Twilight of Empire by Greg King

Author:Greg King
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: St. Martin's Press

PART III

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Rudolf’s interment did nothing to stop the onrush of escalating rumors about events at Mayerling. Within twenty-four hours of his funeral, newspapers had managed to ferret out the basic circumstances, describing the movements and actions of Loschek and Hoyos at the lodge.1 But few were convinced by the official version. “The story that someone killed Rudolf is as of much value as the carefully elaborated account of his suicide,” The New York Times reported on February 3. “Berlin, Brussels, and Paris are full of rumors, all discrediting the theory that the Prince took his own life.”2

It didn’t take long for the foreign press to learn of Mary Vetsera and spin out a tale of tragic romance. On February 2 Munich’s Neuesten Nachrichten reported that the young baroness had committed suicide with Rudolf at Mayerling.3 The following day Le Figaro noted “much talk about of a single disappearance: the Baroness Mary W[sic], who has not been seen since Tuesday. The family claims she is at Schloss Pardubitz [Pardubice, the Larisch estate in Bohemia] but no one has seen her and the public does not believe it.”4 By February 5 Le Temps was reporting that “the death of a beautiful young girl, whose father was a baron, has produced a great sensation in Vienna.”5 But the rival French paper Le Matin scooped its competitors with “the fantastic tale of the mysterious disappearance of Baroness Vetsera related to the tragic drama of Mayerling.” Mary, it declared, was “among the most beautiful women in Vienna, with velvety eyes, a queenly attitude, and a romantic character; her appearance was very admired in worldly circles, which always welcomed her with murmurs of admiration.” Hours after the public learned of Rudolf’s death, “word got around that the young lady had committed suicide and been mysteriously buried at night.”6

Vienna was still reeling. “It is all too sad and dreadful,” recorded Walburga Paget. “They are most anxious to believe it was Mary Vetsera who inveigled the Crown Prince into all this. But how so silly a girl could have persuaded so clever a man as the Crown Prince of Austria to end his life in such a stupid, dirty, undignified and melodramatic way I cannot conceive. I cannot see the logic—it was not baffled on love. The fact is he was a maniac and she a vain, unprincipled girl who wanted the world to speak of her.”7

Those privy to the intimate details unanimously echoed Franz Josef’s insistence that “anything” was “better than the truth.” “It is horrible, horrible,” Prince Philipp of Coburg cried to his wife. “But I cannot, I must not, say anything except that they are both dead.”8 Rudolf’s death, Coburg wrote to Queen Victoria, was “a terrible, frightful, unspeakable misfortune. It is a mystery to me how such a talented, clever man, who was so revered in Austria-Hungary, who so clung to Emperor and country, could commit such a deed! I, who was at Mayerling, who saw everything, can assure you that only the assumption of a disturbed state of mind can make this terrible thing comprehensible.

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