Twilight of Empire
Page 28
Construction was under way by the tragedy’s first anniversary, when the emperor, empress, and Marie Valerie made the sad journey out to the complex to mourn Rudolf’s death. Only Stephanie and the young Archduchess Elisabeth, staying at Miramar, were absent—a fact that led to a good deal of bitter public comment.39 But the imperial couple had made no secret of the fact that they held Stephanie responsible for her husband’s death—a death she likely had no wish to commemorate with them, especially as they had pointedly ignored her and her daughter just a month earlier by marking Christmas alone with Marie Valerie and her fiancé. The requiem mass in the new chapel was a solemn affair; Elisabeth and her daughter clad in black, the emperor looking stoic as priests intoned prayers.40 It was, Marie Valerie commented in her diary, “like a bad dream.”41
Hidden away in its serene forest, Mayerling remains an evocative place of tragic romance. In 2014 the Carmelite nuns opened a visitors’ center, featuring some furniture from the lodge as well as Mary’s original copper casket and a few planks from her first pine coffin, which the monks at Heiligenkreuz had kept stored away in a cellar following her 1959 reburial.42 But little remains of the former lodge. The western side of the building was divided into cells, while the new Gothic-revival-style chapel was built directly over Rudolf’s former private apartments. In a grisly bit of design, the architect incorporated the outline of Rudolf’s bedroom into the new church, with the elaborately carved altar of Istrian marble erected on the precise spot where his bed had once stood.43 Even today the nuns still follow the emperor’s directive, gathering at the very spot of the tragedy to offer daily prayers for Rudolf’s unhappy soul.
(All images courtesy the authors’ collection unless otherwise noted)
Emperor Franz Josef, about 1875
Empress Elisabeth in her Hungarian coronation gown, 1867
The Hofburg in the nineteenth century
Crown Prince Rudolf, about 1872
Rudolf in Prussian uniform
Engagement photograph of Rudolf and Stephanie
Rudolf and Stephanie, about 1882
Stephanie with her daughter Elisabeth, 1890
Prince Philipp of Coburg (Credit: Arturo Beéche/Eurohistory Collection)
Princess Louise of Coburg (Credit: Arturo Beéche/Eurohistory Collection)
Mitzi Caspar
Josef Bratfisch
Moritz Szeps
Rudolf in the hunting ensemble he wore to Mayerling
Albin and Helene Vetsera
Mary and Hannah Vetsera
Alexander Baltazzi in 1876
Heinrich Baltazzi in 1885
Mary in fancy dress
Mary in the ice skating ensemble she wore to Mayerling
Marie Larisch and Mary, photographed at Adele’s, November 5, 1888
Archduchess Marie Valerie with Marie Larisch
Duke Miguel of Braganza
Mayerling, 1889
Johann Loschek
Count Josef Hoyos
Rudolf in death
Mary’s grave at Heiligenkreuz (Credit: Denise C. Clarke/Alfred Luckerbauer)
Mayerling today, showing the church built onto the original lodge (Credit: Denise C. Clarke/Alfred Luckerbauer)
Altar of the church at Mayerling, built atop the spot where Rudolf and Mary died (Credit: Denise C. Clarke/Alfred Luckerbauer)
NOTES
PROLOGUE
1. Cantacuzène, 64.
2. Lansdale, 146; Hamilton, 65.
3. Hamilton, 50.
4. Cited in Crankshaw, 31.
5. Marek, 22.
6. Cone, 119.
7. Marek, 21; Morton, Thunder, 29; Radziwill, Austrian Court, 131.
8. Cantacuzène, 74.
9. Paget, Scenes and Memories, 227.
10. Friedrich, Der Kriminalfall Mayerling, 140n850.
11. Louise of Belgium, 103.
12. Stephanie, 240–41.
13. Larisch, My Past, 147; Louise of Belgium, 104; Judtmann, 44; Bibl, 78–79.
14. Cantacuzène, 142–43.
15. Ibid., 79.
16. Bibl, 78; Paget, Embassies, 2:465.
17. Louise of Belgium, 103.
18. Dr. Konrad Ritter von Zdekauer, in Neues Wiener Journal, June 2, 1923.
19. Larisch, My Past, 268, 270; Der Vetsera Denkschrift, 64, in Markus and Unterreiner, 255.
20. Louise of Belgium, 102–3.
21. Larisch, My Past, 271; Judtmann, 47.
22. Hoyos Memorandum, in Haus-, Hof- und Staatsarchiv, Vienna (hereafter HHS), Box 21; also in Mitis, 342.
23. Larisch, My Past, 268.
24. Louise of Belgium, 104.
25. Dr. Konrad Ritter von Zdekauer, in Neues Wiener Journal, June 2, 1923; Le Matin, February 5, 1889.
26. Cited in Listowel, 214.
27. Larisch, My Past, 271; Louise of Belgium, 104.
28. Der Polizeibericht, 11. This seems to have happened so quickly that it escaped the attention of most of those present. On this point see Judtmann, 47. In her diary Stephanie merely recorded that she attended the event but added no details; however, Stephanie was unlikely to have written of her public humiliation. See Stephanie, 243, and Stephanie’s diary for January 27, 1889, in Hamann, Der Weg nach Mayerling, 133.
CHAPTER 1
1. Jászi, 34.
2. Mahaffy, 3–4.
3. Taylor, Habsburg Monarchy, 47; Hamann, Reluctant Empress, 7.
4. Haslip, Lonely Empress, 21; Marek, 41.
5. de Weindel, 63; Mahaffy, 8–9, 11–12.
6. Ernst, 45; Listowel, 44.
7. Rumbold, Austrian Court, 158.
8. Strong, 49.
9. Harding, 254–57.
10. Jászi, 34.
11. Taylor, Habsburg Monarchy, 9.
12. Margutti, 19.
13. Ernst, 187.
14. Margutti, 50.
15. Ibid., 44.
16. Ibid., 38, 49.
17. Taylor, Fall of the Dynasties, 93.
18. Margutti, 38.
19. Nikitsch-Boulles, 47–48.
20. Margutti, 216; Corti, Empress Elisabeth, 13; Ernst, 20.
21. Crown Prince Rudolf to Josef Latour von Thurmberg, letter of December 2, 1881, HHS, Box 16; also quoted in Mitis, 205–6; and in Hamann, Majestät, ich warne Sie, 10.
22. Jászi, 116.
23. Countess Marie Festetics, diary entry of 1873, cited in Marek, 203–4.
24. Taylor, Fall of the Dynasties, 89; de Weindel, 27; Palmer, 65.
25. Redlich, 201, 205; Bagger, 248; Corti, Empress Elisabeth, 22.
26. Corti, Empress Elisabeth, 26.
27. Hamann, Reluctant Empress, 45.
28. Haslip, Lonely Empress, 74; Hamann, Reluctant Empress, 46–47.
29. Corti, Empress Elisabeth, 49; Palmer, 78; Hamann, Reluctant Empress, 47.
30. Cited in Hamann, Reluctant Empress, 72.
31. Cited in Marek, 106.
32. Corti, Empress Elisabeth, 49–50.
33. Ibid., 54.
34. Crankshaw, 111.
35. Larisch, My Past, 137.
36. Hamann and Hassmann, 18, 30–31.
37. Corti, Empress Elisabeth, 81–82.
38. Ibid., 201–2.
39. Hamann, Reluctant Empress, 231–32.
40. Corti, Empress Elisabeth, 90; Haslip, Lonely Empress, 137; Margutti, 64; Vivian, 77; Martyrdom, 49; Marek, 128; Larisch, My Past, 154–55.
41
. Haslip, Lonely Empress, 140–41; Listowel, 12–13.
42. Haslip, Lonely Empress, 141.
43. Corti, Empress Elisabeth, 143–44.
44. Ibid., 206–7.
45. Louisa of Tuscany, 51–52.
46. Larisch, My Past, 98–101.
47. Paoli, 6–9.
48. Corti, Empress Elisabeth, 411.
49. Cited in Hamann, Reluctant Empress, 250.
50. Margutti, 75.
51. Corti, Empress Elisabeth, 186.
52. Franz Josef to Katharina Schratt, letter of August 7, 1866, in Nostitz-Rieneck, 1:57–58; Corti, Empress Elisabeth, 152.
53. Margutti, 26, 44–45; de Weindel, 243–44; Rumbold, Francis Joseph, 329.
54. Beller, 138.
55. Corti, Empress Elisabeth, 327; Haslip, Lonely Empress, 346.
56. Kürnberg, 99–100.
57. See Morton, Nervous, 23; Morton, Thunder, 85.
58. Marek, 215.
59. Haslip, Lonely Empress, 358–59.
CHAPTER 2
1. Haslip, Mexico, 112.
2. Thiele, Crown Prince Rudolf, 8.
3. Corti, Empress Elisabeth, 77.
4. Ibid.; Listowel, 8; Franzel, 75; Mitis, 15; Salvendy, 8.
5. Judtmann, 14; Marek, 256; Salvendy, 39.
6. Unterreiner, Emperor Franz Joseph, 52.
7. Marie Valerie, diary entry of May 29, 1884, cited in Salvendy, 129; Barkeley, 32; Ernst, 186; Lónyay, 25.
8. Lónyay, 20.
9. Haslip, Lonely Empress, 16.
10. Listowel, 18.
11. Corti, Empress Elisabeth, 102; cited in Salvendy, 15.
12. Unterreiner, Crown Prince Rudolf, 2.
13. Rudolf to Latour von Thurmberg, letter of December 2, 1881, in HHS, Box 16; also in Barkeley, 82.
14. Mitis, 23; Listowel, 17, 26; Barkeley, 11; Salvendy, 13, 151; Lónyay, 23.
15. Salvendy, 11.
16. Bibl, 183.
17. Mitis, 16, 43; Franzel, 76.
18. Lónyay, 11–12.
19. Corti, Empress Elisabeth, 12; Franzel, 25.
20. Lónyay, 12.
21. Corti, Empress Elisabeth, 110; Lónyay, 12.
22. Marek, 166; Salvendy, 14–15.
23. Barkeley, 12; Listowel, 20–21.
24. Empress Elisabeth to Franz Josef, letter of August 24, 1865, cited in Corti, Empress Elisabeth, 123–24.
25. Haslip, Lonely Empress, 273–74.
26. Hamann, Reluctant Empress, 123; Margutti, 88; Mitis, 16; Listowel, 23; Barkeley, 13.
27. Mitis, 16.
28. Cited in Barkeley, 35.
29. Listowel, 29–30; Barkeley, 10; Corti, Empress Elisabeth, 125; Mitis, 20; Lónyay, 18; Thiele, Crown Prince Rudolf, 12.
30. Mitis, 128–29.
31. Ibid., 22.
32. Ibid.
33. Latour von Thurmberg report, May 1868, quoted in Lónyay, 50; Latour von Thurmberg report, December 15, 1868, quoted in ibid., 49.
34. Rudolf, diary entry of December 1872, cited in Barkeley, 25.
35. Rudolf to Latour von Thurmberg, 1881, cited in ibid., 74.
36. Rudolf to King Ludwig II of Bavaria, letter of March 9, 1878, quoted in Mitis, 198–99.
37. Rudolf, notebook entry, December 1873, in HHS, Box 12; also in Mitis, 26–27.
38. Ibid.
39. Rudolf, last will, April 15, 1879, quoted in Mitis, 200–201.
40. Crankshaw, 294.
41. Margutti, 87.
42. Crankshaw, 293; Morton, Nervous, 174; Franzel, 29.
43. Jászi, 120; Ronay, 58.
44. Rudolf, Notes on Sport, 2, 28.
45. Corti, Empress Elisabeth, 211–12; Listowel, 35.
46. Ronay, 56–57.
47. Margutti, 87.
48. Lónyay, 101.
49. Cone, 147.
50. de Weindel, 104.
51. Margutti, 105–6; Mitis, 33; Listowel, 51; Bibl, 187.
52. Corti, Empress Elisabeth, 281.
53. Mitis, 38
54. Rudolf to King Ludwig II of Bavaria, letter of January 1878, quoted in Mitis, 198–99.
55. Cited in Barkeley, 40–41.
56. Cornwallis-West, 106; Barkeley, 44.
57. Corti, Empress Elisabeth, 286; Haslip, Lonely Empress, 303–4.
58. Mitis, 49; Listowel, 62–63; Lónyay, 56; Franzel, 78.
59. Listowel, 64; Lónyay, 57–58; Mitis, 61–63.
60. Mitis, 63.
61. Margutti, 91.
62. Ibid., 82–83.
63. Radziwill, Austrian Court, 121–22; Grant, 36; Louise of Belgium, 106.
64. Stephanie, 23; Radziwill, My Recollections, 143.
65. Louise of Belgium, 106.
66. Grant, 36; Wölfing, 50.
67. Radziwill, Austrian Court, 122,
68. Marie Festetics, diary entry of June 9, 1881, in Corti, Empress Elisabeth, 307.
69. Quoted in Mitis, 31–32.
70. Wölfing, 49.
71. Larisch, My Past, 89, 91, 46.
72. Cited, Hamann, Reluctant Empress, 323.
73. Marie Valerie, diary entry of December 9, 1887, quoted in Corti, Empress Elisabeth, 405.
74. Marie Valerie, diary entry of June 20, 1885, cited in Salvendy, 128.
75. Haslip, Lonely Empress, 293.
CHAPTER 3
1. Mitis, 24.
2. Judtmann, 17; Barkeley, 33; Lónyay, 17.
3. Listowel, 118.
4. Corti, Empress Elisabeth, 296.
5. Monts, 98.
6. Wölfing, 49.
7. Cited in Listowel, 121.
8. Barta, 27.
9. Lónyay, 134.
10. Grant, 111, 104.
11. Vacaresco, 100–101.
12. Lónyay, 130–33.
13. Hamann, Der Weg nach Mayerling, 114.
14. Lónyay, 134.
15. Listowel, 119; Marek, 500n5; Barta, 35. Robert Pachmann, the alleged son, later sued for legal recognition as a Habsburg and moved to America.