BOOKS OF THE DAY.

Dominion, Volume 6, Issue 1812, 26 July 1913, Page 11

BOOKS OF THE DAY.

"MY PAST." A Chronique Scandaleuso. _ Ono of tho most sensational books dealing with the private lives of European royalties that has been published tor some years past is "My Past," by the Countess Mario Larisch (George Bell and Sons; per Whitcombe and Tombs). It is a chronique Bcandaleuse, in, which the most 'intimate details are given as to court life at Vienna and Munich, especially the former,.and is specially notable for tho curious sidelights it throws upon tho private life of chw 'laboburgs, in particular of the late Empress of' Austria, and the tragic end of tho Crown' Prince Rudolf. The authoress, the only child of Duke Ludwig of Bavaria by his morganatic marriage with a beautiful actress, Henrietta,' Mendel, was created Baroness Von Wallersee, and married Count George Larisch, an Austrian nobleman. Early in her life she, went to the Austrian Court, and became a great favourito of tho Empress. Tho Empress, who, so the author quite openly hints, had several love affairs, fell out with the Countess when she found the latter had gained the affection of Count Nicholas Esterhazy, and later on, blaming, and apparently not without reason , , the Countess for acting as a go-between for 'the Crown Prince Rudolf in his ill-fated intrigue with Mary Vctsera, the victim of the Meyerling shooting-box tragedy, refused to either ■ see or speak to her again. The Baroness, with a very questionable taste, draws an ugly portrait of "Aunt Cissi," as, in the days of her favour at Vienna, she used to call the Empress, and her pictures generally of Austrian court life, and particularly of the follies and depravities of certain members of. the Habsburg family are such that it is not to be surprised at that the German; edition of her Ixfok should have been promptly denied circulation in Austria. The Degenerate Habsburgs. Tho Countess has a high opinion of the Emperor Francis Joseph, but is unsparing in her contempt tor the Habsburgs generally. "The shadow of madness dogs the footsteps of the Habsburgs, and there is hardly any branch of the family which does not possess some insane, epileptic, or •.vicious member." It is lamentable, she thinks, that "the healthy children of Franz Ferdinand, who married morganatically, the Countess Sophie Chotek, are debarred from the succession, as tho baby who in the ordinary course of events will one day become Emperor of Austria, has the possibility of inheriting, from the maternal side, the imbecility which characterises many of tho Princes and Princesses of Bourbon-Parma." The Emperor's son, Budolf, died a shameful death at Meyerling. The Archduke John of Tuscany disappeared from Vienna after the ileyerling tragedy, and is said to have gone to sea under the name of John. Orth, and to have been subsequently lost in a shipwreck. According to the author, tho Archduke, before leaving Vienna, met her secretly, and told her that the truth ns to the Crown Prince's mysterious death was that Rudolf had pommitted suicide, the Emperor having discovered that his son had been plotting against him to secure the Crown of Hungary. Judging, however, from the details given in the book of the scene in the bedroom, when the bodies of Eudolf and Marie Vetscra were found, it would seem that brandy and champagne played no small pnrt in the tragedy; that, in fact, after a night of debauch, tke wretched prince first killed his partner in vice, and then himself, his debauch having brought out the taint of insanity which is said to have been hereditary. Of some of-tho Archdukes the Countess tells terrible stories. '.The Archduke Karl Ludwig she describes as a "fat old' man of brutish instincts," who brutally illtreated his third wife, a Portugucst princess. The late Archduke Ludwig Victor was,- it is rumoured, "addicted to vices only tolerated in the days of ancient civilisations"; the Archduke Otto was constantly drunk. This prince possessed n genius for studied cruelty which would have rejoiced Nero, and died a most horrible death, after having for years scandalised Vienna by his disgraceful escapndes, as to one of which tho-author pome very scandalous details. "I always think," she says, "that the early training of the Habsburgs encourages whatever vices are lying dormant in them; for self-indulgence, idleness, and 'dissipation generally develop their keredi tary failings."

Two Mad Munarchs. The Countess devotes a special chapter to those two mad nionarchs, King Ludwig 11, and Kins Otto of Bavaria. The former was engaged to the author's aunt, Princes 9 Sophie of Bavaria, tho match being broken off, .so the Countess Bays, through court intrigues, a most fortunate thing, I should say, for the ladvi In tho case of the Habsburg - insanity, elig says, usually shows itself in depravity, self-effiacement, and common marriages. In the case of the Wittelsbachs, the Bavarian Royal Family "it transforms the sufferer into a romantic being who is quite above the banalities of every-day life, but who occasionally deteriorates and becomes a gross feeder." King Ludwig hated his capital, Munich, preferring to stay in his beautiful castles of Neu-Schwanstein, Herrenchiemsee, and. Linderhof. It was at Herronchiomsee, in the Galerie des Glaces, that tho King gave his ghostly dinner parties.

Shortly before midnight, tho wonderful Galerie glowed with the soft light of many candles which turned the crystal candelabra into chains of glittering diamonds. The dinnertable, which was decorated with gold plate and exquisite erlass and Kowers, was laid for thirteen guests, and at five minutes before midnight King Luchvig entered ,tho room to await their arrival. When the clock struck twelve, the great doors were flung open, end the Groom of the Chambers announced—Queen Marie Antoinette. Ludwig came forward to receive her, and what did he see? A beautiful woman dressed in delicate satin, her pofrdered hair entwined with pearls and roses, and round her neck a thin blood-red line; for the King imagined that at his bidding the Queen's spirit resumed the. earthly aspect ■which slie wore during the'-gorgeous days at Versailles, together with the cruel mark of the guillotine. Other guests were Louis XIV, and Mary Queen of Scots, Catherine the Great, Wolfram von Escbenbach, author of the Parsifal epic; Julius Caesar, Alexander the Great, the Emperor, C'onstantine, Hamlet, and Cleopatra. Finally came the Spirit of the Mountains, who placed her hand upon the Monarch's brow and bade him think of the forests and the wild creatures which ho loved and whoso lives he held sacred. Dinner was served, and thirteen servants waited on the guests, whose conversation was varied and often brilliant, as befitted such a gathering of tho Great Ones of All Ages. . . . Finnlly, Ludwig pledged his guests, and when the hands of the great gilt clock marked the hour of one he shattered his glass so that it could never be used to drink less noble- toasts. Then, silently and swiftly, the ghostly diners disappeorpd, followed by the King. Ludwig firmly imagined that this dinner was really attended by the illustrious'dead, and his servants heightened the illusion by devouring the courses as soon as they were removed. So when the King passed through the serving room and saw that the food had reallv been consumed, ho was more than ever convinced of the truth of his illusion.

The Trick that.Failed. At times, however, Ludwig could be sano enough, An actress who was one of th,o company which used to perform in the Castle Theatre, singing! behind screens, with the King for their only audience, was tremendously keen about attracting the royal notice, and imagined an original device. The eventful evening arrived. Josephina warbled her sweetest for the ttnefit of tho listening monarch, and when the, song was- over plunged heavily into the lake. There was a tremendous noise, and the water .splashed to the topmost summit of the "Himalayas," but thie lady remained chin-deep in, the lake, whose still waters were not so deep as they looked. "Save me, save me, Lohongrin!" cried the agitated singer, but the King took not the slightest notice of her appeal. He rang the bell. "Get the woman out of the lake and send hey home," ho commanded, and th* , dripping Jo9ephina, sadder and wiser, walked out of the water and.out of the Residenz for ever. The poor madman's end was tragical. No one knows exactly what happened on that last ivalk which he and his doctor took by the lake of Starnburg, but in tho morning, when, the dead bodies were found, , locked together, the King was holding tho doctor down under tho water, and there is no doubt that a struggle took place. King Ludwig's successor, King Otto, tho Countess Lnrisch remembers- as a good-natured, nice-looking young man. He acquintd a most distressing malady when travelling in the East, and used to get violent attacks of cramp. "It was most painful to see him at the theatre, as his complaint frequently forced him to scratch his hands until he drew blood." Hto still lives, hopelessly insane, at Schloss Furstenried, near Munich.

The Moyerling Tragedy Very nearly half the book is devoted to an account of the author's indirect connection with tho Crown Prince Rudolf's ill-tute-d intrigue with the beautiful, but unfortunate, Mario Vetsera. Of Rudolf, tho author has a very poor opinion. He was innately vicious, untruthful, maliciously spiteful,,and treacherous. Even his mother disliked and feared him, and it is perhaps just as well for Austria that he died, albsit the manner of his death was k> shameful and shocking. As to tho discovery of the tragedj, and +he unavailing attempts to hush uj> the scandal and mislead the public, the author has much to eay that is naw. Specially horrible is the story, told by Countess Larisch, on the authority of Mary Vetsera's uncle, Count Stockau,-of the burial of the poor girl's body. The X'ount and a second uncle, Alexandra Baltazzi, received instructions to proceed at ones in a closed carriage to Meyerling. One of the secret police sat beside the coachman, and on their arriva. , the uncles were taksn to the linen-room, where Mary's body had been placed on a basket. They were told that tho corpse was to be fully dressed and carried to the waiting carriage. The unfortunate men had to help in this horrible robing. As they were about to put on the sealskin coat, the head drooped heavily forward. Thereupon the police officer slipped a walking stick down the dead girl's back, and bou/nd her neck to it. Thus was shje half carried, half dragged to the carriage, and then placed on' the back seat, while the two uncles sat opposite. They were driven to tho Cistercian Abbey o'f Heiligenlrreuz, where, without shroud and in an unlined wooden coffin, the body was consigned to the earth with no religious service at all. \ A Fascinating Book. It is, of course, impossible to say how far_ truth enters into these startling meand what part has been played in their writing by imagination and personal malice. But there is no gainsaying the absorbing interest and fascination of tlhis narrative of court life and intrigue. The book contains s. number of portraits and illustrations. The price is nine shillings. ■ ■ ■ .- Next week's "Book of the Day" article will be devoted to Mr, R. M'Nab's "Old Whaling Days."