Through the death of Crown Prince Rudolph, her husband, as next brother to Emperor Francis-Joseph, became heir to the throne, and owing to the refusal of Empress Elizabeth to take any part whatsoever in court life, the archduchess was from that moment, to all intents and purposes, the "first lady in the land." It was she who presided at all court ceremonies and official functions, who received the presentations, and who filled the post of empress alike at Vienna and at Pesth. Her husband was entirely swayed by her, and completely subject to her influence, and it is notorious that she looked for the day when, through his accession to the throne, she would become the virtual ruler of the great dual empire, and be in a position to inaugurate all sorts of political ideas, peculiar to herself, notably in connection with a reversal of Austria's present foreign policy. She has never made any secret of her disapproval of the Austrian alliance with Italy, and has even gone so far as to attend with her husband public meetings in favor of the restoration of the temporal power of the Papacy, at which King Humbert was bitterly denounced and abused as a usurper! There seemed no reason whatsoever why her consort should not live to succeed his elder brother, and as the archduke possessed a singularly strong constitution, and had scarcely suffered a single hour's illness since his childhood, there was no cause to fear any untoward event. Indeed he might have been alive at the present moment had it not been for his unfortunate pilgrimage to Jerusalem, where in some way he contracted the malady which carried him off so very suddenly. He enjoys the distinction of being the only member of his house whose whole body reposes in the vault of the Capuchin Church at Vienna, where so many hundred Hapsburgs sleep, some in coffins of silver and gold, others in caskets of exquisitely ornamented copper. According to a very gruesome custom in vogue with the reigning house of Austria for many centuries, the heart is extracted from the body of the imperial dead within twenty-four hours after their demise, placed in a silver urn filled with spirits of wine, hermetically sealed, and then conveyed with the utmost pomp and ceremony, though at night, to the old cathedral of St. Stephen, where it is received with much solemnity by the clergy, and placed in niches of the wall, near the high altar. The entrails are in the same way removed, and conveyed with identically the same ceremonies to the ancient church of the Augustines, and it is only what is left that is buried in the vaults of the Capuchin Church.
Archduke Charles-Louis did not relish this extraordinary yet traditional treatment of his remains after death, and fervently believing in the resurrection of the body in the flesh, thought it distinctly uncanny that his heart and his entrails should each have to go hunting through the city for his body on the Day of Judgment. Accordingly, he was laid to rest just as he died, instead of being entombed, like all the other members of the House of Hapsburg, in sections.
CHAPTER XI
If I have refrained in the preceding chapter from making any mention of the attainments of the Dowager Empress Frederick, either as a sculptor or as a painter, it is because she is so immeasurably superior to all other royal personages in the realms of art that she can no longer be regarded as a mere amateur, no matter how clever. Besides this, her individuality is so strong, her intellectual gifts so great, and the part which she has played in German politics so important that she really deserves separate treatment.
If I link her name with that of her daughter-in-law, Empress Augusta-Victoria, it is because the latter's influence on German affairs has been even still more weighty, though she is far less brilliant and clever than her husband's mother. Indeed my readers after perusing this chapter may feel disposed to ask themselves whether ordinary intelligence in high places does not work more successfully than genius.
It is difficult to describe Empress Frederick as anything else than a genius. Certainly I have never known a more gifted woman. The diversity, the scope, and the depth of her knowledge are simply amazing. In conversation it is difficult to broach any subject, no matter what it is, that she has not mastered. Her acquaintance with the mediaeval, Renaissance and modern schools of painting, and with every form and work of art industry is unsurpassed even by those men who have devoted their entire lives to these studies. I have on one and the same evening heard her converse on Venetian art with Ludovic Passini, proving herself his equal in her astounding knowledge of Venice, past and present; talk with a distinguished physician, who was amazed by the theoretical knowledge which she displayed of the throat and breathing organs, and who declared that if she had only had practical experience, she would have been the finest throat specialist in the world; and discuss literature with a celebrated Englishman of letters, chiding him upon his admitting his inability to cap a passage from Pope, which she quoted! The late Sir Richard Wallace, than whom no one possessed a more profound knowledge of the masterpieces of the painters, goldsmiths, jewelers and potters of bygone centuries, was wont to declare that Empress Frederick surpassed him as an expert, although, with unlimited wealth at his disposal, he had devoted more than half a century of his life to the collection of "chefs d'oeuvre" in all parts of the world.
The depth of her researches into chemical science exceeds that of Lord Salisbury, who is her most intimate personal friend in England, and at whose Elizabethan country seat she invariably visits when in her native country, most of her time while under his roof being spent with him in his laboratory. But it is particularly as an artist, both with brush and chisel, that she excels, and while as a painter she ranks with some of the leading professional masters of the present day, as a sculptor she surpasses anything achieved or even attempted as yet by a woman.
The subject which naturally stimulates her most to artistic effort is the portraiture of her fondly-loved husband. His memory, although he has been dead eleven years, is so fresh in her mind, her eye is so capable of recalling his image, and her hand is so well trained to follow her impressions, and to reproduce what she can visualize, that no sculptor could vie with her in reproducing his splendid form and manly features. She once gave a commission to the celebrated German sculptor Uphues for a colossal statue of "Unser Fritz," and calling at the artists' studio, whilst he was at work on his clay model, she pointed out to him some points in which he had not caught the right expression. Verbal explanations not adequately conveying her meaning, she asked permission to use the roughing chisel, set to work, and in half an hour with a touch here and a touch there, modified the features to such a degree that the sculptor was astounded at the striking improvement. The model has since been transferred to marble, and is universally considered to be the best portrait extant of Emperor Frederick.
No greater tribute to her brilliancy and penetration in the matter of statecraft could possibly be given than the undisguised and openly acknowledged animosity with which she was, throughout her married life, regarded by the late Prince Bismarck, who feared her more than all his masculine rivals and opponents together. She was a political foe worthy in every respect of his steel, for she repeatedly checkmated his moves; and if he sometimes spoke of her with a brutality and a degree of vehemence altogether out of place, this must be regarded as more in the light of a compliment than as an intentional piece of discourtesy, as it was a virtual admission of the fact that her opposition to his projects was of altogether too masculine and virile a character to admit for one moment of his according to her that forbearance and chivalrous deference which men as a rule are wont to concede to women as a tribute to their sex. She fought him unceasingly, from the time when he violated the Prussian constitution, shortly before the war with Denmark, until the day when through her efforts and statecraft he was driven from office,—a vanquished foe. He had used in vain every weapon against her that his ingenuity could devise. He had even gone so far as to publicly charge her with treason in betraying to the English, and through them to the French, military secrets which had been imparted to her by her husband, during the war of 1870. He had, in short, done everything that lay in his power to prevent her husband from succeeding to the crown, mainly, as he admitted, with the object of preventing her from sharing the throne as empress; and after having grossly insulted her in the presence of her dying, voiceless and helpless husband by refusing to transact any state business, or to communicate any confidential reports to the monarch as long as she was in the room, he incited her eldest son, whose mind he had deliberately poisoned against her, to take steps which could only intensify the sorrow of the grief-stricken woman immediately after her so fondly loved husband had been taken from her.
Yet she carried the day in the end, and her son is now the very first to acknowledge his mother's cleverness and the fact that she showed herself more than a match in statecraft for the man reputed as the greatest statesman of the century, namely, Bismarck.