CHAPTER XXVIII
The marriage of Archduchess Stéphanie to Count Lonyay—Attitude of the King of the Belgians towards that marriage—Attitude of Francis Joseph—He sanctions the union, but snubs the bridegroom—Marriage of the Archduchess Elizabeth to Otto von Windischgraetz—Francis Joseph’s approval—The Windischgraetzes raised to the rank of Serene Highnesses.
Through the breach which Princess Elizabeth had made the Archduchess Stéphanie presently insisted upon marching; and it would indeed have been cruel to have hindered her from doing so. Her life had been an unhappy and a lonely one; she had been made to feel that, wherever she might be, she was not really wanted. She wished, after Rudolph’s death, to return to Brussels; but the King of the Belgians would not have her there—his treatment of her being only less shameful than his treatment of her sister, Princess Louise of Saxe-Coburg. Remaining in Austria, she realised that neither the Emperor nor the Empress liked her, though they had no grievance against her beyond the fact that she had not attracted Rudolph sufficiently to save him from himself. Her estrangement from Rudolph was perpetuated after his death by the discovery that his will deprived her of the guardianship of her only child.
Of course there was talk to the effect that she was consoling herself—there always is such talk in such cases, and there is no need to attach importance to it. Presently all the other rumours were silenced by the announcement that she loved, and was resolved to marry, Count Lonyay, a gentleman of her household. His quarterings were few; but experience had not taught Stéphanie to associate blue blood with devotion and fidelity. Nothing was more natural than her desire to make a dash for happiness without reference to equality of rank; and as her imperial relatives were treating her as a person of no importance, there was no particular reason why they should object. As a matter of fact Francis Joseph did object, and did defend the breach; but his resistance was weakened, and his surrender precipitated, by the uninvited appearance of Stéphanie’s father as his ally.
For who, after all, was this King of the Belgians that he should make himself the champion of royal and imperial exclusiveness? He was a mere parvenu among Kings: one whose territory had, within quite recent times, formed a portion of the Austrian dominions, and whose subjects were such aggressive democrats that they did not even allow him to possess a crown; a scandalous King, too, whose ostentatious intrigues with dancing girls were derided in all the comic papers of Europe, and who punished no one for lèse-majesté when his portrait and theirs were offered for sale side by side in the kiosks at Ostend. How could the Head of the House of Habsburg stand shoulder to shoulder in support of his caste with such a man as that? The cause was obviously compromised by the alliance, and the dignified course for Francis Joseph was to show that he could afford to be magnanimous, even if Leopold II. could not.
He took that dignified course, and made that magnanimous gesture. “In the name of tradition,” Leopold II. stopped his daughter’s allowance—it was only £2,000 a year—and deprived her of her title of Royal Highness. Francis Joseph retorted by giving his daughter-in-law a considerable sum of money, and announcing that she might retain her imperial dignities. He cut the nobler figure of the two; and praise of his magnanimity rewarded him. But his pride nevertheless had to find utterance; he had to make it clear that, though he consented, he did not approve, but regarded Count Lonyay as an intruder in a family infinitely above him. When Stéphanie came to Court, she had to come without her husband; and when Stéphanie’s daughter was married, Count Lonyay, though suffered to be present in the crowd at the religious ceremony, received no invitation to the subsequent luncheon.
It sounds petty; and one need not suppose that Stéphanie did not care. But if Francis Joseph could make her unhappy for a day, he could not make her unhappy on the whole. One cannot leave the subject of her marriage without quoting once again her own joyous anticipation of it:—
“Is it possible? A long, long terrible night has gone by for me, and I see a rosy dawn of hope on the clouded sky, a ray of light which tells of the rising sun of joy. Will the sun rise in full glory? Will he warm me with his rays, and dry the tears from my cheeks? Come, my sun, come! You find a poor faded flower whose freshness has been destroyed by the hard frost of fate.”
With that we may leave Stéphanie, and pass to the story of her daughter’s marriage—the marriage to which Count Lonyay received no invitation.
Of all his relatives the Archduchess Elizabeth was probably the one whom the Emperor loved the best. She saw but little of her mother, who travelled a great deal, both before her marriage to Count Lonyay and afterwards. Her principal companions were the daughters of the Archduchess Isabella; and her tastes are said to have been simple. She was fond of gardening—selling vegetables, to give the proceeds to the poor; and a pleasant story is told of her devotion to her foxterrier. The place was the Schönnbrunn Park, and the time was winter; her only attendant was a footman:—
“The lively little dog jumped on the fresh ice of a fountain, which broke under him. The little animal struggled in the water, and Princess Elizabeth called to the footman to save it. The man found an excuse and did not move a hand. Then the Princess screamed at the top of her voice: ‘You nasty coward! I’m not half so big as you, but I’ll go in, even if I get drowned.’ The man held her fast, although she shrieked and struggled, and, a gardener coming to the rescue, the little dog was saved. But Princess Elizabeth dislikes all footmen and flunkeys since that day.”
It seemed as if a destiny of great distinction was in store for her. There was even talk of marrying her to the German Emperor’s son, Prince Eitel Fritz, and raising her to the Austrian throne. Whether that plan would have proved agreeable to public opinion is doubtful; but a circumstance soon occurred which removed it from the sphere of practical matrimonial projects. At her very first ball Elizabeth met young Otto von Windischgraetz, a lieutenant in the lancers. She met him again at tennis-parties at Laxenburg; and presently she announced to one of her aunts that she meant to marry Otto von Windischgraetz, and that, if she were not allowed to marry him, she should spend the rest of her days in a convent. “Tell your grandfather about it,” said her aunt; and she went into the next room and told him.
Otto von Windischgraetz was one of the Windischgraetzes, and Francis Joseph owed a great deal to them. To Alfred von Windischgraetz, indeed, as was shown in an earlier chapter, he may almost be said to have owed his throne. But no one expected that fact to count with Francis Joseph—especially as Otto only belonged to a junior branch of the family; and it is quite likely that it did not count with him. What did count was his affection for his granddaughter. As a rule he inspired his relatives with awe rather than affection; but Elizabeth was really fond of him, and he was fond of her, and could not bear to see her cry. So he listened patiently, and promised to see what could be done. For the sequel we may quote Sir Horace Rumbold’s “Austrian Court in the Nineteenth Century”:—
“A few days later he sent for the father, Prince Ernest Windischgraetz, and talked the matter over with him, ending what must have been a somewhat trying conversation for the parent of the aspiring young man, by telling him that he trusted his granddaughter would receive as kindly a welcome ‘im Windischgraetzchen Hause’ as Prince Otto might be assured of from him and the Imperial family. On the occasion of the marriage, the entire junior branch of this old Bohemian house to which the bridegroom belonged was given the rank of ‘Durchlaucht,’ or Serene Highness.”
So love triumphed again, and triumphed, this time, not only without opposition, but also without the accompaniment of petty annoyances. One would be glad if it were possible to leave this matrimonial branch of the subject on that note; but it is not. We have already seen that the measure meted out to the Archduchess who loved the lancer was by no means meted out to the Archduke who loved the daughter of the professor of mathematics. The story of Francis Joseph’s severe attitude towards the romances of “Herr Wulfling” and Princess Louisa of Tuscany has still to come; and before we reach those stories we have to hark back, and consider the case of the Archduke Francis Ferdinand and Countess Sophie Chotek. That, of all the matrimonial encounters, has been the most interesting and the most important. It was not a single battle, but a prolonged campaign, in which we see Francis Joseph giving ground step by step. The final result of the conflict is still uncertain; and the full consequences of the victory gained by human affection over the Habsburg system cannot be measured and known until after Francis Joseph’s death.