New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1914-06-29
List Includes Killing OF
Brother Macmillan, Son
Rudolph and Empress.
CURSE UTTERED ON
HOUSE OF HAPSBURu
Imprecation of Countess Karolyi
on Francis Joseph's Head
More than Answered.

burg. A flight of them passed OYER
Olmutz the day when Francis Joseph, a
pleasure loving lad of eighteen years.
was forced by his shrew-souled, stone
hearted mother, Sophie, to mount the
throne. For sixty-six years they have
lowered over the Emperor's head.
Alone in his saith year, with not a
single confdant and only one real
friend. a woman, once a littly Bowery
actress, Francis Joseph has been
logged by tragedy, harried by mis-
fortune and broken by scandal the
whole of his long reign. SO brutal has
the hand of fate been to him that his
griefs have given to his people two
common, everyday expressions-"lli-
fated as a Hapsburg" and Unhappy as
q Hapsburg."
Nor is Francis Joseph alone in be-
lieving that his house 10 cursed. IL
was in the time of the Hungarian re-
volt early in his reign that the curse
was nut upon him. Among the victims
of the hangings and shootings OF Hun
garian patriots was the young son OIL
the Countess Karolyi. The countess
faced the Emperor at a ball ana cursed
him with words that seemed TO con-
tain not only all the bitterness OF her
heart. but all the possibilities OF hui
man hate.
The Curse of the Countess.
Before the countess fell, fainting
with emotion, she had said:
"May heaven and hell blast your
happiness. May your family be ex-
terminated! May you be smitten IN the
persons of those you best love. May
your children be brought to ruin, and
NAV YOUR life be wrecked, and y$et
may you live on in lonely, unbroken
and horrible grief to tremble when you
recall the name of Karolyi!'
The words of the grief crazed woman
have come only too true. Indeed, the
fate she wished to bring upon MIN
would almost have been mild COM
pared with that which has really be-
fallen Francis Joseph. So bitter has
been his cup that even the countess
herself could not but feel sorrow Tor
him now. Throughout his reign prl-
yate affection Of the bitterest kind has
been heaped upon public disaster.
Twice in mis- early days he had to
re-enter his capital as a vanqulshed
leader after disastrous wars. Napoleon
III wrested from him the flouriShlng
Italian provinces of Solferino and Ma
eenta. the loss Of which he felt so
keenly he sought death upon the held.
Then came Bismarck and the defeat at
Sadowa in 1866.
The following year came the defeat
Of his brother. Macmillan, the Inflated
Emperor of Mexico, and his execution
by a squad of Mexican soldiers under
the orders Of Porfrio Diaz. This was
onlv the beginning of the long and
terrible string of tragedies, the mys-
teries of which still fascinate the
world.
Chief among these were the violent
death of the Emperor's only son, the
Crown Prince Rudolph, and the as
sassination of his wife, the Empress
Elizabeth. To this day the death OF the
crown prince remains a mystery. There
are legends about it as innumerable as
fantastic. But whether Prince Ru-
doIpb died murderer and a suicide,
was shot by his mistress or killed with
her by an envious rival, has never peeh
told-perhaps is not known.
Prince Rudolph was brilliant de,
generate. He was a writer, an arus'
and a traveller. His intellectual parts
were such that they won for MN the
admiration of so keen a critic as Nina
Edward of England, who gladly counted
the prince among his friends. Rudolph
was married to Princess Stephanle
daughter of King Leopold OF Belgium
and was unhappy, as the princess
subsequent conduct has shown he may
we'll have had cause to be. =.
seven years after his marriage, IT
1891. Rudolph met and fell madly N
love with Marie Vetsera, the beautiful
voung daughter of a Hungarian baron
who had married a famous Greclan
beauty. When Rudolph sought a d.
vorce from Rome, the Pope sent the
princes letter to the Emperor. Father
and son met. Their conference lasted
all night. Rudolph left with haggerd
face and burning eyes. The Emperor
was found by his attendants uncon-
scious in faint. Two days later came
the tragedy of Mayerling.
Prince and Girl Found Dead.
In his favorite hunting box at May
erIino. near Baden, the princes body
was found. the head shattered with o
revolver bullet. On the floor besiie
him Law the body of the beautiful
Marie Vetsera, dead from dose Of
strychnine.
bowed the shoulders of the Emperor
and broke the heart Of the Empress
has never been told. 1t is probable
that the Emperor alone knows it. Ar
official announcement was made that
the prince had died of the rupture OF
an aneurism of the heart. For a long
while even the main details of his
death were concealed. IL is generally
accepted now that both the prince ant
the girl committed suicide.
Some years afterward John Tran
CULLEN, who was known here as Baron
Schau and died on Wards Island after
career of dissipation in this country
gave a different version. He said that
he drove the Crown Prince 10 Mayer
ling with merry party of men the
night of the tragedy, and that during
supper the Baroness Marie Vetsera
suddenly burst into the room and shot
at Rudolph on his telling her, in reply
TO her demand 70 know, that he was
about TO renounce her, as his father
would not allow their relations Ia
exist any longer. The prince, accord
ing TO Tranquilein, was only slightly
wounded, and caught the Infatuated
girl in his arms, but before he could
wrench the revolver from her she shot
herself dead, and then a relative OF
hers killed the prince with blows on
the head from champagne bottle.
This is only one Of hundreds of diff.
ferent stories which have been told
Whatever the truth was, the death OF
January 20, 1889, OF Rudolph, the only
boy among her four children, broke
the heart Of the Empress Elizabeth
For years the unhappy mother wan.
dcred about Europe alone, with hei