The life of the emperor Francis Joseph

by Francis Henry Gribble

Francis Ferdinand is the son of Francis Joseph’s brother, Charles Louis, and himself the brother of the Archduke Otto whose outrageous eccentricities we have reviewed, and of the Archduke Frederick Charles who wooed and won the homely daughter of the mathematical master, after helping her to shell the peas. He was not classed in his youth with the Archdukes who matter, for he was a delicate boy, and it seemed unlikely that he would live to grow up. Though he grew up, he remained delicate, and it was still assumed that he would die young. Hence the talk, which came to nothing, of marrying the Archduchess Elizabeth to Prince Eitel Fritz, and securing the succession to the throne to her by a fresh Pragmatic Sanction.

Whether we regard him as having been well or badly brought up depends upon our educational ideals. If it be good to be a Catholic, and better still to be a bigoted Catholic, then his upbringing was admirable. From his earliest years he was taught to walk, if not with God, at least with the Jesuits: the worthy son of a father of limited intelligence, who combined (if his portraits are to be trusted) the smug appearance of a sinister family solicitor with the fanaticism of an Ultramontane reactionary. There are those, to this day, who sum him up with the statement that he is “in the hands of the Jesuits”; but that is a phrase which may, in practice, mean anything or nothing. When princes and priests form a Holy Alliance, the wisdom of the serpent is quite as likely to be found in one partner of the combination as in the other. Their interests are seldom identical, and exploitation is a game at which two can play.

Photo Adèle

THE ARCHDUKE FRANCIS FERDINAND.

It mattered little as long as Francis Ferdinand was expected to die, at any instant, of consumption; but he did not die of that disease, and perhaps he never really had it. He wintered in warm climates; he took cod liver oil; he travelled. Treatment and medicine produced the desired effect. Francis Ferdinand became as well able as any of his relatives to take his place in public life, and had to be reckoned with. The question of finding a wife for him became urgent. There were plenty of Archduchesses available; why did he not choose one of them and beget an heir? That was what Francis Joseph wanted to know when he saw his nephew thirty-five or more, and still a bachelor. The resulting dialogues are said to have been rather heated.

Presently rumour began to whisper that Francis Joseph had got his way. It was observed that Francis Ferdinand paid frequent visits to the house of the Archduke Frederick and the Archduchess Isabella at Presburg. They had charming daughters—the Archduchess Gabrielle was particularly charming. Here, it was felt, well within the Habsburg ring-fence, was the opportunity of an ideal betrothal; and here, at any rate, was the journalist’s opportunity for the intelligent anticipation of events before they occurred. Various newspapers, though not the official ones, grasped that opportunity and announced the betrothal. Official confirmation, they did not doubt, would come later, enabling them to boast: “I told you so.” But those readers of the newspapers who had been admitted to the Archduchess Isabella’s family circle shook their heads. They had seen what they had seen, and they anticipated quite other eventualities.

The Archduchess Isabella had a lady-in-waiting—Countess Sophie Chotek: a member of a Bohemian family, which, though old, was poor, and not of the highest order of nobility. Her father had held a governorship in Bohemia; her brother was a provincial official of moderate, but not excessive, dignity. But Francis Ferdinand, while charmingly polite to the Archduchess Gabrielle, was more often to be seen sitting in cosy corners with Countess Sophie Chotek. Often and often he sat a whole evening with her in a cosy corner, talking gloomily about his health, and complaining of the rigorous prescriptions of the doctors. Cod-liver oil, he said, was horrid stuff. It did him no good; he should stop taking it.

And Countess Sophie Chotek reasoned and pleaded with him, as womanly women do. Of course, cod-liver oil was good for him—he mustn’t be silly, and pretend that he knew better than the doctors; a peppermint lozenge would take away the taste. Anyhow, take it he really must, not only for his own sake, but for the sake of those to whom his life was precious.

“For my sake—to please me,” she concluded coaxingly; and Francis Ferdinand promised, and found that the medicine did work the promised miracle. He got better and better, until he was quite well; and there was joy in the House of Habsburg, and all the Archdukes and Archduchesses were grateful to Countess Sophie Chotek. It delighted the Archduchess Isabella in particular to see that her lady-in-waiting had such a good influence over the heir-apparent, and had succeeded, after everyone else had failed, in modifying his attitude towards his medicine. It did not occur to her that cod-liver oil was a potion which could operate as a love philtre, or that the conversations conducted in the cosy corners might have run on from cod-liver oil to other and more intimate themes.