Of all the princesses and archduchesses belonging to the vanished Court, I am the only one remaining in Vienna, loved, I believe, by the people, and respected by those in authority.
There is one city in the world in which I have lived for a long time. It has been the scene of my "crimes." This city, after it abandoned all pretence of honour, truth and virtue, has now reserved for me my right to speak, and, whilst abolishing titles, has left me mine. I stand alone in the ruins of a Power which was cruel to me.
I have known the "justice" of the Court and that of the Emperor Francis Joseph. I have learned that a princess has not the same legal rights as the rest of the world. For her, secret arrangements exist which are applied without the judges having anything to say, or, if they do, they only carry out certain orders. They disguise these with all kinds of pretexts. In my case the excuse was that of madness.
It would be impossible to-day to tax a rebellious conscience with insanity. It would be impossible to accuse a victim of causing impossible scandals if she dared appeal for help. No one can be thrown by force into a madhouse, where the superintendent says that you are not mad and yet is obliged to keep a guard over you. He had his orders! They called these "une affaire de cour!"
I do not think it would require many criminal attempts of this nature to obtain a sentence from a Divine justice which no hypocrisy of words or deeds and no machinery of human power can deceive.
But why should not those who were guilty of an immoral and cowardly policy be the only ones to expiate their faults? A whole nation is at this moment expiating the decadence and the downfall of the Court of Vienna. Yes, the poor people, who are so good, so duped, so resigned, so industrious and so much to be pitied, are now expiating the crimes of their rulers!
When I arrived at the Austrian Court in 1875 Francis Joseph was forty-five years old.
He was always distinguishable at a distance by his gallant bearing in uniform. At close quarters he gave one the impression of possessing a certain amount of good humour, which was contradicted by the severity of his glance. He was a narrow-minded man, full of false and preconceived ideas, but he possessed from his upbringing and from the traditions of Austrian politics certain formulas and mannerisms, which enabled him to keep afloat for a long time before he was finally engulfed in the sea of blood in which the Imperial galley ultimately foundered. But, stripped of his rank and ceremonial, devoid of routine or receptions, audiences and speeches, he was nothing but a fool. At his birth, Nature deprived him of a heart. He was an emperor but he was not a man. He is best described as an automaton dressed as a soldier.
The Emperor at first made a great impression on me when my husband presented me to him as the new Princess of Coburg. I listened to his amiable and polished phrases, which I found difficult to answer becomingly. They were usually so banal that almost before leaving his presence I had already forgotten what he had said. It was almost always like this, except on one memorable occasion which I will describe later.
I do not know anyone who remembers a single word uttered by Francis Joseph that was worth repeating. His conversation in the Imperial circle was disconcertingly cold and poor. He never became animated except when talking scandal, but that was generally in the apartment of Madame Schratt, who constituted alike his refuge and his relaxation, where he was really "at home" and where he was simply "Franz" or "Joseph."