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Show -...(.Vf.)--)----;)---; I H STORICAL I DEPARTMENT, j :--s---s----- --- Empress Elizabeth of Austria. The life of every one of the royai women whose popular biographer Miss Tschudi has become by virtue of her talent for vivid representation of the essential and dramatic and repression of the unessential, is overshadowed by greater cares and deeper griefs than fall to the share of most mortals. But not even the life of Marie Antoinette I is so intensely sad as that of the late I Empress Elizabeth, the tracing of ' whose career is Miss Tschudi's most recent addition to the literature of biography, says a reviewer in the Westminster Budget. A shadow seems to have lain upon her life from the very day 'When she was born, according to the old, deep-rooted continental superstition su-perstition that it is unlucky to be born on Christmas eve. For it was on Dec. 24, 1S37. that the child was born to Duke Maximilian . Joseph, head of a branch of the Wittlesbach family, who was to share the throne of Austria-Hungary Austria-Hungary with the Emperor Francis Joseph. However, neither the luckless day of her birth nor the ill-fate which has for generations brooded over the destinies of the finest flower of the Wittelsbach family could dim the sunshine sun-shine of Princess Elizabeth's childhood, the "out-door child"" whose mind was thrilled so readily by the power of all things grand and beautiful. Together with her father, whose love of nature she inherited, the child roamed about the mountains of her home, became a visitor at the cottages of the peasants, peas-ants, and laid the foundation for that passion for simple outdoor pleasures which was to remain her solace to the very end. Miss Tschudi points out that the empress, speaking of her love of walking, said to one of her readers: "I am never tired of walking, and I thank my father for it. He was an ardent sportsman, and expected my sisters and myself to skip and spring about like chamoix." S S A charming story is -told of these happy days, when the duke and his little daughter roamed about the Bavarian Ba-varian Alps, lunching at mountain chalets cha-lets and playing dance music on the zithers which they brought with them or borrowed from the peasants. "It happened once that they played in a remote district where nobody knew either the strange sportsman or the child, and the peasants gave the charming little girl a few silver coins as her reward. Elizabeth accepted them with glee, and one day observed to some acquaintances to whom she was showing them, as empress: 'This is the only money I have earned in my life.' " The simple and unfettered life of such a childhood was the worst possible pos-sible preparation for her position at the head of the Austrian court, which is hedged in by stricter etiquette and greater formalities than any other European court. Everybody knows the story of how the young emperor of Austria went to Ischi to ask the hand of Princess Elizabeth's elder sister, and how, instead, in-stead, he fell desperately in love at first sight with the wonderfully lovely child who was amusing herself with a herd of goats in a meadow. The romance ro-mance lasted until the imperial bride of 17 years made her triumphant entrance en-trance into Vienna, ideally beautiful, and received with wild enthusiasm by the whole nation. Soon, however, the court intrigues were in full swing; the cruelties of a court etiquette handed down from the middle ages and the insults of a narrow-minded aristocracy oppressed the empress wherever she turned, and the dark cloud, which was never to lift again, began to settle upon her. "Elizabeth was naturally nervous, and though in after life there were critical moments in which her self-sacrifice was great, the innumerable little daily yieldings seemed impossible to one of her temperament. She felt herself her-self misunderstood in her best thoughts And intentions, and gradually became a lonely woman at her own court." Domestic troubles and ill-health added to the increasing estrangement of the empress from her court, and presently she set out on the first of the journeys and wanderings which henceforth were to remain her chief solace. "The sickness which had pressed so hard upon her was a deliverance. It had freed her from the crushing life of the court ,and the long solitude in Maderia was to strengthen her in patience pa-tience and prepare her for the heavy trials which Providence had in store." ? ' The, greatest of the "heavy trials,'-apart trials,'-apart from the ever-present fear of insanity, in-sanity, was the terrible end of Crown Prince Rudolph, that "tragedy of May-erling" May-erling" which, even to this day, has never been cleared up, and the only facts concerning which are that "the crown prince was found dead in his bed in the imperial shooting box at Mayerling, near Baden, in Lower Austria, Aus-tria, where he had been spending a few days. He met his death through a terrible ter-rible wound in the head, and in the same room was found the body of a young girl, the Baroness Vetsera, whom he had loved. There. was a general gen-eral impression that they had both committed suicide, but there were also signs which pointed to the fact that Rudolph might have been murdered." In those days of despair and sorrow the Empress Elizabeth stood by the emperor with almost superhuman for-l for-l titude; the two, though for years past they 'had been reconciled and "friendly." "friend-ly." were then once more united in a common sorrow. But the empress' heart was broken. "She changed from that day, and it is said that she was never heard to laugh again, that it was even a rarirty to see her smile. She had been heroic at the time of the shock, but the strong self-control self-control of those early weeks was followed fol-lowed by heart-rending despair. Many were of opinion that she had been contradictory con-tradictory and eccentric for some time past. Now she herself remarked that she had no longer 'either the strength to live or the wish to die. " And thus she wandered restlessly over the faje of the earth, the loneliest of lonely women, till the assassin's knife put an end to her drawn-out suffering." |