AUSTRIAN ROYAL TRAGEDY

Hokitika Guardian, 2 April 1928, Page 2

AUSTRIAN ROYAL TRAGEDY

STORY OF 39 YEARS ADO. [“Sydney Sun” Cables.] PARIS. March 30. Thirty-nine years after the Mayorling tragedy, when Archduke Rudolf of Austria and the beautiful Maria Vetsera were found dead in an Imperial hunting lodge, the first authentic account appears in the memoirs of the late Empress Eugenic; which are just published. It relates how Rudolf’s mother, the Empress Liznbeth. widow of Emperor Francis Josef, revealed t'he fur! story, ft appeal's Rudolf., after a violent quarrel with the Emperor consented to break the liason and gained permission for a last farewell of Maria who wax waiting dinner in the hunting lodge. He told her of the promise given to his father, under threat- of renouncing his rights to the throne. She replied coolly: “I am expecting to become a mother.” They talked throughout the night and agreed to die together. Rudolf shot Maria in the heart, laid her body on a hod and covered it with roses from vases. He then wrote to his mother a long letter in which' he said: “I have killed someone. I have no longer the right to live.’ At six in the morning Rudolf died with a bullet in his brain.