Fantastic legends of the Meyerling tragedy—Talks with the Crown
Prince’s valet—Foolish story given by _Berliner Lokal Anzeiger_—What
the Grand Duke of Tuscany knew—What Count Nigra knew—What Countess
Marie Larisch tells—Her story confirmed from a contemporary
source—Doubts which remain in spite of it—Was it suicide or murder?
There are, as has been said, innumerable Meyerling legends, most of
them fantastic, and not all of them of contemporaneous origin. The
mystery has continued to fascinate the world; fresh solutions of it
are continually turning up. In every newspaper office some stranger
presents himself, from time to time, offering to tell the truth, as he
has heard it from one of the very few who knew it; now and again the
stranger’s offer is accepted. But, as a matter of fact, all the queer
stories thus circulated can be traced to one of two sources,—neither
of them sources in which any confidence can be placed.
The boon companions who were with Rudolph at Meyerling were Prince
Philip of Saxe-Coburg, Count Hoyos, and Count Bombelles; and they, at
any rate, have never taken the newspapers into their confidence. There
were also present the Crown Prince’s confidential valet, Loschek, and
the coachman nicknamed Bratfisch (or Fried Fish), who had endeared
himself to the Crown Prince by his talents as a whistler. It has been
stated that Bratfisch was sent to America, and died in a lunatic asylum
in New York; but, as a matter of fact, he died of pneumonia in Vienna,
in 1892. It is possible that he talked; but no specific statement can
be traced to him. The case of Loschek is different.
Loschek was indubitably a babbler. The world is full of men who claim
to have heard the truth about the Meyerling tragedy from Loschek.
The late Robert Barr, the novelist, told the present writer that he
had heard the truth about Meyerling from Loschek while walking over
an Alpine pass with him. The happy thought has often occurred to
journalists of all nations that, if they could make Loschek drunk,
they might extract the truth from him. But Loschek was wise in his
generation, and discreet in a manner of his own. He knew that he could
not trust himself to hold his tongue under the combined influence of
good cheer and genial company; so he adopted the alternative policy of
telling a different story to every interlocutor. It is possible that
one of his stories may have been true; but it naturally passed the wit
of journalists to decide which of them to credit. The testimony of
Loschek, therefore, may be dismissed.
One story in particular in which Loschek’s name appears may be
dismissed with Countess Marie Larisch’s assistance. It was telegraphed
from Vienna to the _Berliner Lokal Anzeiger_, and purported to be
based upon statements contained in a letter received from “Baron Louis
Vetsera, brother of Mary Vetsera, who recently died in Venezuela.” This
Louis Vetsera, it was set forth, was one of those who forced the door,
and discovered the dead bodies. The newspaper cutting was shown to
Countess Marie, who courteously supplied the following comment:—
“Mary Vetsera’s brother was not called Louis, but Ferenz (Ferry). Her
eldest brother, Laszlo, was one of those burnt, many years ago, in the
Ring Theatre. Ferry Vetsera was, at the time of the tragedy, only a
boy of fourteen or fifteen years of age. He was not at Meyerling, nor
was he one of those summoned there afterwards.”
That is conclusive, and shows us how history is sometimes made. Our
other sources of information—trustworthy as far as they go—are in
the so-called “confidences” of Count Nigra, the Italian Ambassador
at Vienna, and Princess Louisa of Tuscany’s father, the Grand Duke
Ferdinand. They both saw Rudolph’s body when laid out for burial;
and they both brought from the spectacle, if not a story, at least a
theory, and the material for a story.
“Papa said” (writes Princess Louisa), “that when he arrived at Vienna,
Rudolph had been dead barely eight hours. He went into the room at the
Hofburg where the body lay, and was horrified to see that the skull
was smashed in, and that pieces of broken bottle-glass protruded from
it.”
With which account we may compare the longer and more detailed story
of Count Nigra, communicated to a representative of the Italian
_Corriera della Sera_:—
“He was killed—and in the most awful manner. I had the good or bad
fortune—I do not know which to call it—to be the first of the
ambassadors to arrive at Meyerling on that fatal morning. The Emperor
was not yet there. The Prince was laid out on his bed; a large
white bandage covered his forehead and temples. At the sound of my
footsteps, his valet Loschek ran up and led me close to the dead body.
With looks rather than with words, I interrogated him as to the cause
of this tragedy; and the faithful servant, in order to give the lie
to the rumour of suicide which had already been spread, lifted up the
bandage. Inside either the right or the left temple—my recollection
on that point is vague—there was a hole so large that you could have
thrust your fist into it.
“The skull appeared to be smashed—shattered as if from a blow of a
bottle or a big stick. It was horrible. The hair, the fragments of
bone, had been driven into the brain. The wound gaped open beneath and
behind the ear in such a fashion that it seemed materially impossible
that it could have been self-inflicted. A suicide? Surely not! It was
an assassination—I am absolutely positive of that.”
Count Nigra, it will be observed, confirms the medical certificate
with regard to the position of the wound, but does not confirm the
Grand Duke’s statement that broken bottle-glass protruded from it. Yet
Count Nigra could hardly have failed to mention the bottle-glass if
he had seen it. Probably it was not there; probably the reference to
it is due to Princess Louisa’s conjectural emendation of her father’s
story—or it may be that her father came to believe that he had seen
it, because it fitted in with the popular legend which had become
current.
That legend was, as is well known, that Rudolph had been killed with
a blow from a champagne bottle in a quarrel which broke out in the
course of a drunken orgy. According to some witnesses—if one can call
them witnesses—the blow was struck by one of the boon companions.
According to others, it was struck by Mary Vetsera herself, after a
scene of jealousy; and the part which the boon companions played in the
drama was to shoot Mary Vetsera. It cannot be said that Count Nigra’s
description of the wound really confirms either version of the story.
He made no scientific examination of the skull, but only glanced at it
hurriedly; and the inferences which he drew from his hurried inspection
may very well have been mistaken. But he talked; and his talk was
obviously the ultimate source of all the various versions of the
champagne bottle legend. They are all based upon that talk; and one can
find no corroborative evidence of any one of them.
There is, in particular, no evidence that there was any drunken orgy
whatsoever at Meyerling, or that, if there was, either Rudolph or Mary
Vetsera took part in it. On the contrary, it was alleged by the boon
companions, and assumed by the physicians, that the tragedy took place
behind closed doors: that Rudolph, declaring himself to be fatigued,
retired early to the apartment in which Mary—of whose presence at
Meyerling the boon companions were unaware—was awaiting him. That
is what Countess Marie Larisch says—her informant being Professor
Wiederhofer; and her narrative corresponds, in all essentials, with the
story told by the special investigator of the French paper _L’Eclair_.
This is what the latter inquirer tells us:—
“The guests came home late from shooting, and soon retired to their
several rooms, the Crown Prince having complained of fatigue. He left
them to go to his own room, where Mary Vetsera had been brought,
without their knowledge, by the coachman Bratfisch. The party did not
sup together, and no one else was at Meyerling that night.
“In the morning the Duke and the Count, astonished that the Archduke
did not come down, and feeling uneasy because there was no response
when they knocked at his door, caused the door to be forced. They saw
the two corpses lying on the bed. The double suicide was evident. In
their amazement, and in the hope of avoiding scandal, they wished
to hush the matter up. They wished it to be believed that there had
been an accident in the hunting field; so they spread a report to
that effect, and, in order to gain credence for it, they caused Mary
Vetsera’s body, fully dressed, to be removed in circumstances of
mystery.”
The differences between this narrative and that of Countess Marie
Larisch are of minor importance; the resemblances are striking. In
particular it is to be noted that we get from the French journalist a
contemporary confirmation of Countess Marie’s account of the mysterious
disposal and burial of Mary Vetsera’s body.[4] Countess Marie adds
many gruesome details; but the story which she supports is one which
had already been published, albeit in an obscure quarter and without
attracting attention. Even the detail that the body was dressed for
removal was, as we have seen, in the Frenchman’s narrative.
[Footnote 4: The same story was also told, long ago, in Paris, to Mrs.
Clarence Andrews, by Alexander Baltazzi.]
We may take it as established, therefore, that the tragedy—whether
murder or suicide—did, in fact, take place behind closed doors. There
were no witnesses of what happened there; and the circumstantial
evidence is, as we have seen, conflicting—the considerations which
have to be balanced against each other being these:—
1. Both Rudolph and Mary Vetsera are said to have written letters
announcing their intention of dying together.
2. The description of Rudolph’s wound, given in the medical
certificates, indicates that it could not have been self-inflicted; and
this view is confirmed by the testimony of Count Nigra.
On the whole it is the medical testimony which inspires the greater
confidence. The certificates were challenged at the time; and the
doctors then pledged their professional honour that they had signed
nothing which was not in accordance with the facts—though they had no
responsibility for the inferences drawn from the facts. The letters, on
the other hand, are not all genuine; and even Countess Marie Larisch’s
letter is, at the most, only evidence of what the lovers intended,
or of what Mary Vetsera wished to be believed, but not conclusive proof
of the way in which things actually happened. So that we are obliged to
consider a possible alternative to the theory of double suicide. Did
Mary Vetsera kill her lover and then take her own life—after first
writing a letter to throw dust in the eyes of the world? Can we find
any motive which might have induced her to do so?
[Illustration:
_Photo_ _Adèle_
THE BARONESS MARY VETSERA.]
A motive can be found; and it is in Countess Marie Larisch’s narrative
that one finds it. That story which she tells of a conspiracy to usurp
the throne of Hungary may perhaps supply the clue.
Suppose there had been, if not a plot in the full sense of the word,
at least some loose talk and some compromising correspondence. Suppose
Mary was “in it,” and really believed what she wished to believe—that
the conspirators meant business, and that Rudolph was really working to
have her crowned Queen of Hungary. Suppose Rudolph had said things—and
written things—which gave some encouragement to that belief. Suppose
Rudolph had realised the impossibility of the enterprise before
finally embarking on it, and had contrived this secret interview for
the purpose of telling Mary that he could not keep his promise—that
she could only be his mistress on the same footing as any other
mistress—and of recovering from her any documentary proof of his
disloyal designs which she may have held.
If we may make those suppositions—and we need them all if we are
to attach any meaning to Rudolph’s representation to Countess Marie
that an interview with Mary might help him to avoid a mysterious
peril—then we have all the material for a credible reconstruction of
the drama. We picture Mary going to the _rendez-vous_ with gloriously
ambitious hopes, only to find the promised cup of happiness dashed
from her lips; and we picture love momentarily turned to hate by the
bitter blow of the disappointment. We see her pleading with Rudolph and
reproaching him, and Rudolph, on his part, protesting his affection,
but nevertheless opposing a sullen resistance to her entreaties. The
rest of the scene proceeds as in a melodrama.
On the table by the bedside lies Rudolph’s pistol—the pistol which
Rudolph always carried. Mary picks it up in an access of frenzy—or
possibly of jealousy, for it is quite possible that she, as well as
Stéphanie, had grounds for jealousy—vows that she will be avenged, and
pulls the trigger. Rudolph falls, and she is horrified at the spectacle
of her crime. She had forgotten—but now she realises—all that it
means and all the consequences which it must entail for her. Love and
fear impel her in the same direction, and drive her to the same act.
She feels that she has no choice but to follow Rudolph into eternity,
whether by firing a second shot or by swallowing a dose of poison. That
assuredly is how a _Juge d’Instruction_, given the facts which we have
had before us, would be tempted to “reconstitute the crime”—and also
to explain the letter.
A melodramatic reconstitution doubtless; but that fact does not deprive
it of credibility. Melodramas do happen, in real life as well as on the
stage. We read of them in newspapers nearly as often as we witness them
in theatres. Moreover, in this case, the whole story is melodramatic,
and no interpretation of it is so improbable that it must necessarily
be rejected. There are, of course, alternative possibilities. The first
shot _may_ have been fired by accident; and Mary Vetsera _may_ have
fired it as the first act in a concerted double suicide. But that she
did fire it—whether by accident or by design—whether in a fit of
passion or deliberately by agreement—seems as certain, if we believe
the medical _procès-verbaux_, as anything connected with the mystery
can ever be.
That is all that there is to be said about it; and perhaps it is all
that can ever be known about it. What happened behind closed doors
can, in the nature of the case, only be a matter of inference; and one
is bound to come back to the fact that all the documentary evidence
indirectly bearing on the tragedy is open to suspicion. The evidential
difficulties, in short, may be summed up thus:—
1. Two medical certificates give two different descriptions of the
wound.
2. The description of the wound given in both medical certificates
differs from the description of it by Count Nigra, who, at any rate,
had no motive for deceiving anyone.
3. While the descriptions of the wound are incompatible with the theory
of suicide, correspondence in which the intention to commit suicide is
clearly set forth has been published; but
4. The only one of those letters of the authenticity of which there is
any evidence, may have been written with deliberate intent to deceive.
5. There is no agreement among those who quote the letters as to their
exact text. The versions of the letters given in these pages are by
no means the only versions which have been current. There are other
longer versions, and versions which differ from those here preferred in
various particulars. Even, therefore, if we could be sure that we had
to do with genuine documents, the question would still remain whether
the documents had not been doctored.
So we must leave the mystery, offering our own reconstruction of the
drama for what it may be worth, but, at the same time, declining to
accept without reserve the story currently told that the full and
final solution of the secret is locked up, at the Hofburg, in an iron
chest, which is to be opened after the lapse of fifty years. And yet
even that story is not quite impossible; for there are two secrets,
indicated by rumour, which may conceivably be guarded thus, with a view
to disclosure at a time when the events to which they relate are remote
enough to be treated as history:—
1. It was whispered, at one time, that the tragedy of Meyerling was
due to the discovery that Rudolph and Mary were really brother and
sister: that is to say, that Francis Joseph was really Mary’s father.
The alleged iron chest might conceivably contain Francis Joseph’s
acknowledgment of that relationship/
2. There is the rumour of which Countess Marie Larisch makes so much,
of the plot to seize the Hungarian throne; and it is not inconceivable
that the alleged iron chest may contain some secret police report
bearing upon that subject.
Those are the possibilities—one can think of no others; and they
are, both of them, exceedingly remote. The former of the two rumours,
which is not, in any case, at all well accredited, strikes one as
incompatible with the Baroness Vetsera’s alleged willingness that
a _liaison_ between her daughter and the Crown Prince should be
“arranged.” Not only might the idea of such a thing have been expected
to revolt her, she would also have felt that she had “claims” on
the Emperor which dispensed her from the necessity of exploiting
her daughter by such means. The latter rumour must be regarded as
improbable on the ground that, if the alleged conspiracy had really
existed, the secret would hardly have been so well kept for so long.
And yet the suggestion, though improbable, is not quite impossible. The
secret police of Vienna are very suspicious and acute; and they are
also as unscrupulous as they are polite. The idea that there ever was
an actual plot worthy to be called a plot must indeed be discarded for
the reasons already set forth; but the idea that there was loose talk
and compromising correspondence of a quasi-seditious character is not
so fantastic. The secret police may have opened letters, or overheard
conversations, or even received information. If they had done so, they
would naturally have reported their discoveries, even if these were
rather intangible; and if it be true that there is, at the Hofburg,
an iron chest, to be opened in the fulness of time, bearing upon the
Meyerling affair, a report of the kind indicated is, after all, the
thing most likely to be found in it.
The blow, however—whatever he knew or did not know—was bound, in any
case to be a terrible one to Francis Joseph. When Count Hoyos drove
up in a sleigh in the early morning with the news, he broke down and
sobbed. Then he mastered himself, and gave the necessary orders, and
presently issued this proclamation to his people:—
“Deeply moved by a sorrow too profound for words, I humbly bow before
the inscrutable decrees of a Providence which has chosen to afflict
myself and my people, and I pray to Almighty God to grant to us all
the courage to bear the load of our irreparable loss.”
And to his Hungarian Prime Minister Tisza, he wrote:—
“I have lost everything. I had placed my hope and my faith in my son.
There remains to me now nothing but the sentiment of duty, to which I
hope to remain faithful as long as my aged bones support me.”
He must have thought, indeed, at that hour, that the cup of his sorrows
was full, and that the curse at last had done with him. But it was not
so. In spite of that devotion to duty to which he had pledged himself,
calamity after calamity was still to be heaped upon his head. Our story
of the Tragedy of Meyerling has to be followed by the story of the
tragic disappearance of John Orth.