CHAPTER XXII
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.
[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?
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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.