At the railway station of the celebrated resort he was met by two agents of the Austrian secret police, who begged him, on behalf of Count von G——, to accompany them to the annex of the hotel rented by the Legation. On the way they explained that Count von G—— had sent for him "to see his friend, who had had an accident." That was all the information he could extract from them.
Mounting to the first floor, a door was thrown open before him. In the middle of the room he saw a bed and on it a body—that of the hapless Count Seilern, who had been condemned to death and executed (though his decease was attributed in the newspapers to suicide) for having loved an Austrian Princess and threatened General von Hoetzendorf!
As in the case of the Archduke Rudolf of Hapsburg, at Mayerling, the body of the man who dared to "play with fire" was covered up to the neck with white cloth, with flowers strewn all over his deathbed.
This was in January, 1915.
Thus, the tradition of assassination is perpetuated from one end to the other of the reign of the sinister Emperor who sold the independence of his kingdom to William II. of Germany. The victims change, but the methods remain the same. Whosoever is considered guilty of an offence against the "dignity" or "honour" of the Hapsburgs must die, unless he or she consents to be declared insane. Crime follows crime, and the family which, in the eyes of the aged Emperor Francis Joseph himself, is "doomed to be tracked by tragedy" knows, as in the Middle Ages, but one argument against its enemies—the knife and the bullet.
But what of the Archduchess Valeria? The last news I heard of her was to the effect that, half-demented by the shock she sustained, she lay for months between life and death. On recovering, she turned her back for ever on the fashionable life of Vienna, and withdrew to one of her estates in the country, where she seeks what consolation she can find in charitable work in her religion.
FOOTNOTE:
[12] Brother of Ferdinand, the treacherous Czar of Bulgaria.