It was not his first love affair: the woman who first taught the Archduke John Salvator to love was English. He met her, when he was only a lieutenant of hussars, on an Austrian Lloyd steamer, in the course of a journey from Port Said to Trieste. One of his letters to her has got into the hands of those who collect such things; and it shows us the Archduke already cherishing the dream dreamt by so many Habsburgs of flying from pomp in order to indulge an honourable passion, and proving himself as capable as any meaner man of supporting a family by honest toil. It will be seen that he expresses his contempt for his illustrious title by a pretty play upon words. This is the communication:—
“Most darlingest of angel girls. I must lavish on you terms of endearment. You are my loveliest love, mia cara carissima, ma petite chérie, my own sweet rose of Kent. I thought myself often in love before I had the happiness to meet you, but was mistaken. You fill my soul as nobody else has ever done. I am in despair at being told I must not pay you further attention. My Imperial rank stands in the way, say you and your honoured mother, of courtship pour le bon motif. It should, did I not realise the utter vanity of being penned up with a tribe of seventy relatives on an isolated peak. I hate my position, and am determined to live as a man should, and not like a poor creature who must be spoon-fed from the cradle to the grave. It depends on you whether I shall go on as an ‘arch-duckling’ or not. You spoke of the sad life of Penny Smith. Yes, it was a sad one; but why? The Prince of Capua had not the manliness to go and work for a living for himself and his wife. My courage is equal to emigrating to Australia, where I am sure I should fall on my feet. I could be a manager of a theatre, a teacher of French, German, Italian, or the curator of a zoo or a botanical garden, or I could be a riding-master or a stock-rider. Without going so far as Australia, I might get married in Italy to the girl of my choice. I was born a Tuscan, and the statutes of the grand-ducal family are dead letters there. As you can never be an Archduchess, I shall be only too happy to cease to be an Archduke, but hope ever to be counted your darling Archduckling.
“JOHANN.
“——or, since you like my soft Italian name, Giovanni—but not on any account (Don) Juan.”
It is, in very truth, a remarkable document; but it is the sort of document which never surprises one when emanating from a Habsburg pen—and perhaps ought not to surprise one when emanating from any royal or imperial pen. In the House of Habsburg, as in many other royal and imperial houses—and notably those of the Wittelsbachs and the Neapolitan Bourbons—we find many men and women who have combined great ardour in love with a passionate desire for the domestic tranquillity of the common lot, and the lives of obscure citizens of the middle classes. Examples which occur on the spur of the moment are those of Queen Cristina of Spain, who married ex-Private Muñoz, the son of a Madrid tobacconist, and played parlour games in the Palace with that tobacconist and his family; of Queen Cristina’s sister, the Duchesse de Berry, who married, en secondes noces, the impecunious young diplomat, Lucchesi-Palli, and bore him innumerable children; of that Archduke John, who was united so happily to the daughter of the village postmaster; of that Archduke Henry, whose wife, Leopoldine Hoffmann, the actress, was created Countess of Waldeck.
Such were the exemplars—though one could name many more—whose temperament and tastes the Archduke John Salvator shared; but his advances, as both the letter and the sequel show, did not this time inspire confidence. The lady, it seems, did not love him for himself alone—saw no beauty in the prospect of becoming the bride of a teacher of languages, or a riding-master, or the curator of the Zoological Gardens at Sydney or Melbourne; and perhaps she was, from the worldly point of view, wise. Habsburgs who are ready to turn their hands to anything have sometimes had to turn their hands to very menial occupations. Within the last few years an appeal was made to Francis Joseph to do something for a Habsburg—a descendant of the Archduke Ernest—who had fallen (or risen) to be head waiter in a café at Buda-Pesth. The lady whom the Archduke John Salvator had once proposed to support in modest comfort by means of honest toil may since perhaps have heard of that incident with curiously mixed emotions.
At all events, she did not marry the Archduke—her mother, as appears from the letter, intervening; and he, on his part, did not keep single for her sake—or, at all events, did not keep unattached. Princess Louisa tells us that he wanted to marry her, his niece, the future bride of Signor Toselli; but that is as it may be. His desire to do so was, at any rate, kept under control. One thinks of him rather as one of those Habsburgs whom the bare idea of consanguineous marriage revolts; and one knows that he met his fate, in a sentimental sense, while shooting with some of his brother officers in the Semmering district. One cannot do better than borrow the poetical picture of the scene presented to us by his biographer, Mme. de Faucigny-Lucinge:—
“It was one of those moments when the human soul feels the need of fusion and communion with the mysteries of nature. The Prince was walking in a favourite path of his—a discreet refuge in which his companions had always been accustomed to leave him alone. Of a sudden he found himself in the presence of a girl whose delicate features and pensive gaze attracted his attention. Her eyes were gentle, and her lips were lighted with a smile. As he overheard her talking with her parents, it seemed to the Archduke that he had long been familiar with that melodious voice, so fraught with enchantment to all who listened to it; for the things which most delight us always seem like reminiscences of some previous life.”
Nothing happened, however, at the moment. The Archduke passed by without speaking—too shy to speak, perhaps, though that, in the light of the letter which we have just read, is not very easy to believe; but he did not forget. To quote the same narrator:—
“His thoughts came back, again and again, to the girl who had appeared to him in such poetical circumstances, in an Autumn twilight. He wanted to know who she was; and having learnt that her home was in Vienna, where she lived with her parents, and that her name was Milly Stübel, and that she was one of the artistes employed at the Opera, he sought and found an opportunity of meeting her again. Every time that he met her, it was a fresh pleasure to him to remark the originality and the attractive complexity of her gifted nature. Soon they were passing long hours in each other’s society; and it was the unspeakable joy of musical harmony which attached him, for ever more, to Milly; for music is far more eloquent than words.”