COSTLY LOVE.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIV, Issue 73, 16 September 1911, Page 10

COSTLY LOVE.

ROMANCE AND TRAGEDY. 'lt is not essential to delve beyond the mere thin outer crust of events to demonstrate to tile least receptive that Jove is, past all argument, the costliest thing in which man and his mate gagcBeginning in Russia, there is the ease of the Grand Duke Paul, who dared love an actress. At the outset it is well to reflect that Russian grand duchies and the equipment of the theatrical dressingrooms present a contrast vivid to painfulness. But this Grand Duke could not see, nor could he be restrained by the consideration of his family or the thought that lie was already burdened with a wife. Station, wealth, and country made no difference to him, nor did the threat of the Czar hold him back. He lives in Paris with his actress, an exile from his country, a poor man, and a man without a name.

Austria is famous for Vienna and its great crop of cases in point with this argument. There must come immediately to every recollection the strange case of the Crown Prince Rudolph, whose affair was not permitted to go 'to a decision—death, the supreme referee, intervening. Rudolph loved a woman far below his station, and refused again and again to desert her in response to the parental wish and the responsibility of an Imperial Crown. Finally, in the little hunting lodge of Myerling, came the decision. One morning they found the heir to the throne of the Hapsburgs, the son of a hundred kings, dead by the side of his countess. The thing has remained a mystery for all the years that have fled since this tragedy, and no accepted solution has been offered even now. Yet no matter what the truth may have been, the case remains one of the striking examples of a man's sacrifice to his love.

This is but one of Austria's cases. The world-famous mystery of the Archduke Johann Salvatore—generally referred to as John Orth—hinged on a set of circumstances very similar to the foregoing. Salvatore was one of the brilliant officers of the Austrian Army, a man whose succession to the throne was by no means impossible, and one of the wealthiest archdukes of the Austrian Empire. He fell in love with an actress, was reprimanded, wrote a bitter attack on the army, arid then renounced all titles and Austrian property to elope with the woman he loved. They set sail for South America in a small steamer, which was wrecked off the Brazilian coast, probably sending the exiled duke and his actress to their deaths. On the other hand, it was always hinted that they had escaped, and that he was in hiding in Argentine. At various times for 30 years he has been discovered in this place and that—discovered in the fancy of some dreamer, His great estates await his return to Austria, for even yet he has not been declared legally dead.

Much more recent in Austrian history is the case of Archduke Leopold, who, like Salvatore, gave up rank, title, and fortune to marry Fraulein Adamoviks, a not too fascinating Viennese actress. They left Austria in disgrace, the duke calling himself Ilerr Woelfing, and, after some years of liutterliy living, joined an aesthetic colony, where the duke began to practise upon himself and his wife various eccentric cult ideas. She finally was forced to leave him, whereupon he also deserted the cult and married Maria Ritter. a girl who had once been a servant in his family.

With a mere mention of the fact that Ferdinand, the present heir-apparent of the Austrian Imperial throne, married the poor Countess Chotek, and risked all his birth afforded in the marriage, the testimony from that end of the world may be dismissed.

Prince Oscar of Sweden did not less than the Austrians when he became enamoured of Ebba Munek, a beautiful but lowly lady-in-waiting on his royal mother. By the intercession of that mother he was finally permitted to marry the girl, after expressly renouncing all rights to the throne. Some years later his father so far relented as to create him Count of Wisborg. Thus was the Prince of Sweden abased to the trifling nobility by his love. These are a few of the striking eases that stand out in the affairs of a generation. Grand Duke Michael of Russia and the Countess Torby may likewise hi* mentioned in the same connection. And it is impossible to overlook the incorrigible Louise, Crown Princess of Saxony, who deserted her royal husband and her family of children to elope with the tutor, Giron, who tired of her as readily as he had wearied of instructing her stupid, diadem-wearing girls anil bovs.

Next in line, she divorced and quickly married an Italian violinist of considerable local repute. The sensation created by his marriage to a woman who might have been queen of a worthy kingdom made her violinist husband in demand amongst the European music-halls. Thus did her love for a pedagogue bring this royal woman down to the level of living on the harvest of gold men paid to gloat upon her misdeeds.