AUSTRIA’S AGED EMPEROR.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXVII, Issue 1481, 4 December 1915, Page 2

AUSTRIA’S AGED EMPEROR.

Th.uksday last was the 67th anniversary of the coming to the throne of Austria of the Emperor Francis Joseph, who has eclipsed the late Queen Victoria’s record British reign of 63 odd years by three years. The aged monarch, who is now 85 years of age, has ruled over the destinies of Austria since he was a youth of 18. He was born on August 18, 1850, and be was crowned Emperor .of Austria on December 2, 1848, on the abdication of his uncle Ferdinand I. He has had a trying experience during his long

aud eventful reign, and is a most melancholy figure among the sovereigns of Europe. The first of the family tragedies which has darkened the Emperor’s life was the assassinatliou of his brother Maximilian by the Republicans of Juarez, in Mexico, iu 1867. In ISS9 his heir, the Crown Prince Rudolph, died iu tragic circum stances at Moverliug—it is not certain whether he shot himself or was shot by another. Within a little more than a year from the day when her favourite sister, the Duchess d’Alencon, perished at the burning of a charity bazaar in Paris, the Consort of Francis Joseph was assassinated at Geneva in 1898 by an anarchist, and the celebration of the jubilee of his rule was thus turned to mourning. The latest family affliction of this man of many sorrows came in June, 1914, just before the outbreak of the present war, when his nephew, the Archduke Francis Ferdinand, heir to the Austrian throne, and iris wile were murdered iu the streets of Sarajevo, the capital of Bosnia. Since then Austria has been plunged into war with all Us attendant horrors. In August, 1914, a mouth after the war commenced, the Emperor was reported to be dangeriously ill. He rallied from the illness, but since that time his name has been very little iu evidence. His reign is still five years short of equalling that of Louis XIV., who ruled in France from 1643 to 1715, a period of 72 years.