Los Angeles herald., 1891-09-07
SAD SIDE LIGHTS OF CRUMBLING DY-
NASTIES.

The New York World of the 30th in
slant contains long account, inspired
by her mother, OF the melancholy cir
cumstances attending the double suicide
of the young Rsronne de Vetsera and
the Crown Prince Rudolph, of Austria.
If anything could show the emptiness
and worthlessness of the ordinary court
life of Europe, this story undoubtedly
does. The episode not only involved the
death of young and charming woman,
but has left the peculiar Austro-Hunga-
riaD empire, which is almost as precari-
GUS as that of Turkey, without a lineal
heir. The story is the more interesting
just at this time because the telegraph
has been busy, of late, with announce
ments of the insanity of the Austrian
empress.
This young girl, Baronne Marie de
Vetsera, was only nineteen at the time
of the sad catastrophe which startled
Europe. Her innocence was betrayed
by the Grown Prince Rudolph, the pos
SCISSOR of charming wife, through the
infamous offices of the Countess Larish,
niece of the empress OF Austria.
Through the complaisance of this wo-
man to the lovers, the infatuated girl
was handed over to the lustful wiles OF
her imperial undoer. The telegraph
has shed a dreadful suspicion over the
| affair. It is said that the emperor
Francis Joseph was really the father OF
Marie as of Rudolph, and that revela-
ton OF this shocking fact led to the
double suicide. The circumstances fol-
lowing the tragedy were revolving in the
extreme. The corpse of the dead girl,
whose crime was that she had yielded
to the seductions of her imperial be-
trayer, was treated in a revolving man.
ner after death. 1t was allowed to lie
covered with blood for thirty-eight
hours after her death, and when at last
she was allowed the rites of sepulture
she was borne to the cemetery sitting
upright in the carriage, supported by
her uncle and a companion, coffin
even being denied her until she reached
the grave, when she was bundled into a
rude pine box and hurried into the
earth.
If such story had been told of Com
anche or Sioux savages it might have
excited horror, but still It's atrocity
would have been mitigated by the
knowledge the reader has of the barbar'
Gus practices of, the aborigines, anG
which, by the way, are confined to the
enemies of those tribes,
This narrative can not fail to throw
a very malign shadow over the Aus
trian dynasty. Even loyal Austrians
can well be excused for asking what
there is in perpetuating dynssties whe1
the heir to the throne proved himself tC
be a crazy libertine, who showed him
self insensible to the ordinary restraints
of manhood, against whom trusting in
nocence was no protection, and wh'
could see no nobler object in life thai
lust, suicide and murder.
The fact is that the dynastic principle
is undergoing great many shocks o
AchbC CdASs AHC AuulOC4 vi CidIy
competents who are making monarchy
ridiculous and insufferable is increasing
every year. The day is not distant when
the principle that man is to be hon
ored for anything but what he is in
himself will be regarded as farcical to
the point of derision.
The telegraph advises us that the
Prince of Wales is doing his best to in
crease the public resentment at his
rakehelly and perverse antics. He has
announced it to be his purpose to again
visit Tranby Croft, the seat of the family
who loaned him large sums of money
for social recognition, and the scene Of
the disgraceful Baccarat scandal. The
instinct of the moth is to bury itself in
the flame, and Albert Edward, perhaps
as veritable moth as ever hourished
as the ephemeron of an hour, is no ex.
ception to the rule.