And when death at last approaches
Shall his grateful people sing:
God preserve, etc.
Since the Salic law runs in Austria the Emperor’s grand-daughter cannot succeed him, any more than his own two married daughters.
The latest, and in some ways the most terrible, tragedy of all that have fallen on the royal house is yet fresh in the minds of every one, for the assassination of the heir to the throne, the Archduke Francis Ferdinand, and his wife, in the streets of Serajevo took place on June 28, 1914. The Archduke was born in 1863, and was the son of the Emperor’s next brother. He was thus past middle life, and was a man of strong personality. His wife was of noble, but not of royal, blood, and had been lady-in-waiting to the Archduchess Isabella. At the time of the marriage the Archduke had to agree to give up all rights of succession for any children of this union, and therefore his two sons are now set aside in favour of their cousin, the Archduke Charles Francis Joseph, son of their father’s brother, the late Archduke Otto, who becomes Heir-Apparent. He was born in 1887, married in 1911 the Princess Zita of Bourbon-Parma, and has already a little son. All the Emperor’s brothers have passed away before him. The Archduke Maximilian, his favourite, suffered an unhappy fate. He was offered the crown of Mexico by Napoleon III. He accepted, and in 1864 sailed for the “Kingdom” thus bestowed on him, but his army abandoned him and the republicans captured and shot him, thus adding another sorrow to the heart of the aged Emperor.
CHAPTER IV
THE COUNTRY OF HUNGARY
Running round fully two-thirds of Hungary are the Carpathian ranges of mountains. Hungary has been called the land of “three mountains and four rivers,” and the emblem of these form the chief feature in the coat-of-arms of the country. The mountains are supposed to be the Tátra, Fátra, and Mátra, and the rivers the Danube, Theiss or Tisza, Drave, and Save. But this, in regard to the mountains at all events, is misleading, for the country is surrounded by mountains on three sides, a great chain of 900 miles long reaching round north, east, and south to the Iron Gates of the Danube, and to mention only three peaks out of so many but little inferior does not give a true notion of the country.
The north-western Carpathians are divided into several ranges; one separates Hungary from Moravia, Silesia, and Galicia. There are passes of great grandeur leading through the Carpathians at many points, and the way in which the heights rise sheer on the Hungarian side greatly adds to the impressiveness. A good deal of the mountains is thinly populated, and the villagers are often very primitive in their habits.
A PINE FOREST IN THE TÁTRA