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.”