CHAPTER IX

My Sister Stéphanie Marries the Archduke Rudolph, who Died at Meyerling

My younger sister spent a happy girlhood at Brussels. At the age of nineteen she was a radiant beauty. Without knowing whom she was eventually to marry, she had been encouraged to look forward to making a more advantageous marriage than her eldest sister.

The King had never been very enthusiastic over my marriage with the Prince of Coburg. He had higher ambitions for me. My mother, however, desired the marriage. I have already given her reasons.

To avenge himself for his disappointed hopes, the King intended Stéphanie to marry an heir to a throne. He had thought of Rudolph of Habsburg as a possible husband for her, and the Queen agreed with him. What a daring idea! For however honourable the Royal House of Belgium might be, it did not rank so high as that of Austria.

I was not in ignorance, as I shall shortly relate, of the project of this marriage which began under the most dazzling auspices, and terminated in the most appalling tragedy.

History has been more interested in the final catastrophe than in the story of the early days of the married life of Rudolph of Habsburg and Stéphanie of Belgium. I, too, will discuss the finale and describe Rudolph as I knew him on the eve of his death.

Rudolph was then thirty years old. He might easily have called himself "the beloved of the gods." A great Court was at his feet; the most beautiful town in the world, after Paris, was an abode where all might have belonged to him. The people of the Monarchy placed their hopes of the future in him. He had a wife whom everyone envied; a daughter whom he overwhelmed with caresses; a noble and good mother whom he worshipped; and lastly, a father whose great Empire would revert to him; but Rudolph, the ill-fated and unhappy, preferred to die.

Let us, once for all, finish with the legends of Meyerling, and as far as it is possible have done with the lies connected with it. Rudolph of Habsburg committed suicide!

It is said that there is no proof of this. This is wrong; the proof exists. I am able to give it.

The history of the liaison which led Rudolph of Habsburg and Mary Vetsera to the grave has often been told. I will therefore confine myself to relating a few points which are but little known.

There was in the love of the hereditary archduke for Mary Vetsera either a lurid fatality or a sinister influence....

When I was in Vienna shortly before I decided to write these pages, I was sorting some private papers which recalled me to the period when I was the confidante and friend of Rudolph. Having finished my task, I went for a drive.

At the turning of a crowded street my attention was attracted by the sight of a melancholy looking old woman dressed in a dark costume. My carriage was going slowly at the time, so I could not fail to notice that she seemed crushed by numerous calamities, bent to the ground under the weight of a heavy burden, and she walked close to the buildings, almost touching the walls as she passed. Her face showed utter dejection and horror, and it was seared with innumerable tragic wrinkles. In this funereal apparition I recognized the mother of Mary Vetsera.

What had happened to the smart woman of the world whom I had been accustomed to meet chaperoning her daughter, then in the full bloom of her bewitching youth?

I have only to close my eyes in order to see Mary Vetsera--superb and glowing as she appeared at an evening entertainment given by the Prince of Reuss, the German Ambassador--the last sensational appearance in Viennese society of the girl who was about to become the heroine of the "bloody enigma" of Meyerling.

But the enigma is very simple.

Nevertheless, one must be behind the scenes in order to see all and know all. And this will always be difficult for journalists, who concoct distorted versions of "facts" which are the enemies of "history." Every journalist continues to rely on his imagination or on his observations, which vary according to his point of view. If the truth, therefore, is long in coming to light it is not very extraordinary. The astonishing thing about the Press is not so much that it abounds in lies as that it sometimes states the truth.

I had just arrived at the Embassy. The Prince of Reuss left me in order to precede my sister and her husband who were making an official entry.

Rudolph noticed me, and leaving Stéphanie came straight up to me. "She is there," he said without any preamble; "ah, if somebody would only deliver me from her!"

"She" was Mary Vetsera, his mistress of the ardent face. I, too, glanced at the seductress. Two brilliant eyes met mine. One word will describe her: Mary was an imperial sultana, one who feared no other favourite, so sure was she of the power of her full and triumphant beauty, her deep black eyes, her cameo-like profile, her throat of a goddess, and her arresting sensual grace.

She had altogether taken possession of Rudolph, and she longed for him to be able to marry her. Their liaison had lasted for three years.

Mary Vetsera was a member of a bourgeois family of Greek origin with some pretensions to nobility. The family, which was numerous and impoverished, hoped much from the favour of the Heir Apparent. Perhaps the only one who did not concern herself in worldly matters was a sister of the idol who, unlike her, had not the gift of beauty. Her merit was of a less perishable order. When the drama of Meyerling engulfed Rudolph and his love, this sister of the dead Mary disappeared in a convent.

At the soirée I was struck by my brother-in-law's state of nervous exhaustion (this soirée took place, I may mention, during the second fortnight of January, 1889), but I thought it well to try and calm him by saying a word or two about Mary which would please him, so I remarked quite simply:

"She is very beautiful." Then I looked at my perfectly gowned sister, beautiful, too, in another way, who was making a tour of the room.... My heart contracted. All three, Stéphanie, Rudolph and Mary were unfortunate.

Rudolph left me without replying. An instant later he returned and murmured: "I simply cannot tear myself away from her."

"Leave Vienna," I said; "go to Egypt, to India, to Australia. Travel. If you are lovesick that will cure you."

He shrugged his shoulders imperceptibly and spoke no more during the evening.

It was not a pleasant soirée. An atmosphere of uneasiness hung over the brilliant assembly. For my own part, I was so depressed that on my return home I could not sleep.

I had followed, so to speak, all the gradual developments of Rudolph's passion.

Upon my arrival at the Court of Vienna I instantly liked the archduke, and he gave me his friendship. We were almost the same age. I venture to say that we resembled each other in many points. Our ideas on certain matters were identical. Rudolph confided in me, and I soon placed my confidence in him.

It often happened that after my arrival in Vienna I was not always on my guard. God knows, then, that it was praiseworthy of me to say to the prince, in the intimate manner adopted by those Royal and princely families who had imbibed the patriarchal German spirit:

"Get married. I have a sister who is like me. Marry her." He at once changed the subject by replying: "I like Middzi better." Middzi was a pretty girl, a perfect Viennese type, a Parisian of Eastern Europe. He had two children by her.

But at last wisdom prevailed with me, perhaps my will also, and the finding in maternity the courage to support many things which later grew worse and were no longer bearable. I was not then either "mad, extravagant," or "capable of every kind of deceit," as my persecutors said later.

On the contrary. For a long time my good qualities and virtues were praised by people who later covered me with opprobrium.

At this period my younger sister was said to be a charming happy replica of myself, and therefore Rudolph took the train for Brussels. Stéphanie thus became the second highest personage in Austria-Hungary--the future empress of the Dual Monarchy.

The archduke had no trouble in finding favour in her eyes. He was more than handsome; he was fascinating. He had a slight figure, but it was well proportioned. Notwithstanding his delicate appearance, he possessed a strong constitution. He always made me think of a thoroughbred; he had the shape, the light build and the temper of one. His nervous force equalled his sensitiveness. His pale face reflected his thoughts. His eye, the iris of which was brown and brilliant, assumed varying shades and changed in shape with his expression. He passed rapidly from love to anger, and from anger to love. He was a disconcerting individual, with a captivating, changeful and refined soul.

Rudolph's smile perhaps made a still greater impression. It was the smile of an angelic sphinx, a smile peculiar to the Empress; he had also her manner of speaking; and these traits, added to his winning and mysterious personality, charmed all with whom Rudolph came in contact.

Well read and always ready to welcome new ideas, he sought the society of artists and savants. He was happy in the company of such men as the distinguished painters Canon and Angeli, and Billroth, the eminent professor.

My readers must not expect a pen portrait of my sister. It would be difficult for me to write about her in laudatory phrases since I have said that she resembled me. I will only say that she was better-looking.

Rudolph and Stéphanie made a well-matched pair. A daughter was born to them--Elizabeth--now Princess of Windisgretz. She owes her material independence to the fortune which she inherited from her grandfather, the Emperor Francis Joseph, and this fact added to her independence of soul has made her a very noticeable personality.

After the birth of her daughter, my sister, almost on the day following her churching, decided to travel. She said that she wanted to go to the seaside and recover from the effects of her confinement. She therefore went to Jersey, where she stayed some considerable time.

Rudolph was opposed to her going away. He negatived the idea by saying that she ought to stay with him, as he was unable to accompany her owing to his duties as Heir Apparent.

But we are a family who, having once decided upon doing anything, are very difficult to persuade to the contrary.

Stéphanie was obstinate. She never thought that a young wife's duty was to remain as long as possible near her husband, especially when he happened to be the man most exposed to the temptations of the Court of Vienna.

Rudolph was greatly vexed at the length of an absence which really could only have been excused on the grounds that it was not so long as it might have been.

The Crown Princess fell ill. When she escaped from the hands of the doctors who had lavished their attentions upon her, Rudolph was told that he would have little chance in the future of again becoming the father of legitimate children.

The blow was severe. From that day he tried to forget his troubles. He strove to banish them by drink, by hunting and other kinds of amusements. This desire for forgetfulness increased.

At this critical moment he met Mary Vetsera. The first time that her beauty was brought to my notice I nearly betrayed myself, having been placed in an unexpected and awkward position, which served to show me the height which passion can attain in a nature such as Rudolph's.

One evening we gave a dinner at the Coburg Palace. The Crown Prince, according to his rank, sat on my right, and my sister sat opposite me.

There was naturally much gossip current in Vienna about the liaison which existed between Rudolph and Mary Vetsera. Stéphanie, thanks to her dignity of character, was silent, but I know that she suffered. I was not afraid of mentioning this delicate subject to Rudolph, and I had expressed my hopes that the gossip was exaggerated. I wished to believe that he was merely the victim of a passing caprice. Yet at my own table, with the servants present, the guests watching (especially my sister's and her husband's) our slightest movements, Rudolph took it into his head to show me, sheltered by the tablecloth and the usual table decorations, the miniature of a woman, hidden in something which appeared to be a cigarette-case. "This is Mary," said he; "what do you think of her?"

The only thing I could do was to pretend neither to see nor to hear him, and I began to talk to my sister across the table. But after this, of what follies would Rudolph not be guilty? We were not long in finding out!

My brother-in-law died on January 30, 1889, between 6 A.M. and 7 A.M. Three or four days previously my sister came to see me one morning--a rare thing for her to do. I was still in bed, as I was tired. Stéphanie seemed anxious and disturbed.

"Rudolph," said she, "is going to Meyerling, and intends staying there some days. _He will not be alone._ What can we do?"

I raised myself on my pillows. I felt a strange and sinister foreboding. I remembered Rudolph's words at the Prince of Reuss's soirée. "For the love of God," I cried, "go with him!"

But was this possible? Alas! no. I next saw my sister when she was a widow and my brother-in-law was dead, lying in state, with his bloodless face swathed in a white bandage....

On the afternoon of January 28 I was driving in the Prater accompanied by a lady-in-waiting. It was a fine winter's day, and the sunshine was still lingering over Vienna. The horses were proceeding at a walking pace in order that I could enjoy the beauty of the day, and enable me to notice the carriages and the equestrians and acknowledge their salutes.

In the Hauptallee I noticed with astonishment Rudolph, unattended and on foot, chatting in a lively manner with Countess L., who has been so much talked about and who has published so much, but whose rôle in connexion with Rudolph was such that it was not agreeable for me to know her.

The archduke saw my carriage. He made a sign to me to stop, and came up to me. He was then speaking to me for the last time.

I have often asked myself why his trivial words caused me such indefinable anxiety. I still remember the sound of his voice, and I have not forgotten the peculiar look which accompanied his words. Rudolph was pale and feverish; he seemed on the verge of a nervous breakdown.

"I am going to Meyerling this afternoon," he announced. "Tell 'Fatty' not to come to-night, but the day after to-morrow."

"Fatty," to speak with all due respect, was my husband. The Prince of Coburg was always included amongst the boon companions of Rudolph's hunting and other pleasure parties.

I tried to keep my brother-in-law by my side for a moment or two longer, and induce him to say something more. I asked him: "When will you come and see me? It is a long time since you have been."

He replied, looking at me most strangely:

"What would be the use of coming to see you?"

* * * * *

Rudolph stayed at Meyerling from the evening of January 28 until the morning of the 30th, alone with his mistress. When his guests arrived for the hunt, the gathering was exactly like one of those pagan feasts in the days of Nero and Tiberius, when Death was bidden to the banquet. But the guest condemned to die was the prince himself, and he dragged with him into the abyss the imperious mistress who had first brought him to its brink.

They were found dead in their bedroom. It was a frightful sight, and it was first witnessed by Count Hoyoz, and then by the Prince of Coburg.

If Mary Vetsera was indeed the dominating force, and as Venus would not relinquish her prize, Rudolph, in an access of despair and rage, did not forgive her for placing him in an impossible position; but neither did he pardon himself.

On the morning after a nerve-racking orgy both lovers perished. It all happened with lightning-like rapidity.

It was impossible for Rudolph to continue keeping two households. Impetuous but enslaved, he could not endure a liaison which paralysed his energies, but which he lacked the strength to break, so great was the hold which Mary had obtained over him.

Novelists have often depicted the frightful situation of the thraldom of the body, and the desperate protests of the spirit which can only escape by death.

Rudolph at thirty years of age was utterly out of love with life. He was worn out from living in the atmosphere of a Court which suffocated him. His death by his own hand was due to several causes, of which the following are the principal:

First, his bitter regret of a marriage which did not give him what he expected, after his disappointment in knowing he could not have a son; the impossibility of realizing the wish to dissolve it--an impious wish in the eyes of his relatives, the Holy See and the Catholic Church; and, finally, the certainty he had as to the chances of the longevity of the Emperor, that heartless being, that living mummy, who had embalmed himself with selfish and petty cares.

Rudolph often remarked: "I shall never reign; he will not allow me to reign."

And if he had reigned?

Ah, if he had reigned! I knew all his plans and his ideas. Of these, I will only say, modernity did not frighten him. The most daring modern idea would have been acceptable to him. He had already destroyed, in imagination, the worn-out machinery of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy. But, like pieces of invisible armour held together by expanding links, the constraints, the formulas, the archaic ideas, the ignorance and the disillusions from which he was always wishing to escape, closed in on him. His life was a perpetual struggle against a feeble, worn-out, blind and corrupt Court, the routine of which enslaved his body without shackling his intelligence. He was compelled either to go under or to reign for a time and then to conquer, and throw off the burning garment of Nessus, open the windows, overthrow the Great Wall of China and chase away the camarilla.

But the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy would perish rather than change. It went to its death with a courier in advance!

The sad news of Rudolph's death reached Vienna on the morning of January 30. General consternation prevailed. In the afternoon one of the Emperor's aides-de-camp came to see if he could obtain more news from me.

I was scarcely able to speak. I had been told that the Prince of Coburg had assassinated my brother-in-law!

There were some charitable souls in Vienna and at Court who did not admit that Rudolph's affection for me was merely fraternal.

Ah, if one only realized to what jealousy and wickedness the highest are exposed!

After the death of the Crown Prince all kinds of stories and scandalous gossip were rife!

I told the aide-de-camp that I knew nothing beyond the tragic news of the death of Rudolph and Mary Vetsera, and that my husband, who had left that very morning at six o'clock to shoot at Meyerling, had not returned.

In the meantime I had seen one of Stéphanie's ladies-in-waiting, who had told me about the catastrophe. Mastering my emotions, I went to see my sister at the Hofburg.

I found her pale and silent, holding in her hand a letter whose secret must now be given to history.

This letter, which had just been discovered addressed to Stéphanie in Rudolph's private desk, announced his death. He had already resolved on this course when he spoke to me in the Prater. The letter commenced as follows:

"I take leave of life." It was too much for me to read that. The words were blurred by my tears. "Be happy in your own way," he said to his wife. And his last thought was of his child. "Take great care of your daughter. She is most dear to me. I leave you this duty." Unhappy child, who has had no father. I have often pitied her, and I pity her more than ever. She does not know what she has lost.

The Prince of Coburg did not return to the palace until the night of the 31st, after having passed many hours alone with the Emperor. He came at once to my room. His disturbed condition and his wild words showed how distraught he was. I pressed him to give me some of the details of the tragedy. "It is horrible, horrible," he said. "But I cannot, I must not say anything except that they are both dead." He had sworn to the Emperor to keep silent, as had Rudolph's other friends who had gone to shoot at Meyerling. The secret was well kept. The servants who might have spoken have, for very good reasons, disclosed nothing.

When I went to see the Empress, at her request, I found myself in the presence of a marble statue covered with a black veil.

I was so agitated that I could hardly stand.

I passionately kissed the hand she extended, and in a voice broken like that of the mother at Calvary she murmured:

"You weep with me! Yes, I know that you too loved him."

Oh, unfortunate mother! She adored her son. He helped her to bear that life smothered in ashes which his malicious father led beside one who was so noble. After Rudolph had been snatched from her and from his Imperial future, the Empress fled from this Court which henceforth held nothing for her, and she met death alone. It is known by what a sudden and cruel blow she died--the innocent victim of the penalty of her rank.

I saw, I see in the successive dramas of the House of Austria a punishment sent by Heaven. A chain of bloody fatalities which recalls the tragedies of Sophocles or Euripides is not simply a game of chance. The justice of the gods is always that of God. The Court of Vienna was destined to perish horribly. It had betrayed everything; first of all its traditions, for nothing noble remained--even its intrigues were base. It was only a servants' hall for the valets from Berlin. And after Francis Joseph appeared at the famous Eucharistic Congress on the eve of the war, and stood before the altar as Prince of the Faith, he went to finish the dull day at the house of Madame Schratt, and listen to the backstairs gossip of Vienna and the unsavoury reports of the police news!

Rudolph died of sheer disgust!