The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1872-04-20 00:00:00

AN AUSTRIAN "CLAIMANT."

The following is sent over by the Austrian Correspondent
of The Times, under date, Vienna, April 10—
• • •

"Within the last few days a sensational trial,
presenting some features in common with the Tich-
borne case, has occupied Vienna. After the fall of the
Mexican Empire and the execution of the Emperor
Maximilian a man calling himself Colonel Estvan
made his appearance in Vienna. He pretended to have
played &considerable part in those events, and to have
rendered good service as diplomatic and press agent,
and preferred on account of services thus rendered a
claim of about £25,000 upon the i mperial family as
the heirs and representatives of the late Emperor
Maximilion. The moment was well chosen, for the
Mexican tragedy had invested with a halo of romance
every one who had been in any way connected with it,
and made him a subject of interest and sympathy.
Estvan came well prepared to discount this interest and
sympathy. He had a well-prepared story of personal
adventure, which he could support by an array of letters
and documents, which, though they dwindled down
into nothing when examined in a court of law, were
sufficient to give a plausible aspect to his claims.
" According to his story he was the son of a pro-
prietor in Bistritz, in Transylvania ; had passed his
youth in Belgium; had served for some years in a
Hungarian Regiment of Hussars, had taken part in
the Hungarian war of 1848, and escaped after it into
America, where he lad first been employed as an en-
gineer of a railway, then taken part in the war as a
Colonel in the Confederate army, until, after the
war, he returned again to the North, where he re-
sumed his occupation as an engineer. In 1865
he pretended to have gone, as the correspondent
of the New York Flirald, to Mexico, where
he made the proposal to influential persons
about the Emperor to use his personal and literary
influence in New York and Washington in order to
produce a change iu the public opinion there and
induce the United States to recognize the Mexicali
Empire. He alleged that an agreement was made
between him and the Mexican Government, which
was ratified by the Emperor, and according to his
statement, the latter had even previously asked
him to devote his services to him. According to
this agreement the Emperor guaranteed to him
5,000 dole. a year and 40,000 dols. subvention which
11- now claimed as a personal debt of the late Em-
peror. In order to establish these claims he pre-
sented petitions to the Emperor and to thel Arch-
duke Franz Carl, the father of His Majesty the late
Emperor Maximilian. In this be represented his
relationswith the latter as quite of a personal nature,
and pretended to have been obliged to contract a debt
of 25,000 dole, as the promised subvention was not paid,
to have been sent on a mission to
.the Empress Char-

in'tt-e- In Rome, and to have acted for ra time as
Mexican Charge d'Affaires in Paris, where he had had
an interview with the Emperor Napoleon. He asserted
that the original documents authenticating his claims
were in the possession of Father Augu,tin Fischer,
that by the will of the late Emperor all the notes of
the privato archives had been made over to this latter,
and that Father Fischer had received an order from
the Emperor at the last moment of his life to be sure
to settle the claim of Estvan.

"The petitions were returned from the Imperial
Cabinet with the remark that if Father Fischer held
the proofs of his claim in hand the claimant must
get these proofs, and show that these claims were
of a private nature. As for any claims which
Estvan might have on the late Mexican Imperial
Government, they could not be taken into con-
sideration. Not deterred or discouraged by this

refusal, Estvan went on " working " hi claims. In
order to be able to mefer such claims a certain style
of living was indispensable, and for this again
money had to he procured; and there is now a list of
some 'thirty people. mostly tradesmen and small capi-
talists, who, trusting in the reality of his clainas,
advanced smaller or larger sums, or entered into
monetary transactions with him for the sale of house§
and other property, and it is these transactions for
which Estvan was prosecuted in the Criminal Court,
for getting-money under false pretences.

The preliminary examination sufficed at the outset
to tear holes in the web,of the whole story. First of
all, his name was proved to have been assumed, and
that in a rather sensational way. From the time of
his arrest an old woman came every week bringing
a little money for his use, who, after inquiry, proved
to be his mother. It was found that he was a native
of Vienna, a dyer by trade, who went away in
1847, and had been living in New York, as well as
two of his brothels, ever since 1850. All the stories
about his having served in the army were proved to
have been fictions.
"Oa the other hand, there could be no doubt that
he was in Mexico in 1865, and that he had had some
commission from the Minis'-er Castillo, which, how-
ever, was soon cancelled, and the subvention stopped
by that Minister's successor Arroyo, probably because
the man had been found out by that time. As to
what the nature of the commission was, and its terms,

nothing certain was ascertained, the i;.coused having
only an unauthenticated letter of Castillo to the
Emperor, dated the 20th of December, 1865, in Which
the advantages to be derived from the project of
Eetvan were set forth, and to which was added a note
by the Emperor approving the project., and a decision
of the Minister of Finance, L'Anglauc, who assigns
5,000 dols. a year for two years, and diminishes the
subvention of 80,000 dole. to 40,000 dole.

"But what came out most strongly was the way in
which people had allowed themselves to be duped.
There was a long list of swindling transac ions with
people who partly believed in the reality of his claims,
or, at any rate, in his skill in getting them recognized,
and hoped thus to make a profit out of it. There could
be no doubt about the crime, which the tribunal has
punished with six years' imprisonment, accompanied
by hard labour, but the interest of the case lay
in the by-play, in the mixture of imposture and self.
belief and pretension, which were so entwined that
it was difficult to Bay where one ended and the
other began. Nothing could be more grandiloquent
than the description given by the accused of his own
activity and importance, and yet it every moment
appeared that the man who pretended to have played
90 prominent a part in Mexican affairs, and who un-
doubtedly had been employed by that Government,
was utterly uneducated, and wrote 'Chateau Then-
reuse ' instead of 'Chartreuse,' and made of ' Bureau '
a 'Mr. Buys-au.'

'For the defence, it was stated that in tbe archives
a patent, hearing the insciption Estvan,' by the band
of the Emperor Maximilian, was to be found, which, it
was asserted, contained the authentic proofs of the
claims, and, accordingly, the counsel forthe defencepro-
posed to interrogate the office of the Court-Marshal on
the subject. The answer was, not that the patent existed
or not, but that the Court-Marshal did not consider
himself authorised to give any information relating to
the private affairs of members of the Imperial House.
The rule thus laid down may be quite correct, nor had
these papers any reference to the matter in question,
as the cases of swindling were too glaring to require
further proof; but there may be an impression remain-
ing that the claims of Estvan were still not without
some sort (mound at ion, which is to be regretted, for,
in any case, en if the accused had an agreement with
the Emperor, as ruler of Mexico, any rights under it
naturally ceased with the end of the Mexican Empire."