by Greg King
People began to notice how nervous the crown prince seemed, how carelessly he enacted his official duties.102 Rudolf disappeared for hours, avoiding his father’s ever-watchful detectives by climbing out a window in his Hofburg bachelor apartments, scurrying along a rooftop terrace, and descending a narrow staircase to escape through a small iron door in the old Augustiner Bastion. There he could climb into an inconspicuous fiacre driven by Josef Bratfisch, who became his ally in these escapades. Born in 1847, Bratfisch worked as a driver for a Viennese cab company; known as “the Little Dumpling” owing to his short, squat figure, he had enjoyed some fame as a singer of the sentimental songs Rudolf found so appealing.103
Bratfisch faithfully delivered Rudolf to Vienna’s seediest nightspots, where the crown prince passed his time drinking and openly consorting with prostitutes.104 But the potent cocktail of drugs and alcohol took a humiliating physical toll. Now the man who had prided himself on his sexual conquests was often impotent; according to Mitzi Caspar he had to be drunk to get an erection.105 This only added to the sense of failure and frustration that increasingly dominated Rudolf’s life.
On March 3, 1887, Rudolf composed a will—his second. His first, written ten years earlier, had warned of political oppression but still contained hints of his joys in life, ending, “A last, farewell kiss to all the beautiful women in Vienna whom I have loved so dearly.”106 His second will was bereft of personal thoughts as he gave directions for dividing up his estate. Recognizing that his marriage was all but over, he tellingly snubbed his wife, asking that his father be appointed legal guardian for their only daughter.107
CHAPTER FOUR
In the spring of 1887 a young lady bustled through her bedroom in Vienna, excitedly preparing for a trip to London. “Very striking,” with “a wealth of dark hair” and deep, dark eyes, she prided herself on a “supple, slender figure,” and moved with a deliberate, almost feline grace.1 A maid fluttered about, laying silk stockings, satin shoes, and elaborate gowns from the exclusive Viennese couturier Maison Spitzer across a bed watched over by a painting of the Madonna. Sunlight spilled through gaps in the beaded curtains covering the windows; bangles were pulled off in anxious fits by the room’s nervous occupant. Crystal bottles filled with scent jostled with the silver toilette set on a dressing table crowded with velvet-lined jewelry cases—all the accoutrements needed to ensure a beautiful, polished, and sparkling appearance.2 In a few weeks Queen Victoria would celebrate her Golden Jubilee, marking fifty years on the British throne; though rank as a minor noble would keep her from truly royal functions, the young Viennese lady anticipated balls in London’s aristocratic palaces, and splendid dinners and receptions at the Austro-Hungarian Embassy. Though only sixteen, Baroness Mary Vetsera meant to impress and conquer.
Across Vienna, Crown Princess Stephanie fumed. She, too, had planned to travel to London for the Golden Jubilee, to join her husband in representing Franz Josef during the ceremonies. Stephanie didn’t know Mary Vetsera, but she’d heard much about her in the last few weeks, rumors repeated by her sister Princess Louise, by Rudolf’s former tutor Latour von Thurmberg, and by her husband’s relatives. Mary, according to these sources, had met the crown prince at a Viennese ball a few months earlier. Playing the coquette, the young lady had so brazenly flirted with the notoriously temptation-prone heir to the throne that gossips were soon speculating about her intentions.3
Then, in early May, Stephanie heard that the young baroness was leaving for London. Ostensibly Mary Vetsera was off to visit her aunts Elizabeth, Lady Nugent, and Marie—who lived in London with her second husband, Count Otto von Stockau. Her real motive, gossips insisted, was that she hoped to renew her acquaintance with Rudolf and pursue a liaison with him while they were both in England. “This was too much for me,” Stephanie confided to Katharina Schratt. “I refused to go. It could only have meant a new series of humiliations for me!”4
Stephanie’s refusal to attend the celebrations horrified Franz Josef; he implored his daughter-in-law to change her mind, but to no avail. There was “a most unpleasant scandal,” with Rudolf furious and even Queen Victoria supposedly angered at this slight.5 And so Rudolf went alone to London, participating in the regal processions, the Te Deum at Westminster Abbey, and the state banquet at Buckingham Palace to pay tribute to the continent’s longest-reigning monarch, though he spent most of his time with his British counterpart Albert Edward, the Prince of Wales, who equaled him in sexual appetites and a taste for dissipation as they lingered at posh clubs until the early morning hours.6
One afternoon the Prince of Wales took Rudolf out to Windsor Castle, where Queen Victoria named her distinguished caller a knight of the Order of the Garter. The queen, Rudolf reported, “was very friendly,” pinning the order on his tunic and “fondling me as she did so, so that I could hardly refrain from laughing.”7 But if Rudolf made a good impression at Windsor, elsewhere he seemed out of sorts. Count Karl Kinsky, secretary at the Austro-Hungarian Embassy in London, couldn’t help notice how visibly nervous Rudolf seemed during official functions. “There is no mistaking it,” he recorded. “I was aware of it before and cannot help noticing it now.”8 The wife of an American diplomat who had previously met Rudolf now saw that he “was changed, looked older, had lost his gaiety, was evidently bored with the official entertaining, and used to escape from all the dinners and receptions as soon as he could.”9
Perhaps he had good reason to be uneasy. Dinners and receptions at the Austro-Hungarian Embassy meant greeting the guests—and in this case, those guests included Mary Vetsera and her socially ambitious mother, Helene. As Austrian nobles visiting London, they pressed for invitations, knowing that they couldn’t be denied without considerable scandal. Not that scandal was an alien concept to the Vetseras: Helene’s reputation was so bad that Countess Lajos Károly, the ambassador’s wife, let it be known she was disgusted that she had to receive “such people.”10 Rudolf scarcely knew Mary; the idea of meeting her again wouldn’t have bothered him. But he had history with her mother, the sort of tangled, sordid history that kept gossips dangerously busy spinning out the lethal web of innuendos on which Viennese society seemed to thrive.
Eight years earlier twenty-year-old Rudolf had been spending the summer with his parents at Gödöllö in Hungary. The surrounding lands teemed with aristocratic country estates, usually filled with members—and would-be members—of the empress’s equestrian circle. Among the latter—wealthy, ambitious and always looking for opportunities to advance themselves—were the darkly exotic Baltazzi brothers. All were mad about horses. Alexander, the eldest, owned a renowned stable that included Kisbér, which had won the Derby in 1876; Hector was a lavish gambler and a gentleman jockey of some accomplishment; an officer at Vienna’s exclusive Jockey Club, Aristide raised fine thoroughbreds at Napajedla, his Moravian stud; and even Heinrich, the youngest of the four and described as “the most elegant gentleman in the monarchy,” was so mad about horses that he built his own jumping course near Pardubice for the family’s prized stallions and mares.11
The Baltazzis, charming and free with their money, were welcome members of equestrian society: In England they moved in the Prince of Wales’s circle, and it was while hunting at Belvoir Castle in Leicestershire in 1874 that Empress Elisabeth had apparently met them for the first time.12 Alexander Baltazzi was smart enough to befriend the empress’s favorite riding companion, Bay Middleton, thus ensuring imperial attention.13 The brothers deployed the same suave tactics in Hungary, gradually winning an ally in Prince Nikolaus Esterházy, whose estate adjoined Gödöllö. A shared love of horses again brought them to Empress Elisabeth’s attention, much to the horror of her lady-in-waiting Countess Marie Festetics. “Great caution is necessary,” Festetics had written in her diary. The Baltazzis were “clever people … intelligent, rich, and all having the same beautiful, interesting eyes; no one knows exactly where these people come from with all their money, but they are pushing and make me feel uncomfortable. The
brothers are devoted to sport, ride splendidly, and shove themselves in everywhere; but they are dangerous to us, because they are quite English, and because of the horses!”14
Festetics had her own grudge against the family. That summer of 1879 Aristide and Hector were again staying with Esterházy along with their sister, thirty-two-year-old Baroness Helene Vetsera. As darkly exotic as her brothers were dashing, the married Helene had a troubling reputation: She’d already bedded—at least according to rumor—not only Prince Paul Esterházy but also Marie Festetics’s brother Vilmos.15 Now, learning that Rudolf was staying at Gödöllö, she set her sights on a new prize, renting her own nearby villa and openly pursuing the crown prince.
“Madame Vetsera is in hot pursuit of the Crown Prince,” Countess Festetics wrote in her diary. “This ought not to be so very dangerous, for heaven knows she is not good looking, but she is so sly and so glad to make use of everyone.… She means to get to Court and advance herself and her family.” Even the usually detached emperor was disgusted: “The way that woman goes on about Rudolf is outrageous,” he complained. “She chases him wherever he goes. Today she has even given him a present. She will stop at nothing.”16
Always susceptible to feminine flattery, Rudolf played along with the baroness’s game. One night he asked Countess Festetics to invite Helene to Gödöllö. Festetics was horrified. “Oh no, Your Imperial Highness!” she flatly told him. “I cannot allow it. She may make assignations with Your Imperial Highness elsewhere, but not in my sitting room. I have no desire for her society. I have kept her at arm’s length so far, and shall continue to do so.”17 The determined baroness apparently succeeded in her quest and bedded a willing Rudolf, but her triumph was short-lived.18 At first Empress Elisabeth had looked on benignly, knowing—as she explained—that her son found Helene “extremely sympathetic when his thoughts first turned to love.”19 But the baroness’s indiscretion and overt ambition led to outrage, and the empress soon brought the relationship to an end.
How had this momentary coup come about? From her birth in 1847, ambition had been bred into the former Helene Baltazzi. The Baltazzis, of Levantine origin, had spent centuries as merchants and bankers; like the Habsburgs, they extended their influence and fortune through propitious marriages. Helene was one of ten children born to Theodor Baltazzi, personal banker to Sultan Abdul Aziz I, and his second wife, Eliza Sarrell, daughter of the English vice consul in Constantinople. Though born in Marseilles, Helene spent much of her youth in the Ottoman capital, where she enjoyed great popularity. This wasn’t so much for her appearance: Helene, it is true, was unusual, with dark eyes and hair, but her features were just a bit too sharp, her shoulders a bit too stooped, to be deemed truly beautiful.20 Rather, her father’s immense fortune was Helene’s greatest asset; Theodor Baltazzi left his children an estate estimated at 10 million gulden (approximately $64 million in 2017), and Helene was believed to be the wealthiest young woman in Constantinople.21 There was more than a whiff of ambition on all sides when in 1864—a year after her mother’s death—she married her legal guardian, Albin Vetsera, twenty-two years her senior; as Helene was Anglican, the marriage was performed in the chapel of the British Embassy.22 The thin, balding Vetsera was the Austrian Embassy’s secretary to the Ottoman court; Franz Josef had not only named his father, Georg, assistant director of the Imperial and Royal Court of Appeals in Hungary but had also promoted Albin’s rise in the diplomatic corps. That kind of imperial attention was promising to an ambitious woman like Helene Baltazzi, while Vetsera no doubt recognized that her fortune would open doors in the future.23
Vetsera’s diplomatic career kept him moving: counselor and then chargé d’affaires at St. Petersburg in 1868; minister extraordinary at Lisbon in 1869; and Austro-Hungarian minister to the grand duke of Hesse at Darmstadt in 1870.24 Yet Albin refused to deploy what were arguably his greatest assets: his wife’s social ambitions and her fortune, which could cement a diplomat’s reputation and standing. Inexplicably Helene apparently never joined her husband at any of his posts and only rarely visited him. This would seem a curious omission, but perhaps a wise one: A diplomat’s wife had to be discreet, and Helene had something of a reputation for extramarital intrigues that might have blemished her husband’s career with unwanted gossip. Vetsera avoided scandal and reaped the rewards for loyal service to the Habsburgs. In 1867 Franz Josef gave him the Imperial Order of Leopold and raised him to the rank of a hereditary knight in the empire; three years later, on January 30, 1870, he named him a hereditary baron, with the honorific “von” attached to his surname.25 This was a distinction to be sure, though one that carried little social cachet. “The title of baron,” wrote Walburga Paget, “is almost unknown in this society; it is reserved for haute finance and is considered especially Semitic.”26
Throughout his career Vetsera kept his wife in considerable comfort, providing her with a large house at 11 Schüttelstrasse in Vienna in which to raise their two children, a son, Ladislaus, born in 1865, and a daughter, Johanna (called “Hanna” in the family), born in 1868. A second son, Franz (called “Feri”), arrived in 1872, but the most famous of Helene’s children was born in the house on Schüttelstrasse on March 19, 1871. Eight days later, at the Church of Saint John Nepomuk, the infant received the names Marie Alexandrine.27 At the time Vienna, like much of Europe, was caught up in the craze for everything English: Imported scents, soaps, and sweets were the rage; sportsmen hunted in English tweeds; and proper British nannies looked after children. This fad soon transformed Marie Alexandrine into the prosaic but eminently more fashionable Mary.
Custom and expectation dictated a young girl’s education in the Victoria era. Even a member of the empire’s minor nobility like Mary would never be called upon to fend for herself: The goal was to shape the young girl into a proper—and eligible—young lady. Independent thought and precocious intelligence were discouraged: It was better to be demure, versed in the social niceties needed to attract a future husband than to be threateningly pretentious. In Mary’s case tutors tended to reading, writing, history, arithmetic, and religious lessons; Gabriele Tobias offered lessons in singing while her sister Hermine taught piano. Mary learned English from her mother and French from a Paris native, Gabriel Dubray.28 Dubray later remembered the young Mary as having “a heart of gold,” a girl who once handed him a box of candy she had just received as a present, in keeping with her “spirit of generosity.”29
Albin Vetsera seems to have played little part in his daughter’s life. After he retired from the diplomatic service in 1872, his health declined; suffering from what was described as weakness of the lungs, Albin began spending winters in Egypt, away from his family.30 He was in Egypt when, in 1880, Franz Josef appointed him Austrian commissioner to the Public Debt Commission in Cairo; Helene remained in Vienna. To placate his socially ambitious wife, though, Albin provided his family with a new house, renting an ornate little baroque palace on the Salesianergasse in Vienna’s elegant Third District, home to many of the city’s foreign embassies.31
Left to her own devices, Helene set out to conquer. As minor nobles the Vetseras existed on the very fringes of proper Viennese society, tolerated but excluded from the most prestigious circles. No amount of Baltazzi money could atone for their lack of princely ancestors: Only those boasting the infamous “sixteen quarterings”—eight uninterrupted generations of paternal and maternal noble ancestors—could be received at the imperial court. “The only passport to upper society is pedigree,” one diplomat recorded. “Without this passport a native might as well think of getting to the moon as getting into society.”32
Denied access to the most elite circles, Helene Vetsera pushed her way into the new, more-accepting second tier of society, a nouveau but cosmopolitan mixture of civil servants, low-ranking courtiers, minor nobles, wealthy industrialists, many of them Jews.33 They used their money to lavish effect, renting palaces along the Ringstrasse, filling them with fine paintings and sculptures, sporting Parisian cl
othing, and giving expensive dinners and balls.34 Much of Vienna’s entrenched aristocracy looked on such endeavors with suspicion. Regarding this “smart set” as avaricious, scheming social climbers, the old aristocracy turned “away their faces with an expression of disgust and dismay” at the very mention of their names.35
Baltazzi money won Helene Vetsera a recognized place in this shadowy world. “All smart Vienna,” recorded one aristocrat, “went to the Vetsera Palais, and if the women said horrid things about their hostess, they enjoyed her dinner parties, for she was a thoughtful and tactful woman, who contrived that her guests should always be asked to meet the very people they desired to see. Madame Vetsera’s reputation was not what is usually termed good but … much is forgiven a woman who spends money in lavishly entertaining other people.”36
Clad in expensive gowns, armed with a French chef, and profligate in her hospitality, Helene Vetsera soon earned a reputation as one of Vienna’s most intriguing, if still suspect, social figures. Her parties, reported the Wiener Salonblatt, “were of great interest” to fashionable society.37 Some of the more adventurous elements willingly crossed Helene Vetsera’s threshold, and there were even reciprocal invitations from the German and British ambassadors, but few among Vienna’s entrenched aristocracy returned the favor.38