In spite of this estrangement, he felt the tragic death of his wife very deeply; perhaps, as a man, he felt it even more deeply than that of his only son Rudolf. The effect on him of the news of Archduke Rudolf's death is said to have been terrible; but here it was doubtless rather the monarch who found himself bereft of his sole heir than the father who had lost an insubordinate and troublesome son; for the relations between father and son had been very unhappy. Like his mother, whose nature he had apparently inherited, Rudolf felt ill at ease in the strict, narrow-minded atmosphere of the Court; and in his rebellion against it he turned to a far worse extreme--a deliberate contempt and scorn of those considerations which were due to his position. Such behaviour was especially calculated to offend and embitter the Kaiser, who set such store by dignity and the duties of royalty, so that a gulf stretched between them which grew ever wider and deeper. The Kaiser, however, cannot be altogether absolved from blame for this unhappy estrangement, for, by the very fact that he jealously kept his son apart from affairs of State, he naturally helped, though unintentionally, to drive him deeper and deeper into the wild Don Juan-like paths which led to so tragic a conclusion. It was the ugly and painful circumstances attending the Crown-Prince's death that probably caused his father the bitterest suffering of his life, suffering more bitter than could have been caused by his death alone. For how deeply must the Kaiser have suffered with his proud nature, his dignified reserve, his horror of anything which might excite scandal-through the enormous sensation caused by this death, which stirred the whole world with its bloodstained eroticism, and unloosed a perfect deluge of the most revolting type of sensational journalism.

Of the population of his kingdom, numbering over fifty millions, there can, indeed, be but few who have experienced such an abundance of tragedy within their own family circle. His brother Maximilian, executed as Emperor of Mexico; his wife killed by the hand of an assassin; his nephew and heir also; added to these, other painful events in his family, not to speak of the heavy blows dealt him by fate in his capacity of ruler. The whole constituted such an immense tragedy that it would

not have been wonderful if he had collapsed beneath it. The wonder was that he did not collapse-a miracle to be explained not only by the extraordinary elasticity of his physical constitution, but doubtless also by the selfsufficiency and calmness of his nature which gave him a spiritual equilibrium that even the most terrible blows of fate could not permanently injure. This tragedy helped, moreover, to gain for him, through pity, feelings of sympathy which would otherwise probably not have been accorded him to such an extensive degree. People saw a crown of thorns upon his grey head, from which a radiance emanated. This radiance added a warmer tone to the frigid halo which had encircled him, and thus increased his popularity. For popularity he enjoyed, however far removed from the people his nature essentially was. In the early days, indeed, especially at the time when he was under the evil influence of General Count Grünne, there were few signs of popular favour. It only became evident in the course of years, and was perhaps mainly due to the force of habit. His people had become used to regarding him as their ruler; three generations, from childhood to age, had known no other Kaiser; and they could scarcely imagine that there would ever be any other Kaiser in Austria than this kindly old gentleman with the characteristic white whiskers, who had suffered so many misfortunes and still had to endure so much as sovereign, owing to the difficulties of his position. Thus custom and pity wove about him a species of popularity which his own personality would scarcely have won.

II. ARCHDUKE FRANZ FERDINAND.

ALTHOUGH Archduke Franz Ferdinand never came to the Habsburg throne, nevertheless in considering the last of the Habsburgs he must not be omitted; for, in spite of the fact that Franz Josef's jealous love of power limited his sphere of action, he succeeded, as heir apparent, in making his influence felt very effectively, and would have been destined to play an important part on the political stage. To the public, Franz Ferdinand appeared as a sort of shrouded figure like that of Sais, whose veils their fingers were always itching to lift.

But these veils were never to be completely raised, this curiosity was never to be entirely satisfied, for Franz Ferdinand passed into the great darkness before the chiaroscuro in which he was hidden during his lifetime could be illuminated. Those, however, who were closely connected with him, or who had any opportunity of considering him attentively and impartially, even if it were through the veils which shrouded him from publicity, were able to perceive the outlines of his personality so clearly that for them it had no mystery, and they realised that his individuality was the most remarkable produced by the House of Habsburg since the Emperor Josef II.

The tragic death of the Crown Prince Rudolf on Jan. 30, 1889, caused Archduke Franz Ferdinand to take a prominent place before the world. Although the next heir to the throne would, in fact, have been the Emperor's brother, Archduke Karl Ludwig, it was taken for granted that the latter would resign his right to the throne in favour of his eldest son, Archduke Franz Ferdinand, especially since, in view of the Emperor's vigorous constitution, he would not have succeeded until he was well advanced in years. The public knew little of Franz Ferdinand, and that little was not calculated to excite sympathy for him or to cause any great hopes to be set on him; for rumour attributed to him, as to his younger brother Otto, all manner of frivolous escapades in which he had played no very creditable rôle. When it became known that he was suffering from tuberculosis, a disease which he had inherited from his mother, who had died while still in her youth, and that on this account he was obliged to go south, it was generally believed that there was no question of his succeeding, even if he survived the Emperor; and his younger brother Otto, who was married and had sons, was regarded as the future sovereign. But this belief was, before long, seen to have been erroneous, for Franz Ferdinand soon let it be known that he was not prepared to renounce the throne to which, after the death of his father, he had become the immediate heir.

The first time that he courted publicity was when he accepted the patronage (Protektorat) of the Catholic Schulverein and, on this occasion, let fall a significant

remark on the 'Los von Rom' movement, so active at that time. Away from Rome,' he said, 'is equivalent to "Away from Austria!" In this mot he hit the nail on the head, for the propaganda against the Catholic Church set on foot by the Pan-Germans was solely to be attributed to the fact that the latter regarded the Catholic Church as the greatest obstacle to the spread of Pan-German thought among the people. The object of this school of thought, however. was none other than to hurl the Habsburgs from the throne and to affiliate Austria to the German Empire as a vassal State. But this movement naturally roused the indignation of the heirapparent and provoked him to severe condemnation of the Pan-German propaganda. His words called forth a very vehement and hostile response from the public. The Liberal Jewish press, at that time leading opinion in Austria, vied with the Pan-German and SocialDemocratic press in expressing its indignation that the future sovereign should, in accepting the patronage of a confessedly Catholic association, have taken up a definitely partisan attitude, and they disputed his right to do so. There is no question that, if he had accepted the patronage of a Liberal or German-nationalist association, and had given utterance to opinions in sympathy with these, the very same journals would have hailed his utterances with enthusiasm ; as, however, he had adopted the contrary standpoint, they assumed an air of virtuous indignation and demanded impartiality. Indeed, the Liberals, Social-Democrats, Jews, and-a strange medley-PanGermans were all beginning to have fears for the future, which held no promise of good to them when Franz Ferdinand should come to the throne. Hence the commotion.

The Magyars were also to have a foretaste of this future, which was but little relished by them and gave them much food for reflexion; for, when the Archduke was about to pay a visit to the court of the Tsar at Petersburg and chose Count Zichy, a man of his own political views, as his Hungarian Lord-in-Waiting, the Liberal clique in Hungary expressed themselves as highly offended, brought a protest before the Emperor, and demanded that the Archduke should make his choice from their ranks. This objection was so far successful

that the Archduke was obliged to exclude Count Zichy from his retinue, but, in spite of this, he would not have a member of the Liberal party, to which he was antagonistic, forced on him, and, rather than suffer this, he decided to have no Hungarian Lord-in-Waiting to accompany him, so that Hungary was not represented in his retinue at all. It was the first time for decades that the Magyars had met with opposition at Vienna; they now became aware that a strong man was there who, once he came to power, would brook no interference.

By these two indications of his views and aims the Archduke had slightly raised the veils in which his personality had hitherto been shrouded and had given a hint of what was to be expected of him as ruler. By his marriage with the Countess Chotek, which he finally achieved after a long and difficult struggle, in spite of the vehement opposition of the Emperor and the Court in general, the Archduke showed that he was capable of obstinacy not only in political matters but also in regard to his personal affairs, even when in conflict with the most powerful man in the Empire. Although this alliance was dangerous and regrettable from a political point of view, because it was calculated to render Austrian politics, already difficult and complicated enough, more confused than ever, yet, judged from the other, the human standpoint, it did great credit to the Archduke's constancy and will-power.

It may at once be said that it proved an entirely happy marriage; and the Archduke was never so contented as when in his family circle, especially at Schloss Konopischt in Bohemia, which he had bought and furnished with extravagant magnificence and exquisite taste. He withdrew from life at Court, not only to avoid the painful disputes as to precedence, and to spare his wife the slights to which the stiff Court etiquette would have exposed her; but also because he did not feel at ease in the atmosphere of the Court and did not get on particularly well with the other Archdukes. At Schloss Belvedere,' once the seat of Prince Eugen of Savoy, he held, when he was in Vienna, his own rigidly restricted Court, which was to a certain extent, and occasionally very markedly so, a direct contrast to that of the old Emperor. Indeed, the relations between the