Without putting this writer on the same pedestal as Goethe, the mind by which I have tried to vivify my own, I have enjoyed many happy hours reading Heine, and the older I have grown the more I have learned to know and admire the poet who was both an inspired humorist and a philosopher. He was the De Musset of Prussia and Judea, the wit par excellence of Europe—Heine had taken from France and given her a unity of gifts, the blending of which promises a race of men, freed from race barriers, moved by the same love of eternal beauty. An indication of the reconciliation which the future will perhaps see.
It is possible that he was a Jew; the Apostles were also Jews. But I understand and appreciate the sentiments of the Empress in going to see him at Hamburg, continuing to be on friendly relations with his sister after his death, and lastly in erecting a monument to him at Corfu. Rudolph once said of his mother: "She is a philosopher on a throne." She had truly a great mind.
The day on which I had the honour of being received privately by the Empress was an exciting one for me. I knew that she only wore black, white, grey or violet, so I arranged my toilette without invoking the help of a dressmaker, and if I am to believe the flattery of the Rue de la Paix, I knew how to dress myself; but I confess that, confident as I had now become in matters of dress, I took my time in deciding what to wear on this occasion. In the end I chose a violet gown most tastefully trimmed with grebe and a little velvet toque. I can say without boasting that my toilette was remarked upon and generally admired.
The Empress was delightful. She spoke of the Queen in well chosen, simple terms, as of a friend dear to her. This was her way of speaking about almost everything. Her conversation was of a high order, but at the same time it was absolutely natural. She scarcely ever spoke harshly, and always in low and pure tones. She possessed a soulful voice—muffled crystal, but crystal all the same. I have never seen a smile like hers; it was like a smile from Heaven; it enchanted me and it affected me, it was at the same time both sweet and grave. She was beautiful, a celestial beauty with something ethereal in the purity of her features and the lines of her figure. No one walked like Elizabeth of Austria; the movement of her limbs was imperceptible, she glided; she seemed to float on the ground. I have often read that some celebrated and adored woman was endowed with "inimitable grace." The Empress Elizabeth truly possessed this inimitable grace. And her large eyes seemed to speak and express a noble language peculiarly their own, which embodied the three virtues, Faith, Hope and Charity.
Bavaria, her birthplace, has retained throughout the ages the essential elements of the Celtic race established as far as the Danube. South Germany also has this ancient European blood in abundance. The Empress represented the most refined characteristics of Celtic beauty. She was not a German type—at least not a type of Central Germany—she expressed to perfection, both morally and physically, all that separated and will continue to separate Munich and Vienna from Berlin.
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Recollections crowd upon me when I return in thought to the Hofburg. I must record some of the most striking.
Thus, I will think of the Archduke John, who was afterwards known as John Orth, the name of one of Maria Theresa's castles on the Danube, the spot preferred of all others by this strange being.
Like Rudolph, with whom he was on terms of great friendship and certain understanding, the Archduke John could not breathe the air of Courts. He once said to me: "You and I, Louise, in many respects are not made to live here."
He interested me, but I did not like his sarcastic spirit. He had none of Rudolph's high ideals. When he disappeared I believed him to be living somewhere in secret, and that there was a possibility of his reappearance. I read in the papers not long ago that a person who might easily have been the Archduke John had just died in Rome, where he had lived for twenty years in seclusion. Rome attracts the solitary and disillusioned souls of the world. If this unknown man was really John Orth, he was indeed able to meditate on the grandeur and decadence of empires.