An invited guest at the wedding of the present young hereditary Archduke to the Princess Zita has given us a description of an incident which well illustrates the treatment which the non-royal wife of the Heir Apparent received at the hands of her royal relatives. When the Duchess of Hohenberg entered, her long, narrow train caught in some projecting obstacle as she swept up the little chapel. The place was full of Archdukes and Archduchesses, in their wedding attire. Not one of these high-born beings budged. Each looked straight at the altar, absorbed in pious prayer. The ostracized lady had to disengage herself as best she could, and advance, blushing hotly, to her appointed place, unescorted. A few minutes after a belated Archduchess, entering swiftly, met with the same mishap. Instantly she was surrounded with politely assisting Hoheiten.
The friend to whom we owe the anecdote remarked that it had been “a dreadful moment,” and that one could not help feeling sorry for the poor Duchess. But it is to be remarked that she herself—delightful, cultivated, large-minded creature though she was—had been among the stony ones, and there had even been a glint of pleasure in her eyes under the compassion as she told the story.
Sophie was of those who are hated; but, after all, what did it matter? Was she not loved?
Our daughter’s Hungarian godmother—a most fairy and entrancing lady, with all the spirit of her race under the appearance of a French Marquise—like most Magyars, championed the cause of one whom they intended to make their future Queen. She gave us a pretty account of the great pleasure it was to the common people in Vienna to watch their Archduke and his wife at the theatre. They sat in the royal box, not formally, one at each end, as is the etiquette, but close, so close that everyone knew they were holding each other’s hands. They would look into each other’s faces with smiles, to share the interest and joy of what they beheld and heard. So the lesser folk were fond of her, though the fine Court circle could not forgive.
When she went to Berlin, the astute William received her with a tremendous parade of honour, which made him very popular with the Archduke, as well as with the multitude that espoused his cause. But it was only a hollow show of recognition after all—a banquet elaborately arranged with little round tables, so as to avoid any question of precedence under the cloak of the most friendly intimacy. Our simpler-minded court had to decline her visit at the Coronation on account of this same difficulty of precedence. Whatever might be done in Austria, this was insulting from England. “But she is of better family than many of your royalties,” said a Bohemian magnate to us across the table at a dinner-party, his blue eyes blazing. “She is of very good family. She is”—tapping his capacious shirt-front with a magnificent gesture—“she is related to me!”
The petty malice of those whose prerogatives had been infringed pursued her to her bloodstained and heroic grave. To the last she was denied all those dignities which appertained to her husband’s rank. Her morganatic dust could not be allowed to commingle with that of royalty in the Imperial vault. The two who had loved beyond etiquette were given a huddled and secret midnight funeral; and beside the Archduke’s coffin, covered with the insignia of his state, that of his wife was marked only by a pair of white kid gloves and a fan.
Such a pitiful triumph of tyranny over the majestic dead! Horrible juxtaposition of the ineptitude of pomposity and the most royal of consummations! Sophie and her mate must have smiled upon it from their enfranchisement.
Perhaps if the doomed pair had not yielded themselves to those Berlin blandishments their fate might have been less tragic. There are sinister rumours as to whose hand really fired the revolver. We in England to-day may well have come to believe that those whom the Kaiser most smiles upon are his chosen victims. The laborious grin of the crocodile to the little fishes is nothing to it; but England is rather a big mouthful.
Already one is able to say that any death has been merciful which has spared an Austrian the sight of his country’s dissolution. We are glad that our fairy godmother has not lived to have her heart torn between England, her adopted country, and her passionately loved Hungary.
The cloud no bigger than a man’s hand in the clear sky—shadow of the mailed fist—we looked at it from over here with that stirring of surface emotions that is scarcely unpleasant! How horrible! we said. How wicked, how cruel! The little bloodstained cloud! it hung in horizons too far off to menace our island shores. We were very sorry for the old Emperor, pursued to the last, it seemed, by the inexplicable, unremitting curse. “I have been spared nothing,” he is reported to have said when the news of the Archduke’s murder was broken to him. Was he then in his own heart sheltering the deadly spark that was to kindle the whole world? We thought of the playmate of Brussels days with a romantic regret, and envied her a little. Since one must die, what a good way it was to go with one’s only beloved! And then, in the full summer peace, the clouds suddenly massed themselves, darkened, and spread.