There, for the moment, the matter was left; but presently there was a sequel. Information was received that the same traveller had also visited Paris, and, there also, had been invited to a little dinner in a restaurant; but, in Paris, the inquiry into his representations was pursued more carefully. Princess Louise of Saxe-Coburg, who was then in Paris, and who had known John of Tuscany well, consented to come to the restaurant, and look at the stranger, without making herself known to him. He did not recognise her, and she did not recognise him. “That man,” she said, “is no more John of Tuscany than I am”; and when Mr. Nash subsequently tried to get into communication with his mysterious acquaintance at the address which had been given to him, his letter was returned to him.
So that that identification falls to the ground; and, indeed, the plausibility of the most plausible of the identifications weighs but little in the balance when set against the difficulty of vanishing, as John Orth is supposed to have vanished, from human ken. What Jabez Balfour failed to do, in the same part of the world, with considerably stronger motives for doing it, John Orth is not in the least likely to have done. Nor need his melodramatic exit speeches—if he really delivered them—influence our judgment in the matter; for there is nothing in a determination to “die without dying” which can avail to save a sailor from the perils of the sea.
Nor is anything proved by the fact that John Orth’s mother, believing one or other of the stories, suddenly ceased to wear mourning for her son. Her case, in that respect, was only like that of the mother of Sir Roger Tichborne; and, like the mother of Sir Roger Tichborne, she gave large sums of money to an impostor who claimed to be her son. So we may take it as proved beyond all reasonable doubt that John Orth is really and truly dead; and the law courts recently took that view, and gave leave to presume his death, to the advantage of his heirs. His death is the second of the major tragedies of Francis Joseph’s reign. The assassination of the Empress was to be the third.
CHAPTER XXV
The revolt of the Archdukes—Instructive analogies—Later years of the Empress Elizabeth—Her manner of life described by M. Paoli, the Corsican detective—Her fearlessness—Her superstitions—Various evil omens—The last excursion—Assassination of the Empress at Geneva—How Francis Joseph received the news.
Many Archdukes besides John Orth were destined to surprise and shock Francis Joseph by their aspirations after the common lot, and their repudiation of family pride in their conduct of the affairs of their hearts. We shall see them all in a moment—Archdukes and Archduchesses as well—placing love on the pedestal which the Head of their House assigned to rank, and rising, like a cloud of witnesses, to testify against the Habsburg principles and system.
The revolt is instinctive, though the vast number of the rebels sometimes gives it the appearance of being concerted. There are no precedents for it in history, and the most luminous analogies are religious ones. One may be reminded of the case of those Essayists and Reviewers who, in the ‘sixties, split the tight vestments of the Church of England by the impatient movements of their broad shoulders, and were denounced as the Seven against Christ; or of the case of those Modernists of the Roman Catholic Church whom Pius X. from time to time rebukes for bringing scholarship and intelligence to bear upon theological propositions. In any case, the attack is, and has been, an attack from within,—the deadliest kind of attack; and the resulting spectacle is strange, and, to many, painful.
Here, it seems, is the House of Habsburg betrayed by the members of the household; here are the very pillars of the temple, getting up, one after the other, and walking—or even running—away, careless whether the roof falls in, so long as they are not involved in the ruin; while Francis Joseph is left to sit almost alone in the midst of the scene of desolation: a pathetic figure, like Marius alone among the ruins of Carthage—or perhaps an heroic figure, like that strong man of whom Horace wrote that even the collapse of the universe would find him undismayed. We are coming to that spectacle in a moment; but the time for ringing up the curtain on it is not quite yet. The tableau must be preceded by the scene of the assassination of the Empress.
We are told that the Empress wrote Reminiscences, which will some day be published. Until they appear—if they ever do appear—the full history of her inner life cannot be written; and it may be impossible to write it even then. The gift of self-revelation is as rare as genius, if it is not, indeed, a kind of genius; and the men and women who have the art of communicating the secrets of their souls are far fewer than those who have secrets to communicate. It often happens that the world, asking for bread, is given a stone; asking, that is to say, for a confession, is given dark hints, and trivial tittle-tattle. It may prove to be so in this case; but no one knows.
For Elizabeth guarded her secret to the end; and the world has no real knowledge of her, but only an impression, arising out of dark sayings, and a curious way of life. She was restless, and she sought solitude—one can say little more of her than that. What gadfly stung her, and drove her continually from place to place, one can but guess; and one is tempted, from time to time, to contradictory guesses. Perhaps the contradictions could be reconciled; perhaps more than one gadfly tortured her. She spoke of herself as a woman who dreaded death and yet saw nothing in life worth clinging to. She said that she had religious beliefs, and yet her favourite poet was Heine, who had none; and when Countess Starztay spoke to her of a peace beyond all understanding awaiting her when death had done its worst, she turned on her with the retort: