B008AITH44 EBOK

by Hamann, Brigitte

  Furthermore, Elisabeth was increasingly convinced that it must be a hardship for the actress to spend time with the ever less lively Emperor and Empress. Franz Joseph from Cap Martin to Frau Schratt in Monte Carlo in 1897: “I hinted gently to the Empress that you might after all come to visit us, whereupon she replied: The poor thing! You must know that she always thinks that it must be very uncomfortable and unpleasant for you to interrupt your amusements in Monte Carlo to be bored with us old people here.”43

  A few times, differences of opinion arose between Franz Joseph and Katharina Schratt. Each time it was the Empress who was conciliatory and soothed the ruffled feathers, who jollied angry Schratt out of her sulks. The Emperor was so downcast by these quarrels that dealing with him at these times was difficult; everyone around him always longed for Schratt’s return. With her, Franz Joseph behaved exactly as he did with Elisabeth: He was the one who begged, the one who was abject, the one who gave in. Prince Eulenburg dutifully sent detailed reports on these events to Emperor Wilhelm II. “He missed Frau Kathi’s merry chatter about the large and small miseries of the world of the stage, about her puppies and birdies and domestic doings…. He also needs the charm of Frau Kathi’s beautiful femininity, which he commands with the utmost innocence. In short: Matters could not go on without her. Even the Empress seems to have thought so, having already on two previous occasions smoothed over differences of a sort similar to the present situation.”44

  However, even Elisabeth at times could not entirely conceal the fact that, in spite of everything, she felt neglected. During one of the last walks before her death with Franz Joseph and their “friend,” she showed her feelings with the macabre wit peculiar to her. They were speaking, as so often during this period, about death, and specifically of Elisabeth’s death. Elisabeth indicated her attitude by quoting an old verse, “Ach, da wäre niemand so, als der Ritter Blaubart froh”—literally, “In the event, Bluebeard would be happiest of all,” and obviously meaning that her death would gladden Franz Joseph most. The Emperor grew annoyed and said defensively, “Go on, don’t talk that way.” (Katharina Schratt related the story after Elisabeth’s death to Prince Eulenburg.)45

  Nevertheless, Elisabeth’s steadfast advocacy of the unevenly matched couple managed to keep the gossip within bounds. So perfect were Elisabeth’s discretion and her protection that, to this day, it is impossible to find concrete proof of an affair. The question of whether the imperial family’s reputation suffered as a result of this unusual relationship must, at least for the most part, be answered in the negative. Plainly, this outcome is Elisabeth’s achievement.

  The crucial importance of the Empress to the relationship between Emperor and actress could be fully realized only after Elisabeth’s death. For when Schratt could no longer frequent the court as the official “friend of the Empress,” her position became all but untenable. A marriage, which would have legitimized the relationship, was impossible, since Schratt was still (according to Catholic canon law, which was decisive in this case) legally married. Valerie in 1899: “He will never, never renounce her, and unfortunately he cannot marry her, for she is very lawfully married.”46

  Two years after Elisabeth’s death, a serious disagreement, lasting several months, broke out between Franz Joseph and Katharina Schratt. The Emperor explained to Valerie “almost in tears, that she [Schratt] has been working since Mama’s death on this decision [to leave the Emperor], because since that time, she no longer felt highly regarded, her position not being a proper one.”47

  In response to the Emperor’s sadness, many intermediaries tried to effect a reconciliation and to bring Schratt back to Vienna from Switzerland, where she had gone to sulk. The Neue Freie Presse printed a bold advertisement that caused a great stir: “Kathi, come back—all in order—to your unhappy, abandoned Franzl.” Burgtheater Director Berger wrote to the German ambassador, “since the death of a sovereign lady [Elisabeth], a subtlety has been missing which until then gave to everything a different, more elegant form,” which was completely true.48

  The enormous embarrassment surrounding Katharina Schratt after Elisabeth’s death damaged the Emperor’s standing. Now, too, the actress did exactly what her great model, the Empress, had done whenever she was offended: Time and again she left Vienna for significant periods of time, and she let herself be implored in vain for a long time before resuming the customary walks in Schönbrunn. One of these serious and long quarrels was ended only by Franz Joseph’s appeal to their “love for her [Elisabeth], the last thing that still unites us.”49 Valerie’s well-meant attempt to persuade her father to marry Aunt Sparrow—that is, Elisabeth’s sister, the widowed Countess Mathilde Trani—so that Schratt could return to being “the friend of Papa’s wife,”50 demonstrates the muddle that prevailed after Elisabeth’s protective hand no longer rested on this, her husband’s late love.

  When Nikolaus von Kiss died in May 1909, the Emperor was seventy-eight and Schratt almost fifty-six years old. By that time—as Franz Joseph’s letters, preserved in their entirety, show—the relationship was still a friendly one but much less ardent than it had been in Elisabeth’s day.

  Nevertheless, time and again (of course, only after 1909, when such an event became a possibility), Vienna gossiped about a secret marriage. But there is no proof, nor do the letters and diaries of the families give any indication of such an occurrence. Whatever the case, until Franz Joseph’s death, the two used the polite form of address to each other and met only rarely.

  Notes

  1. Heinrich Benedikt, Damals im alten Österreich (Vienna, 1979), pp. 70f.

  2. Bourgoing, p. 43.

  3. Princess Stephanie of Belgium, Princess von Lonyay, Ich sollte Kaiserin werden (Leipzig, 1935), p. 152.

  4. Bourgoing, p. 44.

  5. Ibid., p. 45, May 23, 1886.

  6. Ibid., p. 60, from Vienna, April 21, 1887.

  7. Valerie, July 14, 1886.

  8. Franz von Matsch, “Als Maler bei Kaiserin Elisabeth,” NFP, April 29, 1934.

  9. Valerie, March 1, 1887.

  10. Bourgoing, p. 56, February 17, 1887.

  11. Ibid., from Vienna, February 7, 1887.

  12. Ibid., p. 121, from Vienna, December 6, 1888.

  13. Ibid., p. 75, from Gödöllö, November 29, 1887.

  14. Ibid., p. 85, from Budapest, February 14, 1888.

  15. Ibid., p. 101, from “Villa bei Lainz,” June 1, 1888.

  16. Ibid., p. 225, from Vienna, December 30, 1890.

  17. Ibid., p. 250, from Vienna, February 13, 1892.

  18. Ibid., p. 273, March 4, 1893.

  19. Ibid., p. 274, March 5, 1893.

  20. Sexau Papers, Conversation with Prince Taxis of July 27, 1938.

  21. Valerie, August 4, 1888.

  22. Ibid., June 9, 1889.

  23. Sexau Papers, Conversation with Duchess Marie José of Bavaria, August 27, 1938.

  24. Bourgoing, p. 143, from Budapest, February 16, 1889.

  25. Valerie, June 1889.

  26. Ibid., May 7, 1890.

  27. Corti Papers, from Vienna, December 6, 1890.

  28. Corti Papers, from Vienna, December 17, 1890.

  29. Bourgoing, p. 218, from Mürzsteg, October 4, 1890.

  30. Ibid., p. 215, from Teschen, September 5, 1890.

  31. Prince Philipp zu Eulenburg-Hertefeld, Erlebnisse an deutschen und fremden Höfen (Leipzig, 1934), Vol. II, p. 205.

  32. Bourgoing, p. 263.

  33. Hübner, October 28, 1889.

  34. Eulenburg, Vol. II, p. 200.

  35. Valerie, June 2, 1889.

  36. Ibid., July 21, 1889.

  37. Ibid., November 4, 1889.

  38. Ibid., December 26, 1889.

  39. Ibid., November 18, 1889.

  40. Ibid., December 5, 1889.

  41. Ibid., May 28, 1890.

  42. Bourgoing, p. 289, from Cap Martin, March 2, 1894.

  43. Ibid., p. 345, from Cap Martin, March 10, 1897.

  44. Eulenburg, V
ol. II, p. 213.

  45. Ibid., p. 199.

  46. Valerie, July 11, 1899.

  47. Ibid., August 28, 1890.

  48. Eulenburg, Vol. II, p. 226.

  49. Bourgoing, p. 426, June 1901.

  50. Valerie, July 6, 1899.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  RUDOLF AND VALERIE

  For all practical purposes, Gisela and Rudolf grew up without a mother. Elisabeth was so preoccupied with her own worries and cares that she devoted little time to the children and offered them neither warmth nor security. She considered them the foster children of Archduchess Sophie, and that was enough to permanently impair the relationship.

  Nevertheless, whenever Elisabeth turned up at the Viennese court for one of her sudden, short stays, she showed herself to be a strong (though extremely self-willed) personality, with such a power of attraction that even the little Crown Prince idolized her—not like a mother, but rather like a beautiful apparition out of a fairy tale, bringing life into his gray, duty-bound days.

  More than either of his sisters, Rudolf was his mother’s child. Temperament and talents, imagination, liveliness, sensibility, wit, a quick understanding—all these he shared with Elisabeth. Marie Festetics on the fifteen-year-old boy: “The Crown Prince’s eyes glowed. He was thrilled to be with his mother, whom he worships … he is very like his mother, in particular, he has her charm as well as her brown eyes.”1

  All his life, Rudolf gratefully remembered that in 1865, when he had been tested so severely mentally and physically, it was his mother who had taken his part with such fervor (see here). Even the little Crown Prince was fully aware that she had been able to bring about the change only at the cost of real family rifts and only against strong court opposition. Latour, the tutor Elisabeth selected, became a deeply beloved father substitute to the little boy. And Latour taught the boy the same liberal views Elisabeth herself developed. Latour brought mother and son very close, even if they had little direct contact with each other.

  His markedly bourgeois—even anticourt—education distanced the Crown Prince from his aristocratic surroundings. It erected barriers that subsequently proved insurmountable. From childhood on, Rudolf had to live with the heavy burden of being Elisabeth’s son—and of being so very like her. All the Empress’s antagonists saw Rudolf as a potential danger—specifically, they scented the danger that eventually they would be living under a “revolutionary,” “bourgeois,” “anticlerical,” “antiaristocratic” emperor, someone rather like Elisabeth. And this danger (seen, conversely, as a hope by large groups of the population) did indeed exist.

  During Elisabeth’s most politically active period, after the defeat of Königgrätz and during the negotiations in Budapest, Rudolf, aged eight, was with his mother in Hungary. Here, the Crown Prince met Gyula Andrássy, whom he revered all his life and who was as influential to the boy’s political world view as he was to Elisabeth’s. Those few weeks in Budapest with his mother and Andrássy—Franz Joseph was in Vienna—were, for Rudolf, the best time he ever spent with his mother (see here).

  But Elisabeth’s support of her son in 1865 and the time in Budapest remained isolated episodes. In 1868, Marie Valerie was born—Elisabeth’s “coronation gift” to Hungary. The Crown Prince, who was nine years old, was shunted aside.

  Gisela married at sixteen and moved to Bavaria. Her relations with her mother were chilly. Though the Crown Prince remained in Vienna, he was practically abandoned to his teachers and tutors. The beautiful mother he worshiped paid no attention to him. Her thoughts were concentrated on Valerie, and Rudolf grew extremely jealous. He treated the little girl roughly and unkindly. Valerie, for her part, was afraid of her big brother. In this situation, Elisabeth, like a brood hen, went over entirely to her youngest child and rejected her son even more.

  It rarely happened that all the members of the imperial family were in one place at the same time. Each member of the imperial family had his own household; petty jealousies and dissensions raged between the various staffs. Given the circumstances, it was almost never possible to create a feeling of family intimacy. They were strangers to each other, and as Archduchess Valerie noted, their meetings were marked by awkwardness and embarrassment. Elisabeth would have had to take the initiative even to begin approaching her son. But she did not take the first step, nor did Emperor Franz Joseph.

  Thus, Rudolf remained isolated not only at court, but also within the immediate family. No one was aware that he had problems. The successor to the throne was regarded with respectful timidity and with distrust. Valerie once confessed to one of her Bavarian relatives that, though she lived under the same roof with Rudolf, she might not see him for months on end.2 Gisela, who was closest to her brother, noted with surprise during a visit to Vienna, “actually the whole family regards him as a person to be treated with caution.” To which Valerie replied, “The poor man! Unfortunately, it’s only too true.”3 The kind of trusting and confidential relationship that existed between Elisabeth and Valerie was out of the question for Rudolf and his mother.

  Rudolf’s marriage to Stephanie, daughter of the King of the Belgians, placed an additional strain on family relations. Elisabeth in particular stubbornly maintained her dislike of her daughter-in-law. But when young Stephanie showed an interest in making obligatory public appearances—since she felt at ease in public and enjoyed attracting attention—Elisabeth saw her chance simply to pass on to her daughter-in-law (who was only seventeen) the major part of these tasks. In her memoirs, Stephanie recalled Elisabeth’s words. “This drudgery, this torture, as she called the duties of her position, were hateful to her…. She espoused the view that freedom was everyone’s right. Her picture of life resembled a beautiful fairy-tale dream of a world without sorrow or constraint.”4

  Elisabeth’s poems expressed great dislike of Stephanie, who valued outward appearances and social forms above all (which was not good for her marriage to the unconventional Crown Prince). Elisabeth felt great scorn for the “mighty bumpkin” with her “long, fake tresses” and her “cunningly watchful” eyes.5

  Young Stephanie’s frequent public appearances several times put the Empress in the shade, just as had happened many years before in connection with Stephanie’s aunt Carlotta of Mexico (now dreaming the rest of her poor, disturbed life away in a castle in Belgium). Whenever Elisabeth wanted to hurt Stephanie’s feelings, she alluded to this sister-in-law, whom at one time she had so cordially abhorred. The fact that Stephanie proved herself a committed friend to the high aristocracy and for her part criticized Elisabeth’s lack of a sense of duty was enough to cool the relationship between mother-in-law and daughter-in-law forever.

  Nor did the Crown Prince and his wife receive support from the Emperor. The generations were alienated from each other, and there was no familiarity. Valerie, in 1884: “How different, how courteous but self-conscious Papa is with them [Rudolf and Stephanie] as compared with [his behavior to] me! Surely that is the reason for Rudolf’s jealousy.”6

  Rudolf all but courted his mother’s favor, imitating her preferences and dislikes down to the last detail. Elisabeth, for example, was fond of large dogs, who followed her into the most precious salons—to the Emperor’s perpetual consternation. The Crown Prince, too, surrounded himself with dogs; around 1880, in Prague, he even opened a dog-breeding establishment, where he specialized in wolfhounds. In the Crown Prince, Elisabeth’s love of animals grew into a thorough and serious preoccupation with zoology—more particularly, with ornithology. Rudolf made long sea voyages for research, traveling most particularly with his older friend, Alfred Brehm (on whose Tierleben he collaborated). He honored the scholar to such an extent that the ship’s officers made fun of his attitude7—not unlike the ridicule the crew of the Greif heaped on the Empress because she overwhelmed Alexander von Warsberg, her archeological guide through Greece, with gratitude and favor.

  The Emperor very generously allowed his wife to pursue her interests. But he refused to grant the Crown
Prince’s dearest wish—to attend the university and study the natural sciences. At that time, university study was out of the question for a Habsburg, considered out of keeping with the standing of the dynasty. This stance was in contrast to that of the House of Hohenzollern. Prince Wilhelm (later Wilhelm II), who was Rudolf’s coeval, was practically forced by his liberal parents to study at the University of Bonn. The young man complied with their wishes with less than moderate enthusiasm and without taking a degree. The Wittelsbach family also did not consider an involvement in the sciences out of place. Elisabeth’s brother, Karl Theodor, the head of the ducal branch, was an ophthalmologist, recognized even in professional circles. But Emperor Franz Joseph insisted that his son become a soldier. As for Rudolf’s propensity for science and literature—the Emperor regarded these interests as mere “notions”—very like his comments on Elisabeth’s predilections.

  Rudolf had to content himself with remaining a self-taught ornithologist; and yet he managed to complete an amazing body of work, respected by professionals to this day.8 His parents took no cognizance of it. His career as a soldier was less distinguished, to his father’s great disappointment. The Crown Prince also worked on political memoranda and wrote clandestine political editorials for the “democratic organ,” Neues Wiener Tagblatt, under his friend Moritz Szeps. The common interests of Rudolf and Elisabeth went so far that both Empress and Crown Prince had their writings printed at about the same time by the state printing office, both in very small editions. And yet neither knew of the other’s work. Rudolf composed “Reisebilder” (Travel Images); unfinished, preserved only in manuscript, while Elisabeth wrote her two volumes of poetry. All three works were indebted to Heine.