The Archduke John Salvator—His many accomplishments—His criticisms
of his superiors—His disgrace at Court—His love affair with an
English lady—“Your darling Archduckling”—His proposal to abandon his
rank and earn his living as a teacher of languages—His love affair
with Milly Stübel—He quarrels with Francis Joseph, takes the name of
John Orth, and leaves Austria.
“John Orth,” as we shall have to call him, was the Archduke John
Salvator: the brother of the Grand Duke of Tuscany—the uncle of the
Archduke who was to become “Herr Wulfling,” and of the Princess who was
to marry Signor Toselli. This is the branch of the House of Habsburg
which has been most conspicuous in its revolt against the Habsburg
traditions; and the Archduke John Salvator’s place among them is that
of the first of the family rebels. He was not only a rebel in love; he
also caused trouble, and got into trouble, as soldier and politician.
He was a man of many accomplishments: one who “fancied himself,” not
only as a soldier, and a sailor, and a pamphleteer, but also as a
musical composer. He composed a waltz, which enjoyed a great vogue,
not only in Vienna; and then, suspecting that its popularity might
be due to his rank, he decided to compose something more ambitious,
and produce it anonymously. The great work was a ballet—_Les
Assassins_—which was duly staged at the Vienna Opera as the production
of a new and unknown man. Its anonymity would not have impaired
its prospects if the Vienna Opera had had a Press agent who knew
his business as the modern Press agents know theirs. Dark hints,
mysteriously whispered, would then have stimulated the curiosity of
the public and invited the applause of the connoisseurs and leaders
of opinion. But the Press agents did not know their business—perhaps
there were no Press agents in those days; and the ballet itself,
though pretty good for an Archduke, did not come up to the standard
of professional musicians. Its reception was chilly, and its run was
short; so the Archduke John Salvator turned his activity into other
channels.
While little more than a boy he became a military critic and a
political agitator, publishing his first pamphlet on the organisation
of the Austrian army when he was no more than twenty-one. The gist of
his remarks was that the Austrian military system had got into a rut,
and that the Austrian artillery was defective. Incidentally, too, he
criticised the conduct of the Austrian Foreign Office; and the Foreign
Minister made representations, with the result that the Archduke was
sent to Cracow, to be out of the way. In his exile, however, he wrote
more pamphlets, setting forth that the frontier fortifications were
valueless, and that the War Minister did not know his business. He
also lectured at the Military Club on the Austrian system of military
education, which he declared to be wooden, and to deprive the soldiers
of all initiative and resource. That lecture was a veiled attack upon
the Archduke Albert, the victor of Custozza; so the Archduke John
Salvator was once more politely exiled—this time to a command at Linz.
Decidedly this Archduke was _frondeur_, with inclinations towards
Liberalism; and there were precedents for those inclinations in his
family. He was the grandson of that Grand Duke of Tuscany who put an
end to the Inquisition in his dominions; and an ancestor of his had
been the first legitimate potentate to recognise the French Republic
after the Revolution. Nothing was more natural, therefore, than that he
should have a good word to say for the Austrian rebels of 1848; though
it was inevitable that his praise of them should shock conservative
circles. So he sulked at Linz, while officialdom sulked at Vienna; and
there was further commotion when he posed his candidature, without
asking the Emperor’s leave, for the vacant throne of Bulgaria. The
Crown Prince was sent to him, to inform him that he had incurred
Francis Joseph’s displeasure; and he was stripped even of his rights
over his own regiment of artillery.
If he and Rudolph _did_, as Countess Marie Larisch suggests, put their
heads together and talk about a _coup d’état_ and the usurpation of
the throne of Hungary, that punishment may well have furnished the
starting point of their treasonable confabulations. The two Archdukes
were close friends and kindred spirits: among other enterprises, they
had combined to expose the spiritualistic medium, Harry Bastian, to
the horror and disgust of the superstitious sections of Viennese
society. Moreover, the Archduke John Salvator may be supposed to
have sympathised with Rudolph’s love affairs, for he had, as we are
about to see, a very similar love affair of his own. These facts no
doubt furnish a prelude, more or less fitting, to his appearance in
Countess Marie Larisch’s narrative as the mysterious stranger to whom
she handed Rudolph’s steel casket of compromising documents; and if
Countess Marie’s recollection of what he said to her on that occasion
is correct, he was himself the principal person whom those documents
might have compromised:—
“Never mind,” she reports him as saying. “Things have happened for the
best; you could not save a coward like Rudolph, but you’ve saved my
life.”
And he added that he was going to “die without dying,” because he was
“tired of the hollow things of life”; and her comment is:—
“Has he died without dying? I think so. And I believe that the
Archduke, despite all evidence to the contrary, will return in his own
good time.”
And Princess Louisa of Tuscany, it is to be noted, says pretty much
the same. To her also, and to her brother Leopold, the Archduke John
Salvator announced his intentions:—
“I am about to disappear, my dear children, and I shall do so in such
a manner that no one will ever find me. When the Emperor is dead I
will return, for then Austria will require my services.”
And her comment is:—
“Papa was convinced to the day of his death that his brother was
alive; and, as time proves all things, the Emperor’s death will
perhaps solve the mystery, for Austria may then require the services
of John Orth in the international complications which will no doubt
follow.”
But all that is mere conjecture; and the conjectures belong to a later
stage of the story. The solid fact to be set down here is that the
Archduke John Salvator, having received the signification of Francis
Joseph’s displeasure, sought and obtained Francis Joseph’s permission
to quit the Austrian army, and retired to live quietly at his Castle
of Orth, on the shores of the Lake of Gmunden. But his position and
aspirations had, meanwhile, been complicated by a love affair with a
fascinating nymph of the ballet.
It was not his first love affair: the woman who first taught the
Archduke John Salvator to love was English. He met her, when he was
only a lieutenant of hussars, on an Austrian Lloyd steamer, in the
course of a journey from Port Said to Trieste. One of his letters
to her has got into the hands of those who collect such things; and
it shows us the Archduke already cherishing the dream dreamt by so
many Habsburgs of flying from pomp in order to indulge an honourable
passion, and proving himself as capable as any meaner man of supporting
a family by honest toil. It will be seen that he expresses his contempt
for his illustrious title by a pretty play upon words. This is the
communication:—
“Most darlingest of angel girls. I must lavish on you terms of
endearment. You are my loveliest love, _mia cara carissima_, _ma petite
chérie_, my own sweet rose of Kent. I thought myself often in love
before I had the happiness to meet you, but was mistaken. You fill
my soul as nobody else has ever done. I am in despair at being told
I must not pay you further attention. My Imperial rank stands in the
way, say you and your honoured mother, of courtship _pour le bon
motif_. It should, did I not realise the utter vanity of being penned
up with a tribe of seventy relatives on an isolated peak. I hate my
position, and am determined to live as a man should, and not like a
poor creature who must be spoon-fed from the cradle to the grave. It
depends on you whether I shall go on as an ‘arch-duckling’ or not.
You spoke of the sad life of Penny Smith. Yes, it was a sad one; but
why? The Prince of Capua had not the manliness to go and work for a
living for himself and his wife. My courage is equal to emigrating
to Australia, where I am sure I should fall on my feet. I could be a
manager of a theatre, a teacher of French, German, Italian, or the
curator of a zoo or a botanical garden, or I could be a riding-master
or a stock-rider. Without going so far as Australia, I might get
married in Italy to the girl of my choice. I was born a Tuscan, and
the statutes of the grand-ducal family are dead letters there. As you
can never be an Archduchess, I shall be only too happy to cease to be
an Archduke, but hope ever to be counted your darling Archduckling.
“JOHANN.
“——or, since you like my soft Italian name, Giovanni—but not on any
account (Don) Juan.”
It is, in very truth, a remarkable document; but it is the sort of
document which never surprises one when emanating from a Habsburg
pen—and perhaps ought not to surprise one when emanating from any
royal or imperial pen. In the House of Habsburg, as in many other royal
and imperial houses—and notably those of the Wittelsbachs and the
Neapolitan Bourbons—we find many men and women who have combined great
ardour in love with a passionate desire for the domestic tranquillity
of the common lot, and the lives of obscure citizens of the middle
classes. Examples which occur on the spur of the moment are those of
Queen Cristina of Spain, who married ex-Private Muñoz, the son of a
Madrid tobacconist, and played parlour games in the Palace with that
tobacconist and his family; of Queen Cristina’s sister, the Duchesse
de Berry, who married, _en secondes noces_, the impecunious young
diplomat, Lucchesi-Palli, and bore him innumerable children; of that
Archduke John, who was united so happily to the daughter of the village
postmaster; of that Archduke Henry, whose wife, Leopoldine Hoffmann,
the actress, was created Countess of Waldeck.
Such were the exemplars—though one could name many more—whose
temperament and tastes the Archduke John Salvator shared; but his
advances, as both the letter and the sequel show, did not this time
inspire confidence. The lady, it seems, did not love him for himself
alone—saw no beauty in the prospect of becoming the bride of a teacher
of languages, or a riding-master, or the curator of the Zoological
Gardens at Sydney or Melbourne; and perhaps she was, from the worldly
point of view, wise. Habsburgs who are ready to turn their hands
to anything have sometimes had to turn their hands to very menial
occupations. Within the last few years an appeal was made to Francis
Joseph to do something for a Habsburg—a descendant of the Archduke
Ernest—who had fallen (or risen) to be head waiter in a _café_ at
Buda-Pesth. The lady whom the Archduke John Salvator had once proposed
to support in modest comfort by means of honest toil may since perhaps
have heard of that incident with curiously mixed emotions.
At all events, she did not marry the Archduke—her mother, as appears
from the letter, intervening; and he, on his part, did not keep single
for her sake—or, at all events, did not keep unattached. Princess
Louisa tells us that he wanted to marry her, his niece, the future
bride of Signor Toselli; but that is as it may be. His desire to do
so was, at any rate, kept under control. One thinks of him rather as
one of those Habsburgs whom the bare idea of consanguineous marriage
revolts; and one knows that he met his fate, in a sentimental sense,
while shooting with some of his brother officers in the Semmering
district. One cannot do better than borrow the poetical picture of the
scene presented to us by his biographer, Mme. de Faucigny-Lucinge:—
“It was one of those moments when the human soul feels the need of
fusion and communion with the mysteries of nature. The Prince was
walking in a favourite path of his—a discreet refuge in which his
companions had always been accustomed to leave him alone. Of a sudden
he found himself in the presence of a girl whose delicate features
and pensive gaze attracted his attention. Her eyes were gentle, and
her lips were lighted with a smile. As he overheard her talking with
her parents, it seemed to the Archduke that he had long been familiar
with that melodious voice, so fraught with enchantment to all who
listened to it; for the things which most delight us always seem like
reminiscences of some previous life.”
Nothing happened, however, at the moment. The Archduke passed by
without speaking—too shy to speak, perhaps, though that, in the light
of the letter which we have just read, is not very easy to believe; but
he did not forget. To quote the same narrator:—
“His thoughts came back, again and again, to the girl who had appeared
to him in such poetical circumstances, in an Autumn twilight. He
wanted to know who she was; and having learnt that her home was in
Vienna, where she lived with her parents, and that her name was Milly
Stübel, and that she was one of the artistes employed at the Opera, he
sought and found an opportunity of meeting her again. Every time that
he met her, it was a fresh pleasure to him to remark the originality
and the attractive complexity of her gifted nature. Soon they were
passing long hours in each other’s society; and it was the unspeakable
joy of musical harmony which attached him, for ever more, to Milly;
for music is far more eloquent than words.”
One has no difficulty in believing it; for that is what the Habsburgs
are like. One after another, they find their way to the common lot
by taking a perfectly sincere and simple interest in the ordinary
occupations and amusements of ordinary people. Sometimes those
interests are domestic, as in the case of the Archduke Charles
Ferdinand, who is said to have proposed marriage in the kitchen; they
sometimes are artistic, as in the case of Princess Louisa of Tuscany,
who was at the piano when she first spoke of love to Signor Toselli.
So that it was quite in conformity with the family traits that the
Archduke John Salvator should forget his rank, in order to talk musical
criticism with the ballet-girl; and it was equally in accordance with
the family traits that the talk should soon become affectionately
intimate.
They talked of marriage: to the Austrian ballet-girl, as to the English
lady, the Archduke spoke of his ability to earn a competence by the
sweat of his brow—not, this time, as a teacher of languages or a
keeper of wild beasts, but as a skipper in the merchant service. In a
sense it was idle talk, for he had money enough in the bank to keep
both himself and a wife in comfort; but he wanted the common lot, and
labour, as well as matrimony, was a part of it. Nor was he making an
empty boast; for he had passed the tests, and held a master mariner’s
certificate. That was the condition of things with him when, not long
after the Meyerling tragedy, he had his final quarrel with Francis
Joseph.
The ultimate grounds and the immediate occasion of that quarrel remain
uncertain. From Countess Marie Larisch’s narrative one would gather
that, whatever the proximate cause may have been, the final cause was
the Hungarian plot. Princess Louisa, on the other hand, has a story
that Francis Joseph ordered him to apologise for language which he had
used to the Archduke Albert, and that he refused to do so. Both stories
may be true; and the Archduke’s determination to marry an opera nymph
may also have been a contributory cause of disagreement. The actual
scene is described by Princess Louisa, who may be supposed to have had
her information from the Archduke himself:—
“Uncle John” (she tells us) “said in his bold way that he would leave
the army and the Court rather than be dictated to, and he concluded by
declaring that he did not care in the least whether he was a member
of the Imperial House. A storm followed this rank apostasy, and my
uncle, in a fit of ungovernable rage, tore off his Order of the Golden
Fleece, and flung it at the Emperor.”
The Emperor, as may be supposed, was not melted, but rather hardened,
by that appeal to his feelings; so that, when the Archduke presently
announced his desire to resign his rank and titles, take the name of
“John Orth,” and leave Austria, Francis Joseph replied that he might
take any name he chose, and go where he liked, but that, if he ever
attempted to return, he would find that the Austrian police had orders
to arrest him as soon as he crossed the frontier. Those were the
circumstances in which he departed; and Milly Stübel departed with him.
He could not marry her in Austria, but he had promised to marry her in
London.