A TRAGEDY RECALLED.

Dominion, Volume 6, Issue 1785, 25 June 1913, Page 8

A TRAGEDY RECALLED.

CROWN PRINCE RUDOLPH'S SUICIDE. A FRESH "EXPLANATION." London, May 3. It is twenty-four years' since Europo was shocked by tho news of tho sudden death at Meyerling of tho Crown Prince Rudolph of Austria, and then horrified by tho gradual leaking-out of the truth about it. The unhappy young man. was found shot through the head; with him was a girl of aristocratic Viennese family, who had also died from a bullet-wound. It was clearly his hand which had fired. Tho cause of the crimo remained obscure, but it was generally attributed to tho pangs of a hectic love affair and the Ktrain of. insanity running through tho Hapsburg family. Now, in a -book published to-day, "My Past," •by the Countess Mario Larisch (Nash, lOj. 6(1. net), a fresh explanation is offered. The countess is a daughter of Duke Ludwig of Bavaria, hrotlier of tho Empress of Austria, who was murdered by a madman in Switzerland. Ho renounced his rights and married an actress. His daughter was recognised by the Courts of Vienna and Munich, and they came to regret it, for it was sho who took the girl murdered at Meyerling to the Crown. Prince's apartments in tho royal palace, wlience ho sent her away to his shooting-box in the forest.

The Countess Larisch declares that sho had no idea of his intention, but it was, to say the least, indiscreet of hor to act as she did, and the view taken of her behaviour may bo judged from .tho refusal of her aunt, the Empress, uro to then her kind friend, to have anything move to do with her. For her own sake, tho sake of her relations, and the sake of common deccnc.v, it would havo been bettor that the Countess Larisch should have hold hor tongue about the squalid episode in which she was concerned. Having resolved, or been persuaded, to provide materials for a book, she had to give some excuse for breaking silence. The excuse she offers is that she can "disclose the secret of Meyerling." A Melodramatic Plot, This secret avers) is that the Crown Prince was plotting .to separate Hungary from Austria and to seize the Hungarian throne;, that his plot wa3 discovered; and that he killed himself in fear of his father's anger. It sounds unlikely enough, and the evidence by . which the suggestion is propped up—a steel box of documents, a countersign, a mysterious cloaked stranger—seems to us to belongto the region of melodrama. Tho only person whom tho Countess Lariscli can cite as having shared tho Crown Prince's secret is his brother, the ATchduke John, who disappeared many years ago as "Johann Orth."

The story is scarcely likely to bo accepted as an explanation of* the Crown Prince's motive. Most people will bo inclined to call it preposterous. Aipart from this tho book tells ns little about the affair that we did not know before, and nothing that wo ever wisli to hear again. For tho rest, the countess fills her pages with gossip, mostly unkind, about tho eccentricities of the Royal Families of Austria and Bavaria. Wo hear once again how tho Empress look warm baths of olive oil to supple her figure and wore masks of row veal ovr her face at night to benefit her complexion. We have repeated at length the insanities of King Ludwig and King Otto of Ba.varia. made the more painful because it is a relativo who dwells nnon them. We read statements about living pereons of which the libellous nature is equalled by their bad taste. One in particular about the Archduke Franz Ferdinand ought never to have been permitted. To "attack a royal Prince through his wife is monstrous. Tho book, wo are sorry to say. reflects no credit uixvn anyone concerned ill its production—"Daily Mail."