
 about the destruction of the only bond which 
 now binds them to Austria — the Army. If 
 Francis- Joseph, driven into the last ditch by the 
 increase of the enemy's forces, were to grant to 
 Hungary an army of her own and Custom-houses 
 
A BANKRUPT POLICY 297 
 
 on her frontiers, the relation between the two 
 sections of the Dual Monarchy would be one of 
 name only. In Hungary political life proceeds 
 at too fast a pace, and carries everything before 
 it ; whereas in Austria, on the other hand, the 
 Parliamentary machine ceased to work more than 
 a dozen years ago, owing to the fierce strife between 
 the Centralist and Federalist parties. 
 
 It must be admitted that the Emperor, while a 
 shadow of his power still remained his, tried to 
 retrieve the mistakes which he had committed 
 during forty years. The struggle of races could 
 only be mitigated by reuniting the interests which 
 they had in common. The state of warfare was 
 partly due to the fact that a limited suffrage sent 
 to Parliament the representatives of an aristocracy 
 and of a bourgeoisie, both unacquainted with the 
 needs of the people, and both championing their 
 class-interests instead of watching over the in- 
 terests of the general public. Francis- Joseph 
 recognized that nothing short of universal suffrage 
 could bring about any amelioration of such a state 
 of affairs and create a Parliament less unre- 
 presentative of the totality of the nation. He 
 obtained from Parliament itself the right of con- 
 ferring popular suffrage. The result did not take 
 long to become manifest. The Czech and Ger- 
 man Nationalist parties, which had hitherto divided 
 the assembly between them, were rent asunder 
 as soon as the ballot came into force. Hence- 
 forward there were but two great parties face to 
 
298 THE REAL FRANCIS- JOSEPH 
 
 face with one another — ^the Socialists and the 
 " Christian Socialists/' of whom the latter, in 
 spite of their Catholic and Monarchist programme, 
 were none the less a popular party because of their 
 complete preoccupation in economical questions. 
 
 It was not to be expected, however, that a 
 Parliament transformed by universal suffrage 
 could cure all the ills to which the Class-Parlia- 
 ment had given birth. The Nationalists of the 
 various races have not laid down their arms, but, 
 thanks to the reforms carried by the popular 
 assembly, the struggle has become less fierce be- 
 tween them, even the quarrel of half a century 
 between the Slavs and the Germans having lost a 
 little of its bitterness. Unhappily, though uni- 
 versal suffrage has been granted to Austria, it has 
 not been accorded to Hungary, and this has led 
 to a continuance of the warfare between the two 
 sections of the Empire. 
 
 What will be the end of it all ? The respect 
 whichTthe peoples of the Dual Monarchy feel for 
 their aged Sovereign has up to now delayed the 
 final blow which threatens to shatter the ancient 
 Empire into fragments. When Francis- Joseph 
 disappears, can the situation continue which he 
 has created by his obstinate devotion to an im- 
 possible policy ? Across the Northern frontier the 
 descendant of Frederick the Great covets the 
 provinces which his great-grandfather did not 
 wrest from the heiress daughter of Charles VI. 
 On the other side of the Carpathians the Czechs 
 
A BANKRUPT POLICY 299 
 
 and Poles listen in their hearts to the enchant- 
 ments of Panslavism, singing of the union of all 
 the Slav peoples of Eastern Europe. 
 
 For centuries the Habsburgs have built up, 
 piece by piece, a mighty Empire. For centuries 
 the Habsburgs have declared their ambition to 
 weld the heterogeneous pieces into one strong and 
 compact mass. Francis- Joseph inherited the task 
 at the beginning of a new era. Had he understood 
 it thoroughly, he might, perhaps, have gained his 
 end. He might have found in democratic and 
 social ideas a means of overcoming the differences 
 of the various races of his Empire, with nothing in 
 common between them except an ardent desire 
 for liberty and progress. The hypocrisy of his 
 mother, the ambition of his family, and his own 
 ambition, drove him to use one race to crush 
 another. To-day all the races are embroiled with 
 one another, and with their Sovereign in addition. 
 All that we may hope for now is that the end of 
 Francis-Joseph's policy may not mean also the 
 end of the Empire. 
 
CHAPTER XVI 
 
 THE CLOSE OF A LIFE 
 
 Life has been harsh to Francis- Joseph, and often 
 about the Hofburg, while the ravens so closely 
 connected with the Habsburgs' legendary history 
 have been hovering and croaking, the dogs in the 
 kennels have responded with the howls that pre- 
 sage death. How many storms have shaken his 
 home, how many scandals have disgraced it, how 
 many tragedies stained it with^blood ! 
 
 He came to the throne as absolute monarch of 
 an immense Empire, stretching aU over Central 
 Europe, and to all appearances united. He has 
 seen himself stripped of his fairest provinces by 
 war, and to-day he fears to see Hungary detach 
 herself from his crown. He, who would rather 
 have abdicated than share the smallest fraction 
 of his authority, is reduced to the condition of a 
 constitutional ruler, having no power himself, and 
 leaving behind him no hope for his successor. 
 
 Making a marriage of love, he destroyed his 
 happiness with his own hands. All has fallen in 
 ruins about him. The ranks of his family have 
 been mown down by the scythe of Death the 
 
 300 
 
THE EMPEROR AND SOME OF HIS GRANDCHILDREN 
 
 To face -page 300 
 
THE CLOSE OF A LIFE 301 
 
 Reaper, awful and unforeseen. Wife, son, and 
 brother — all have gone. Only the evil weeds are 
 left standing. In tremendous soUtude^Francis- 
 Joseph lingers on in the chiU and gloomy rooms 
 of the stately Hofburg. 
 
 Yet he is alive, and grief seems to have left no 
 very severe marks on him. He even appears to 
 have found among the wreckage about him 
 material for the building of a shelter to protect 
 his deep-rooted egotism, his coldness of heart, and 
 his narrowness of mind. He bears his seventy- 
 nine years bravely, and, save for his more fre- 
 quently recurring attacks of epilepsy, carries 
 himself well under the burden of his misfortunes. 
 
 Fond as he once was of ceremony, nowadays he 
 has made for himself a quiet, bourgeois life, like 
 that of some old bachelor who takes delight in 
 the mere fact of living. Many of his pleasures 
 have been cut off, but those of the table, which 
 were always a weakness with him, afford him 
 compensation. His day's menu is surprising. He 
 goes to bed early and rises early — between 4 and 
 5 a.m. Immediately an attendant, who is waiting 
 for his master's summons, brings him a first 
 breakfast, of respectable dimensions. The Em- 
 peror then rises and goes to his study to work. 
 At eight o'clock he has a second breakfast, which 
 consists regularly of soup, joint, vegetables, 
 entremets (the great triumph of Viennese cookery), 
 and dessert. His private secretary now appears, 
 and the morning's mail is opened. At noon there 
 
302 THE REAL FRANCIS- JOSEPH 
 
 is a third meal, similar to the second. Then 
 follows either a short walk in the park at the 
 Hofburg or at Schonbrunn, according as the 
 Court is at one place or the other, or a drive ; for 
 his favourite exercise of riding is now forbidden, 
 or almost entirely so. Between four and five in 
 the afternoon is the fourth meal. One guest, and 
 one only, is present at that — either an aide-de- 
 camp or some high Court dignitary. This dinner 
 consists of at least six courses — thick soup, beef 
 (which always comes next to the soup), fish, a 
 roast (fowl or game), entremets, and dessert. The 
 Emperor has one abundant helping of each dish, 
 and generally a second also. At eight in the 
 evening there is the fifth meal, of tea, bread and 
 butter, and cold meat, and at 9 or 9.30 this well- 
 fed monarch goes to bed to seek in sleep recupera- 
 tion of the strength which he has not wasted. 
 
 If he eats a great deal, however, he drinks 
 little, although the cellars of the Hofburg are 
 among the finest in Europe. There may be met 
 the best vintages of Lower Austria and of Hun- 
 gary (so rich in vineyards), of Bordeaux, Bur- 
 gundy, Champagne, Moselle, and the Rhine. 
 There is even to be found genuine Tokay, rarest 
 of all wines, the vineyards of the Hegyala from 
 which it comes having been totally ruined by 
 phylloxera. So near such treasures of the grape, 
 the Emperor is content to wash down his meals 
 with Pilsener beer, only allowing himself at the 
 end of his dinner a glass of excellent Bordeaux. 
 
THE CLOSE OF A LIFE 303 
 
 His meals are served on very beautiful silver 
 dishes. The famous golden table-service (of which 
 the central epergne alone is worth £6,400) is hardly 
 ever seen, because big dinner-parties are now very 
 few at the Hofburg, and State banquets are no 
 longer given. 
 
 In the huge dining-hall, where the footmen are 
 more numerous than the guests, and where, since 
 the Empress's death, no more flowers decorate 
 the table, the Emperor is fond of describing to 
 his only companion the gorgeous days of the grand 
 State dinner-parties ; and it is not without emotion 
 that the old man peoples the solitude with the 
 imaginary crowds of old. He stiU seems to hear 
 the three raps on the floor from the stick of the 
 Grand Chamberlain, the Imperial master of cere- 
 monies, to announce the entrance of Their 
 Majesties the Emperor and Empress. Then, as 
 though by magic, the doors open noiselessly, and 
 the brilliant crowd, so noisy but a moment before, 
 become suddenly silent. Their Majesties are pass- 
 ing. Under the soft light of thousands of wax 
 candles, the bare shoulders of the ladies bow in 
 a profound reverence, while their lovely bosoms, 
 gorgeous with the diamonds which throw into 
 relief the charming tints of their flesh, swell 
 within the sheaths of their corsages. Francis- 
 Joseph, successor of Charlemagne, sighs. Those 
 days are past, and he must no more think of such 
 things. 
 
 The only remaining pleasure in which he can 
 
304 THE REAL FRANCIS-JOSEPH 
 
 still indulge as of old, apart from that of eating, 
 is the chase. Of course he can no longer climb 
 the crags in pursuit of chamois or black-cock, but 
 his hand and ey6 remain sure, and his shot fails 
 not to reach the roebuck or the stag imprudent 
 enough, to venture within range of the Imperial 
 gun. 
 
 Riding has become a difficult task for him. 
 This is doubly painful to him in at once depriving 
 him of a favourite exercise and separating him 
 from the great passion of his life — the Army. 
 Twice a year, however (or until very recently), he 
 hoists himself — or, rather, is hoisted — into the 
 saddle. Once on the back of a gentle mount, 
 selected for the purpose, this shadow of a once 
 brilliant horseman is fastened to his saddle. Stiff 
 and upright, with a vain pretence of strength, 
 Francis- Joseph takes part in the spring review 
 on the Schmelz, Vienna's Champ-de-Mars, and, 
 later on, in the closing ceremonies of the autumn 
 grand manoeuvres. He is all bruised when lifted 
 from the saddle, but at least he can imagine for 
 a moment that, once more a soldier, he is also 
 once more in reality what he was of old — the 
 Emperor. 
 
 How many of the things he loved are forbidden 
 to him now ! He used to love smoking un- 
 ceasingly long, very dark cigars, manufactured 
 expressly for him by the Austrian Tobacco Excise, 
 and known by the name of Virginias. Such heavy 
 cigars were found to affect the action of his heart, 
 
THE CLOSE OF A LIFE 305 
 
 and he is now condemned to smoking a light 
 cigar, a Trabuco, for which he does not care. 
 
 Vienna society no longer talks of the Emperor's 
 conquests over the hearts of the fair sex. In 
 place of the dashing gallant of yore, so fickle and 
 so bold, it only sees an old gentleman, faithfully 
 attached to an old lady, and when the Emperor's 
 past is talked about, the gossips answer, with a 
 mocking smile : " Ah, yes, Herr Schratt !" Such 
 is the bourgeois nickname which they have given 
 to the once haughty Habsburg. We have already 
 told how once he fell very much in love with a 
 great actress at the Burg-Theater, Katharina 
 Schratt, Vienna's Bernhardt and Rejane com- 
 bined- Such was the intelligence, charm, and 
 sweetness of the lady that, after the passion had 
 burnt itself out, there stiU remained behind in the 
 ashes a lasting flame of friendship — a most un- 
 usual occurrence in Francis-Joseph's affairs of the 
 heart. The great actress combines with her really 
 immense talent for the stage a high degree of 
 culture, a nimble wit, and a spontaneous candour 
 which is a special mark of Viennese feminine 
 character ; and the combination makes her a 
 woman worthy of adoration. She was formerly 
 a friend of the Empress Elisabeth, and it even 
 seems that it was through Elisabeth that she first 
 made the acquaintance of Francis- Joseph. 
 
 When the Archduchess Marie- Valerie is not at 
 the Hofburg, with her tribe of children, and the 
 Archduchess Gisela, now an old lady, is not 
 
 20 
 
3o6 THE REAL FRANCIS- JOSEPH 
 
 spending a few weeks there while her husband is 
 away hunting in Styria (and the visits of both 
 Archduchesses, especially of the latter, are few), 
 the Emperor spends most of his evenings with the 
 retired actress in very quiet and simple sur- 
 roundings. .He makes no secret of this, and he 
 would be wrong if he did nowadays. In the past 
 he used to pay his calls upon her in a carriage 
 belonging to the Court, and in the Colonel's uni- 
 form which he nearly always wears. In the same 
 carriage and the same uniform, " Herr Schratt " 
 (who is known as " the Colonel " at Frau Schratt' s 
 house) visits his old friend to-day. Several times 
 a week he invites himself to dinner, coming as 
 friend, and not as Emperor, and carefully leaving 
 his crown and sceptre in the hall. He likes to 
 discuss household matters, and gravely goes into 
 the question of the menu with the cook, who, on 
 her part, has no cause to complain over the 
 interest taken in the affairs of the kitchen, for a 
 particularly successful entremets is always worth 
 a handsome and truly Imperial tip to her. It is 
 only in this respect that " Herr Schratt " remem- 
 bers at his old friend's house that he is the 
 Emperor. 
 
 Frau Katharina, on her side who was as much 
 a brilliant queen behind the footlights as he was a 
 haughty Emperor under the lights of the Hofburg 
 drawing-room, is most attentive to his comforts. 
 The two play at Philemon and Baucis, a Philemon 
 and a Baucis of the modest provincial middle- 
 
■1 
 
 FRAU KATHARINA SCHRATT 
 
 To face fage 306 
 
THE CLOSE OF A LIFE 307 
 
 class type. In the winter, as soon as Francis- 
 Joseph arrives, he finds waiting for him the best 
 arm-chair in the room, and a good foot- warmer, 
 prepared for him by Frau Schratt herself, with 
 which to restore the heat of which the weather 
 and his years have robbed him. After a few 
 minutes of unimportant conversation they sit 
 down to table, facing one another across the 
 lamp, and Frau Schratt keeps a watch lest her 
 friend, whose appetite is not always reasonable, 
 should eat something to bring on the inevitable 
 indigestion. The meal finishes as simply and as 
 cosily, with Francis- Joseph smoking the Trabuco 
 which he cannot bring himself to like. 
 f-- (Then are heard two rings at the bell. It is two 
 visitors come to make up a four with " the 
 Colonel " at tar ok, an Austrian variety of whist. 
 It is always the same two, both very old friends of 
 Frau Schratt — Herr Palmer, head of the Austrian 
 Bank, and another banker, equally rich, but — who 
 would have believed it ? — a Jew by race and 
 religion. The Catholic Emperor and the Jewish 
 banker, be it said, are on the best of terms (how 
 the Countess Chotek would gasp at the idea !), 
 and the tarok-i>la.yevs are bound together by a 
 friendship which nothing can disturb. 
 
 Here is a true tale to prove this : One evening 
 after dinner Francis- Joseph searched for his cigar- 
 case in aU the pockets of his uniform. All was in 
 vain ; he had left the case at the Hofburg. Frau 
 Schratt, after a moment's pause^ said : " Do not 
 
 20—2 
 
308 THE REAL FRANCIS-JOSEPH 
 
 worry yourself, my friend." She went into an 
 adjoining room, and returned with an already 
 opened box of splendid Havanas, which she held 
 out to him. 
 
 " So cigars are smoked here, dear friend ?" 
 asked the Eijiperor, with a somewhat surprised 
 smile. 
 
 " To-day is not the first time," replied Frau 
 Schratt calmly. 
 
 " And whose are these magnificent Havanas ?" 
 
 " This is Herr Palmer's box." 
 
 Francis- Joseph hesitated a moment, then took 
 a cigar, and remarked whimsically : " The fellow 
 must make a lot of money to be able to keep such 
 expensive cigars !" 
 
 The game of tar ok took place just as usual that 
 night, with the same stakes — nothing more than 
 a few silver coins ; and when the Imperial carriage 
 arrived at its regular 8.45 sharp, Frau Schratt 
 saw her old friend carefully down to the door. 
 
 Often, then, does " Herr Schratt " make his 
 short journey between 8.45 and 9 o'clock from 
 the modest home of his old friend to the cold 
 and stately Hofburg. Short as is the journey, it 
 none the less calls back to mind a sorrowful 
 picture of the Emperor's past life ; for the carriage 
 passes the Capuchin Monastery, where, in the 
 Habsburg vault, his son and wife lie buried, and 
 the Augustinian Church, where both he and 
 Rudolf were married. 
 
 It may be that sometimes in the night, as he 
 
THE CLOSE OF A LIFE 309 
 
 drives past the church, he thinks of that dim 
 wood where he looked for the first time on Elisa- 
 beth's gleaming tresses. It may be, too, that he 
 seems to hear in the darkness the mocking voice 
 of his cousin Sophia saying to him on the terrace 
 at Possenhofen : 
 
 " Take care, cousin. If Black growls at you 
 so much, you will have a bad name in the house !" 
 
 The dogs have never ceased from that day to 
 growl at Francis-Joseph. 
 
 But does " Herr Schratt " ever think of such 
 things ?" 
 
INDEX 
 
 Albert, Archduke, 48, 49, 50, 
 
 53. 54. 59 
 Character, 168 
 Death of his daughter, 
 169 
 Albertine family. Saxony, 160 
 Alexander of Bulgaria, Prince, 175 
 Alexander III., Tsar, 229 
 Algeria, 152 
 Anarchists, 257 
 Andrassy, Count Julius, 83 
 Arabs, their love for the Empress, 
 
 152 
 Aiiersperg, Count Francis, 264 
 Augustine, Princess, marries 
 
 Joseph-Augustus, 272, 274 
 Austria-Hungary : 
 
 Component parts, 69 
 Constitution of, i86o, 295 
 Government, 1848, 56 et seq. 
 Independent races in, 292, 
 
 294, 299 
 National demands, 296 
 Policing Bosnia-Herzegovina, 
 
 289 
 Separatist movement in 
 Italian provinces, 83 
 Austro-Prussian War, 85 
 Author : interview with Luccheni, 
 266 
 
 Bamberg, 141 
 Baretta, M., 266, 267 
 Bathyany, Count, 73, 75 
 Bazaine, Marshal, in Mexico, 171, 
 
 172 
 Bears in Carpathians, no 
 Bellegarde, Count, 264 
 Berne, 265 
 Berzeviezy, Baron, 263 
 
 Biarritz, 254 
 
 Bismarck, Prince, 85 
 
 Black-cock, no 
 
 Bohemia, 288 
 
 Bombelles, Count Charles, 37, 38, 
 
 39, 132, 203, 206, 223 
 Bombelles, Count Henry, 37, 38, 
 
 39- 40, 63 
 Bombelles, Count Mark, 37 
 Bosnia, 288 
 Bosnia-Herzegovina, Austro-Hun- 
 
 garian, 290, 291 
 Bourbon Family, 160 
 Bragauza, Duke of, 223 
 " Bratfisch " cabs, 221, 234, 236, 
 
 238 
 Brehm at Court, 200 
 Buchs, 265 
 Buda-Pesth, Emperor's visit to, 
 
 31 
 Buda-Pesth, review at, 69 
 Buenos Ayres, 175 
 
 Cap Martin, Empress and Anar- 
 chist at, 259 
 Censorship in Austria, 58 
 Chamois, no 
 
 Charles VI., Imperial coach, 211 
 Charles-Albert, King of Sardinia, 
 
 83 
 
 Charles-Louis, Archduke, 177 et 
 seq., 249 
 
 Charlotte, Empress of Mexico, 171, 
 173, 174, 249 
 
 Chauvinism in Hungary, 293 
 
 Chotek, Countess, wife of Francis- 
 Ferdinand, 281, 283, 284, 285 
 
 " Christian Socialists," 298 
 
 Christmas at the Hofburg, 195, 
 199 
 
 Christomanos, Dr., 155, 249, 250 
 
 3" 
 
312 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Civil Code, Austro-Hungarian, 41 
 Coburg family, Belgium, 160, 206 
 Concordat with the Vatican, 41 
 Congress of Berlin, 289 
 Constitution, the, 61, 64 
 Corfu, 161 
 
 Achilleion, 251 et seq. 
 Coronini, Francesco de, 37 
 Court battue in Styria, 115 
 Court intrigues, 104 et seq. 
 Cracow, barricades in, 61 
 Croatia, 290 * 
 
 Rebellion in, 74 
 Croats, 288, 289 
 Crown of Hungary, 82 
 Custozza, battle of, 83, 85 
 Czechs, 285, 288, 295, 296, 298 
 Czikos, 151, 247 
 
 Debreczen, 80 
 
 Dogs of Possenhofen, 13, 15, 27 
 
 Education in the Imperial family, 
 
 29 
 Edward VII. at Vienna, 1903, 30 
 
 Politics, 202 
 Elisabeth - Am^lie - Eugenie, Em- 
 press : 
 
 AchiUeion, Corfu, 251 et seq. 
 
 A Martyr, 39 
 
 As a linguist, 155 
 
 Attempts to train her son, 
 190 et seq. 
 
 Attitude towards her son's 
 marriage, 207, 209, 210, 
 211 
 
 Betrothed to Francis-Joseph, 
 26 
 
 Breaks Rudolf's fate to the 
 Emperor, 242 
 
 Burial, 265 
 
 Character, 21, 23, 95, 96, 
 108, 152, 156, 216 
 
 Countess Hohenembs, 151, 
 152 
 
 Course of physical culture, 
 145, 150 
 
 Death, 261-263 
 
 Deprived of her son's educa- 
 tion, 132 
 
 Did not fear Anarchists, 257, 
 258, 259, 260 
 
 Disillusion, 92 et seq., 136 
 
 Dread of her hereditary 
 curse, 165, 16S, 244, 248 
 
 Elizabeth -Amelie-Eugfenie, Em- 
 press [continued) — 
 FUght, 139 
 
 Fox-hunting in Ireland, 154 
 Horsemanship, 145, 148, 149, 
 
 247 
 Hungarian poem on the 
 
 raven, 268 
 Insomnia, 247, 254 
 Journey to Vienna, 87 et seq. 
 Leaves Vienna for Madeira, 
 
 141 
 Marriage, 90 
 Maternity, loi, 108, 131, 133, 
 
 186 
 Meets Francis- Joseph, 17 
 Memorial to Heine, 253 
 On death, 250, 251, 269 
 Retires to Goedoello, 247 
 Returns to Vienna, 144, 186, 
 
 188, 247 
 Wanderings, 143, et seq., 197 
 et seq., 246 et seq. 
 Elisabeth, Archduchess, daughter 
 of Rudolf and Stephanie (Prin- 
 cess Windischgratz) , 215, 277, 
 278, 280, 286 
 Elisabeth-Marie-Augustine, Prin- 
 cess, marries Otho von Seefried- 
 zu-Buttenheim, 272, 275 
 " Empire of Austria," 288 
 Enns, dragoon of&cers at, 180, 181 
 Etiquette of the Austrian Court, 
 
 93 
 Eulalie-Francesca, Infanta, 205 
 
 Falk, Dr. Max, 155 
 
 Ferdinand, Emperor, 28, 36, 40 
 
 Abdicates, 68, 293 
 
 Address to, 47 
 
 Dismissed Metternich and 
 Sedlintzky, 53 
 
 Grajits a Constitution, SS> 6i 
 
 Illness, and Council of Re- 
 gency, 56 
 
 Leaves Vienna, 63, 67 
 Ferdinand of Coburg, Prince, 175 
 Festetics, Count, 143, 146 
 Festetics, Countess, 264 
 Ficquelmont, Count, 60 
 Financiers, 58 
 Finisterre, Empress at, 157 
 Fischhof, Dr., 46, 47 
 Forey, General, 171 
 Francis I., Emperor, 14, 28, 33, 56 
 
 Assumes title of Emperor of 
 Austria, 288 
 
INDEX 
 
 313 
 
 Francis-Charles, Archduke, 14, 
 28, 36, 56, 66 
 
 Renounces the Crown, 95 
 Francis - Ferdinand, Archduke, 
 277, 278 
 
 Marries Countess Chotek, 283 
 
 Patron of KathoUscher-Schiil- 
 verein, 284, 285 
 
 Policy, 292 
 Francis-Joseph, Emperor of Aus- 
 tria : 
 
 As a horseman, 41 , 42 
 
 Assumes Imperial Crown, 78 
 
 At Possenhofeu, 136/ seq. 
 
 Attitude towards annexation 
 of Bosnia-Herzegovina, 291 
 
 Betrothed to Princess Elisa- 
 beth, 26 
 
 Central idea of his Govern- 
 ment, 69, 78, 86, 283, 287, 
 294, 296 
 
 Champion of tradition, 270 
 
 Character, 34, 38, 39, 98, 
 109, no. III, 115, 118, 121, 
 301 
 
 Close of his life, 300 et seq. 
 
 Courage, 43, 135 
 
 Crowned King of Hungary, 86 
 
 Bay's menu, 301-302 
 
 Early years devoid of affec- 
 tion, 38 
 
 Education, 28 et seq. 
 
 Epileptic, 161, 301 
 
 Golden table-service, 303 
 
 " Herr Schratt," 305, 306, 
 308 
 
 Hungarian Guard and, 35 
 
 Interview with his son, 233 
 
 " Laws of the House of Habs- 
 burg," 271 et seq. 
 
 Laws to restrict freedom of 
 the Press, 270 
 
 Learns his son's fate, 242 
 
 Linguistic incapacity, 29 et 
 seq. 
 
 Love of sport, 109 et seq., 304 
 
 Love of the Army, 32, 41, 42, 
 304 
 
 Love of the theatre, 122. et seq. 
 
 Meets Princess Elisabeth, 17 
 
 Parts from Empress at Bam- 
 berg, 141 
 
 Plays tarok, 307 
 
 Policy, 294 et seq. 
 
 Political ideals, 288 
 
 Promises a new Constitution, 
 1861, 84, 294 
 
 Receives news of the Em- 
 press's death, 264 
 
 Francis-Joseph, Emperor of Aus- 
 tria (continued) — 
 Riding, 304 
 Shattered principles, 271 et 
 
 seq., 286 
 State dinner-parties, 303 
 Story of shooting at Miirz- 
 zuschlag, 112; station- 
 master, 118 
 Story of Styrian peasant and, 
 
 116 
 Took no part in quarrels 
 which rent the Empure, 285 
 Tries to make his son a 
 
 soldier, 198 
 Visits Buda-Pesth, 3 1 
 Visits Empress at Nauheim, 
 
 257 
 Welcomes Princess Elisabeth 
 to Vienna, 89 
 Francis-Salvator, Archduke, 276 
 Frederick, Emperor, 202, 229 
 
 At San Remo, 255 
 Fribourg, 265 
 
 Fulda, Ludwig, " Die Sklavin," 
 123 
 
 Galicia, 288 
 
 Revolutionary movement in, 
 61 
 Ganglbauer, Dr., Archbishop of 
 
 Vienna, 231, 232, 233 
 Gebhardt, head-huntsman, 145 
 Geistinger, Marie, 126 
 Geneva, Hotel Beaurivage, 260, 
 
 263, 264 
 Gisela, Archduchess, 128, 132, 
 190, 192, 195, 249, 305 
 Marries Leopold, Duke of 
 Bavaria, 272 
 Goedoelloe Chateau, 143, 146, 247 
 Goldmark, Dr., 47 
 Goluchowsky, Count, 264 
 Gorgey, Lieutenant, yy, 80 
 Dictator, 82 
 
 Lays siege to Buda-Pesth, 81 
 Negotiates with Russians, 82 
 Grillparzer, " Bruderzwist im 
 Hause Habsburg," 123 
 
 H 
 
 Habsburg family, 160, 161 
 
 Building up a mighty 
 Empire, 299 
 Harrach, Countess, 264 
 Hauptmann, Gerhard t, 123 
 Hauslab, Colonel, 37, 38 I 
 
314 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Hayman, General, 82 
 Hentzi, General, 81 
 Herzegovina, 288 
 Hoffmann, Professor, 237 
 Homeyer at Court, 200 
 Horse-breaking, feats in, 42 
 Hoyos, Count, 223, 235, 236, 239, 
 
 240, 241 
 Hungary, 288 
 Arms of, 82 
 
 Attitude towards Francis- 
 Joseph, 78 * 
 Constitution and Emperors 
 
 of Austria, 70, 73 
 Political life in, 296, 297 
 Repression of the rebellion 
 
 in, 82 
 Republic proclaimed, 1849, 
 80 
 Hunting in Austria-Hungary, no 
 
 Imperial marriage laws, 160, 282 
 Innsbruck, 63 
 Isabella, Queen, 205 
 Ischl, festivities at, 25 
 Ischl, Imperial family at, 137 
 Ismail, Pasha Khedive, 196 
 
 Jellachich, Governor of Croatia, 
 
 74. 75. 77 
 Marches on Buda-Pesth, 76 
 Jesuits at Court of Vienna, 283, 
 
 284 
 Jesuits in Austria, t,7 
 John, Archduke (" Johann 
 Orth"), 65 
 Sketch of, 174 
 Jokais, Maurus, 71 
 
 Anecdote of Empress Elisa- 
 beth, 268, 269 
 Joseph, Archduke, 276 
 Joseph-Augustus, Archduke, 276 
 Joseph II., Emperor, 56, 288 
 
 Attitude towards Hungarian 
 
 Constitution, 71 
 Policy, 292 
 
 K 
 
 Kalnocky, Count, 231, 233 
 Kolovrat, Count, 56, 60 
 Koniggratz, Battle of, 85 
 Kossuth, Louis, 47, yy 
 
 Flies to Turkey, 82 
 
 Leads deputeftion to Vienna, 5 s 
 
 Kossuth, Louis {contimied) — 
 
 On Francis-Joseph and a 
 
 Constitution, 70, 78 
 Minister of Finance, 72, 75 
 Proclaims Hungarian Re- 
 public, 80 
 Kribeck, Baron, 60 
 Kudlich, Hans, on John PoUet, 52 
 
 La Bastida, Archbishop of Mexico, 
 
 171 
 Lainz, 254 
 
 Hunting-box, 145, 146 
 Lamberg, Count, 76 
 Laszlo, Archduke, 170 
 Latour, Count, 67 
 Lausanne, 265 
 Laxenburg Palace, 127, 133, 142, 
 
 213 
 Lebstock, Marie, 80 
 Lechet, M., 266 
 Leo XIII. sends Prince Rudolf's 
 
 letter to Dr. Ganglbaiier, 231 
 Leopold II. of Belgium, 208, 220 
 Opposes his daughter's second 
 marriage, 279 
 Linz, 88, 89, 175, 265 
 Lombardy, 83, 84, 135, 137, 
 Lonyay, Count, 210, 278, 280 
 Loschek, Prince Rudolf's valet, 
 
 234, 236, 239, 241 
 Louis, Archduke, 56, 59 
 Louis-Philippe, deposed, 70 
 Louis - Victor, Archduke, 183, 
 
 249 
 Louise of Saxony, Princess, 176 
 Luccheni : 
 
 Murders Empress Elisabeth, 
 
 259, 265 
 Solitary confinement for life, 
 268 
 Ludovica, Princess, 16, 25, 88, 
 
 102 
 Ludwig II. of Bavaria, his death, 
 162 et seq., 249 
 
 M 
 
 Madeira, 141, 144 
 
 Magenta, battle of, 84 
 
 Magyars, 288 
 
 Maria de la Paz, Infanta, 205 
 
 Maria-Dorothea, Princess Philippe 
 
 of Orleans, 276, 277 
 Mariazell, Empress's excursion to, 
 
 149 
 Marie-Josdphe, Archduchess, 180 
 
INDEX 
 
 315 
 
 Marie-Louise, Archduchess, 33, 
 
 37 
 Marie-Sophie, Queen of Naples, 
 
 248 
 Marie- Valerie, Archduchess, 132, 
 144, 161, 186, 195, 196, 
 
 249, 305 
 Marries Francis-Salvator, 276 
 Matanschek, General, 49 
 Mathilda, Countess of Trani, 248 
 Mathilda of Saxony, Princess, 204, 
 
 206 
 
 Mattachich, Lieutenant, 224 
 
 Maximilian, Grand Duke of 
 
 Bavaria, 14, 23, 88 
 
 Affection for his dogs, 1 5 
 
 Life at Possenhofen, 15 
 
 Maximilian of Este, Archduke, 51, 
 
 59. 
 Maximilian, Emperor of Mexico, 
 
 171, 173, 249 
 Mayerling ChS-teau, 214, 215, 
 
 222 
 
 Mystery of, 234 et seq. 
 Mayerling Convent, 245, 247 
 Maynooth College, 154 
 Mejia, General, 173 
 Mentone, 259 
 Meraji, 184 
 Metternich, Prince, 48, 50, 53, 54, 
 
 S6, 59, 293 
 Mexico Republic, 170 et seq. 
 Miramar, Empress's yacht, 252, 
 
 254 
 Miramon, General, 173 
 Moga, General, 76, yy 
 Montecuccoli, Count, 47 
 Montenegro, 290 
 Montreux, Grand Hotel de Caux, 
 
 260, 261 
 Moravia, 288 
 Mortara, battle of, 84 
 Miirzzuschlag, stories of Em- 
 peror at, 112, 118, 138 
 Mussulmajis, 289 
 
 N 
 
 Napoleon III., 173 
 
 Italian policy, 84 
 Napoleonic Wars, 292 
 Nauheim, Empress at, 256 
 Nicholas I., Tzar, assists Francis- 
 Joseph with troops, 80, 
 81 
 
 in Vienna, 42 
 Normandy, Ch3,let Sostot, iji 
 Nothnagel, Professor, 255 
 Novara, battle of, 84 
 
 O 
 
 Oberdank, Anarchist, 258 
 O'Donnel, Colonel, 26, 28 
 Olmiitz, 44, 67, 269 
 Orizaba, 173 
 Orleans, Duke of, 265 
 Otho, Archduke, 282 
 Otho-Francis, Archduke, 180 et 
 
 seq. 
 Otho, King of Bavaria, 248, 249 
 
 Paar, Count, 264 
 
 Palmer, Herr, 307, 308 
 
 Panslavism, 299 
 
 Pernerstorfer, Deputy, 182 
 
 Petofis, Alexander, 71 
 
 Philip of Coburg, Prince, 223, 227, 
 
 235, 236, 239, 240 
 Philippe of Orleans, Prince, 276 
 Poland, insurrection of, 84 
 Poles, 299 
 
 Poles of Galicia, 295, 296 
 PoUet, John, 51, 52 
 Possenhofen, 13, 14, 15 
 Prague, 198 
 
 Slav Congress, 64 
 
 Treaty of, 249 
 Pregny, orchid-houses at, 260 
 Prim, General, 171 
 Prince Palatine, 71 
 
 R 
 
 Radetzky, General, 43, 83, 84 
 Ravens as birds of ill-omen, 268, 
 
 269, 300 
 Renier, Charles, 37 
 Renz, Eliza, 145 
 Reuss, Prince, dinner-party, 232 
 Revolution in Paris, 70 
 Revolution in Vienna, 47 et seq. 
 Rhoussopoulos, Professor, 249 
 
 " Memoirs," 250 
 Roebuck, no 
 Roll, Frank, 136, 137 
 Rothschild, Baron, 58 
 Rothschild, Baroness, Ch§,teau of 
 
 Pregny, 260 
 Rudolf, Archduke, 134, 161 
 
 Attains his majority, 197 
 
 Birth, 128 
 
 Burial, 244 
 
 Character, 189, 191, 192, 
 193, 194, 197, 202 
 
 Death, 161, 237 
 
 Disliked the army, 198, 199 
 
3i6 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Rudolf, Archduke {continued) — 
 Eccentricities, 229 
 Fond of hunting, 214, 215 
 In search of a wife, 204 
 Letter to Leo XIII., 231, 
 
 233 
 Liberalism, 201, 202 
 Marriage, 211 
 Morphinist, 223, 224 
 Poor physique, 185, 202 
 Published boq^, 199 
 Represents Emperor at Dia- 
 mond Jubilee, 230 
 Returned to his bachelor life, 
 
 214 e^ seq. 
 Suicide, 237 
 Travel-letters, 199 
 Tries to interest his wife, 213 
 Will, 277, 278 
 Ruidiger, General, 82 
 
 Sadowa, battle of, 249 
 Salzburg, 209, 210, 265 
 San Remo, 255 
 Santa Lucia, battle of, 43 
 Savoy, House of, in Italy, 160 
 Schlenther, Dr. Paul, 123, 124 
 Schleswig-Holstein, war of, 84 
 Schonbrunn, 28, 33, 44, 251, 264 
 Schoolmasters' salaries, 57 
 Schratt, Katharina, 125, 305, 306, 
 
 307, 308 
 Schwarzenberg, Prince, Arch- 
 bishop of Prague, 212 
 Sedlintzky, Baron, 53 
 Separatist movement, 83, 294 
 Serbs, 288, 289, 290 
 Servia, 290 
 Silesia, 288 
 Skoda, Dr., 141 
 Slav Congress, Prague, 64 
 Slavonia, 290 
 Slavonians, 296 
 Socialists, 298 
 Solferino, battle of, 84, 249 
 Sophia, Archduchess, 14, 36, 39 
 Attitude towards Empress 
 EUsabeth, 90, 93 et seq., 
 12S et seq. 
 Character, 30, 40, 57 
 Policy, 59, 63, 6s, 68, 72, 73, 
 
 74, 80, 83, 95, 293 
 Trains Prince Rudolf, 185, 
 186, 187 
 Sophia, Princess (Duchess of 
 Alenfon), 13, 15, 16, 25, 96, 
 166, 248, 309 
 
 Spiegl, Edgar von, 234 
 
 Stag, chase of the, 1 10 
 
 Stamberg, Lake, 15 
 
 Steinberg on Francis-Joseph's love 
 
 of soldiers, 42 
 Stephanie, Princess : 
 
 Betrothed to Prince Rudolf, 
 
 207 
 Character, 207, 213, 217 
 Daughter born, 215 
 Marriage, 2n ; marries Count 
 
 Lonyay, 280 
 Refuses to go to Diamond 
 
 Jubilee, 230 
 Spies on her husband, 221, 
 222 
 Stephen, Archduke Palatine, 72, 
 
 73. 75. 76 
 Stiibel, Margaret, 175 
 Sturmfeld, Countess of, 37, 38 
 Suicide, 156, 157 
 Switzerland, Anarchists in, 257 
 Szalatna, massacre at, 79 
 Sztaray, Countess, 261, 262, 264 
 
 Taaffe, Count, 37, 38, 60, 212, 
 
 233 
 Tarok, 307, 308 
 Territtet-Montreux, 261 
 Tokay, 302 
 
 Tragedy and farce, 159 e< seq. 
 Transylvania rises against Buda- 
 
 Pesth Government, 74 
 Trieste, Empress at, 140 
 Irredentists at, 258 
 Tyrol, 288 
 
 U 
 Universal sufirage, 297, 298 
 
 Valparaiso, 176 
 Venetia, 83, 85 
 Vetschera, Baroness, 227, 232, 
 
 244 
 Vetschera, Baroness Marie, 227, 
 234 
 At Mayerling, 236 
 At Prince Reuss's dinner- 
 party, 232 
 Burial, 244 
 Death, 238 
 In London, 230 
 Victoria, Queen, Diamond Jubilee, 
 230 
 
INDEX 
 
 317 
 
 Vienna : 
 
 Besieged, 67 
 Burgtheater, 122 et seq. 
 Court receptions, 200 
 Exhibitions, 1873, 196 
 Hofburg cellars, 302 
 Hofburg march on, 48 
 Polish Ball, 1887, 226 
 Revolution in, 47 et seq. 
 Siurrenders to Windischgratz, 
 
 77 
 
 Theater an der Wien, 126 
 Vilalfranca, Treaty of, 249 
 Villefranche, Mayor of, 256 
 Vladimir, Grand-Duke, 229 
 Von Gudden, Professor, 162 
 
 Death, 164 
 Von Rawscher, Prince-Archbishop 
 
 of Vienna, 40, 90 
 Von Seefried, Otho, Baron, 273, 275 
 
 W 
 
 S, 61 
 
 Wages in Vienna, 184 
 Welden, General, 79 
 William I., Emperor, 229 
 
 Politics, 202 
 William II. of Germany, Emperor, 
 229, 230 
 Politics, 202 
 Windischgratz, Prince Alfred of, 
 Governor-General of Vienna, 
 54, 61, 6S, 67, 77, 79 
 Wittelsbach family, 160, i6i 
 Their curse, 161, 168 
 
 Znaim Chateau, 276 
 Zurich, 265 
 
 BILLING AND SONS, LTD., PRINTERS, GUILDFORD. 
 
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