All of the hopes of Franz-Josef, the late Emperor of Austria-Hungary, were centered in his only son, the Crown Prince Rudolf. This promising young man was married to the Princess Stephanie, daughter of Leopold II, late King of the Belgians, but the union was unhappy. Rudolf was of a lively disposition, care-free, dashing, and fond of adventure, while his wife was moody, sullen and jealous. Thus were supplied two points of the "eternal triangle." The woman in the case was the beautiful young Baroness, Maria Vetsera.
For some time Princess Stephanie had wished a divorce, and Rudolf was willing to supply her with all the necessary legal grounds, but his stern father, the Emperor, forbade such collusion. Rudolf, like his cousin, the Grand Duke Johann Salvator,* offered to relinquish all of his honors for the woman he loved-to give up his rights to the throne if he could but wed Marie Vetsera.
Rudolf arranged a gay house party late in January, 1889. The scene was the castle of Meyer-ling, twelve miles from Vienna. His beloved Marie was one of the guests. On the morning of January 30th, one of Rudolf's servants entered his bed-chamber and beheld a scene which turned his blood cold. Before him the sole heir to the
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throne of Austria-Hungary lay dead. At first it was given out that the young Crown Prince during the night had died of apoplexy, but as he was only thirty and possessed of a magnificent physique, this story was not credited by medical men, and the suspicion became broadcast that the public was being deceived by the court bulletins. Later there was issued an announcement that Rudolf had committed suicide, and great excitement resulted. But a third shock was in store for the subjects of Franz-Josef. There gradually leaked out the, fact that the corpse of Baroness Marie Vetsera had been found with that of the Crown Prince.
Then followed a long list of conflicting theories as to the cause of the Meyerling tragedy. According to one story Rudolf, during the gay house party at the castle, had told the Baroness of his father's refusal to allow his divorce, and that she, unwilling to live without him, had killed herself. Some say that she left a note, beseeching him to follow her into eternity, and that upon finding this he had covered her corpse with a pall of flowers, had lain upon the floor beside her couch and blown out his brains with an army pistol.
According to a further theory, the lovers, as soon as they discovered their marriage to be hopeless, had entered upon a suicide pact, that
72 Famous Mysteries
Rudolf agreed to shoot the Baroness between the shoulder blades, and that he left a note explaining that he had placed the bullet where it " would not mar her beauty."
It was asserted in some quarters that Marie had a fiance whom she had promised to jilt for Rudolf, that this nobleman was present at the house party, that Rudolf in a fit of jealousy over her attentions to his rival had shot her, that her other suitor had brained Rudolf with a chair, and that the Crown Prince's servants had later killed his slayer. There was another story that Marie herself had shot Rudolf and had then taken poison. And it was further related that the Crown Prince while hunting had been shot by a peasant whom he had once subjected to cruelty, whereupon the Baroness Marie, upon seeing his corpse brought back to the castle, had committed suicide from grief.
Some time after the tragedy, a New York newspaper published evidence purporting to prove that Rudolf and his beloved Marie were living in voluntary exile in America under assumed names, and other newspapers have from time to time hinted that the story of the Meyerling tragedy had been a hoax designed to cover up a scandal and enable him to lose himself in foreign lands. Several times in recent years persons have
asserted that they had seen Rudolf in various parts of America. An authoritative encyclopedia re-cords its skepticism of the official account of his death by stating that he was "believed" to have taken his own life.
After Rudolf's mysterious death the right of succession to the throne of Austria-Hungary fell to the Emperor's brother, Charles Louis. But, sharing the proverbial "Hapsburg luck," so long a synonym for tragedy, the latter died, leaving the succession to his son, Archduke Francis Ferdinand.
Indeed, throughout his long reign, Franz Josef was a man of sorrows. Shortly after his coronation had come his unhappy marriage with the Princess Elizabeth of Bavaria; their mysterious quarrel, her flight, and their eight years of separation; then the execution of Franz Josef's brother, the Emperor Maximilian, of Mexico; and on top of the terrible Meyerling tragedy came the mysterious disappearance of Franz Josef's nephew, Grand Duke Johann Salvator; the disgrace and banishment of the Emperor's sole surviving brother, Louis Victor; the murder of Franz Josef's consort, the Empress Elizabeth, at Geneva, and finally the assassination of the heir to the throne, the Archduke Francis Ferdinand and the latter's morganatic wife, that crime
which William II of Germany used as a pretext for starting the bloody European war.
Probably the truth that has lain hidden behind the Meyerling tragedy for more than a generation will never be uncovered. The world knows as little about it today as it did upon the morning of its occurrence)
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