CHAPTER IVCOUNTESS CHOTEK
Countess Chotek,afterwards Duchess Hohenberg, the morganatic wife of the late Francis Ferdinand, the heir to the throne of Austria-Hungary, was a most remarkable woman, and her history is perhaps the most romantic that was ever written. She belonged to an impoverished Bohemian family, which ranked high among the ancient aristocracy of that nation. She was brought up very quietly and was accustomed, as a girl, to ride in the tramway in Dresden, where her father held a post in the Diplomatic Service. Her dresses were very plain, even for an aristocrat. The peculiar charm that she possessed, however, made her an object of much attention. She was a big blonde, as stately as an empress, and at the same time a woman who knew how to make herself agreeable in conversation, as her life had given her an intimate knowledge of menand things that was unusual in a woman belonging to a noble family, in Austria-Hungary, where the little aristocrats are convent-bred, and never encouraged to form opinions of their own upon the current topics of the hour. She was very ambitious, and intelligent to an extraordinary degree. She was a woman who knew just what she wanted, and who would not have hesitated to use any means that were necessary for the attainment of her object. She made her entrance into the Austrian Imperial family in a very subordinate position. She became lady-in-waiting to the beautiful daughters of Archduke Frederick, the richest of all the Archdukes. Her life in his family was probably not disagreeable, but decidedly monotonous, as the family spent most of the time on lonely country estates in Hungary. Archduke Francis Ferdinand frequented the Vienna palace, on the Albrecht Platz, where Archduke Frederick lived when in residence at Court. Everyone believed that he was about to marry one of the Archduke’s daughters, and the match was regarded as a good one. The girls had large dowries, and relationship between the heir to the throne and the branch of the family to which they belonged was very distant. It is probable that the Archduke had some such arrangement in his mindwhen he visited the house. He, however, fell violently and irretrievably in love with the lady-in-waiting, a woman in the early thirties, and regarded as long past marriageable age in Court circles. The romantic story of the marriage is well known, but the fact that the Archduke, in marrying the lady-in-waiting, made an inveterate enemy of Archduke Frederick was never appreciated at its proper value abroad. In Vienna itself the gravity of the position was well understood. No better-class tradesman in Austria would allow such an insult to his daughters to go unrevenged, for the Austrian father is very jealous of his daughters’ reputation. No young man is permitted to visit at a house regularly without having the clearest “intentions.” At the Court this unwritten law is much stricter than among the people. The Archduke, in selecting the lady-in-waiting, was casting a slur upon the Archduchesses she attended. Fortunately, there were several girls, and as he had never singled out any one of them for particular attention, there was no open rupture. It is certain, however, that the Archduke behaved in a very ungentlemanly way, and that his conduct was totally lacking in delicacy. Archduke Frederick never forgave the insult, and theother members of the House of Habsburg sympathised with him in his wrath at the incident. Indeed, the outraged father had plenty of occasion to remember it. His daughter, Archduchess Isabella, who had hoped to become the future Empress of Austria, made an unfortunate marriage later on. Her parents, by way of settling the incident of the heir to the throne, and laying the ghosts of rumours that still hung round the girl’s name, arranged a match with Prince George of Bavaria. The Archduchess, who hated the young man, actually set fire to her wedding-dress on the eve of the marriage, hoping that it would be put off, as she had nothing suitable to wear.
Incidentally, she set fire to the palace, and a valuable collection of pictures in the adjacent museum was threatened. The marriage took place on the morrow, a dress having been hurriedly contrived for the occasion. The girl fled from her husband on the wedding journey, and afterwards became a Red Cross nurse. For these misfortunes the Archduke was regarded as primarily responsible and they served to make Countess Chotek still more detestable to the Imperial family.
On his marriage Archduke Francis Ferdinand renounced all rights to the throne and to anydignities or privileges belonging to members of the House of Habsburg for his heirs. He and his wife withdrew into obscurity, where a family of beautiful children was born to them. This led Countess Chotek to dream of altering the laws of succession and securing the throne for her eldest son. With this ulterior object in view she came to Vienna at the time of the Emperor’s illness, and tried to force her way into Court society. Her rank entitled her to be received at Court, but not to be admitted into the magic circle of the Austrian Imperial family as one of themselves. The etiquette of the Vienna Court is the strictest in Europe, and is based upon that ruling at the Spanish Court. The members of the Habsburg family are all extremely simple, but they permit no liberties to be taken either with themselves or the family. Countess Chotek, as she was then, appeared at the Court ball unannounced. She intended to surprise the Master of the Ceremonies, and force him to allow her to enter with the Archduchesses. The old man did not lose his presence of mind. He met the difficulty in a very clever way. The married Archduchesses walked in first, each with her cavalier, selected especially for the honour. After the long procession of handsome, stately dames with flowing trains had passedinto the brilliantly-lighted room, the young Archduchesses who were presented at Court for the first time were led into the hall, each on the arm of a handsome young officer. Eight girls, dressed in simple muslin gowns that barely reached to their ankles, and looking very childish, as none was more than eighteen years of age, came next in the long procession. The Master of the Ceremonies, who had detained Countess Chotek, found her a place, on the left arm of the last cavalier, the youngest of the Archduchesses occupying the post of honour on the right. Countess Chotek entered the ball-room inwardly raging. Everyone noticed the insult, as the other ladies all had a cavalier to themselves. The next morning the Vienna newspapers alluded to the slight which had been put upon the wife of the heir to the throne, and said that the Master of the Ceremonies should have remembered that the Countess was a woman, and have refrained from so pointed an insult. Archduke Francis Ferdinand and his wife left Vienna the next day as a protest, and this was the last occasion upon which he tried to force his wife upon the Court.
Kaiser Wilhelm, whose emissaries always kept him well informed of every event, big or little, in Vienna, heard of the incident. Nowwas the time for him to interfere. The Archduke, who had always turned a deaf ear to blandishments from Berlin, would now be accessible. The man who was too strong to care to hear flattery of himself would lend a willing ear to any defence of his beautiful wife, who had been grossly insulted. The Archduke became more deeply attached to his wife every year; the inconveniences to which he was subjected for her sake only strengthened his affection. When, therefore, an invitation for the Archduke and his wife came from Berlin it was gratefully accepted. Kaiser Wilhelm, whose wife, the Empress, has never been allowed to have much voice in things, placed Countess Chotek in the place of honour, and, what is vastly more important, caused the fact to be chronicled in the German and Austrian papers. The Archduchesses in Vienna raged inwardly, for Countess Chotek, the “scullery-maid,” as they were in the habit of calling her, was being received with Royal honours, and the rank accorded to her in Berlin was such as would be given to a future Empress. Kaiser Wilhelm won a warm friend by this clever manœuvre, which incidentally cost him nothing.
The Archduke did not come to Vienna on representative occasions after this episode, buthe kept in close touch with the Foreign Minister, Count Aehrenthal, who looked to him for guidance instead of to the Emperor. The War Minister went to the Archduke’s Bohemian palace when he wanted large estimates passed, and induced the Archduke to exert his influence in this direction. Meanwhile the favourite occupation of the Archduke continued to be gardening, and this taste took him all over Europe. The Court Chronicle never spoke of the Archduke. An accidental paragraph in some foreign paper would reveal the fact that he and the Countess were in Holland, attending sales of bulbs. He even went to England incognito on several occasions to visit far-famed gardens. It is doubtful, in the light of later events, whether all these journeys were connected solely with gardening, although the Archduke was a passionate horticulturist. Countess Chotek always accompanied her husband, and when, in the early spring, he went to Miramare, near Trieste, or to the fairy-like island of Brioni, she and the children went too. The Archduke spent his time in superintending the building of small swift cruisers, in inspecting wireless telegraphic installations on the coast, and in keeping the naval experts employed at high pressure. He was the first Archduke whowas interested in the sea, the aged Emperor caring so little for marine affairs that he did not even possess a naval uniform among the large and miscellaneous collection in his wardrobe.
Countess Chotek, like many not born to the purple, made mistakes of a kind that did not add to her popularity. Her husband had great possessions, and owned art treasures of inestimable worth, but they were far from being a source of revenue. In fact his income was not sufficient to keep them up properly. His wife had brought him no dowry. His growing family was a source of expense. Thus ready money was a scarcity in the family. Countess Chotek tried to economise on her personal expenses, instead of leaving it to her stewards, who understood where a woman of that rank can be mean and where she must be munificent. She became involved in many discreditableaffairesthrough her stinginess. One of these was a dispute with a cabby at Salzburg. The Countess committed an unheard-of indiscretion—she took a one-horsed cab. No lady,en toilette, can ride in a one-horsed cab in Austria. If really poor she can ride in the electric tramway, but for some occult reason the cab is taboo. She must either take a fiacre with a pair of dashing steeds, or a motor-car. Countess Chotek not only hailed aone-horsed cab, when a row of handsome and well-fitted fiacres stood by, but refused to pay the fare the cabby demanded. He had recognised the lady, and naturally thought that she would stand imposition, as ladies of the Imperial family never go about unattended, and the only explanation to his unsophisticated mind was that the Countess was on clandestine business of some kind, and should be blackmailed for it. To his astonishment she marched him off to the police-station herself. The police condemned the unfortunate cabby to a fine, but the Countess Sofia was felt to be in the wrong. What had possessed her to ride in an “Einspanner”? An elopement with the groom or automobile chauffeur was quite an ordinary incident among the aristocracy and speedily forgotten, but such a mistake as going in the wrong kind of cab was more than a misdemeanour, it was a lack ofsavoir vivrethat the country could never forgive.