EMPRESS OF AUSTRIA.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVII, Issue 181, 1 August 1936, Page 2 (Supplement)

EMPRESS OF AUSTRIA.

A HISTORY OF ELIZABETH.

Many older people will remember the tragic death at Geneva 38 years ago, at tlio hands of an anarchist, of the Empress of Austria, and the horror with which the news was received throughout the world. Count Corti has now written the story of this august and unfortunate lady, and the portrait lie has drawn is based, he tells us, on "genuine, trustworthy, and hitherto unpublished material. His "Elizabeth Empress of Austria" (Thornton Butteiwortli) lias been translated into English, and it is an admirable piece of work bv Catherine Allison Phillips, wife of Professor Phillips. It is a handsome volume, well illustrated, and enhanced by a copious bibliography, as well as a full index.

The picture of the Empress is drawn in a very different setting, as some of us can" recall, from that of the dismembered and weak Austria of to-day. She was a younger daughter of the eccentric Duke Maximilian Joseph cf Bavaria, and was born in Bavaria in the last week of the year 1937. She was not long in showing herself bright and artistic, with a love of outdoor life that was only matched by her love of reading and writing poetry, and developed into a young lady of remarkable beauty, with a charm of manner that few in her presence found it possible to resist. She was only 1G when her near kinsman, the Emperor Francis Joseph of Austria, who was a few years older, first met her. It was a case of love at first sight, and a few monthf later they were married in Vienna. The marriage all along was a happy one, save for the constant interference of her mother in law in domestic and court affairs in the earlier years, and it is not surprising that the young wife at last asserted herself, and was mistress in her own home and court. She was an excellent wife and mother, and though unpopular in Austrian society, was beloved throughout the Empire generally, and,, in 110 part of it more than in Hungary, for which country and its people she developed as great a love. Count Corti shows the strain she and her husband suffered-on account of the wars and political troubles of their reign, and on account of the multiplicity of the functions in which they had to take a prominent part. He does not hide her defects, as he does not hide those of her husband, but he brings out the many excellent qualities of both, and their associations with other great personages of their day. It is all done intimately, making the book as fascinating reading as a novel, yet with delicacy and reserve.

There was much sorrow in their lives, including the suicide of their son, the Crown Prince, and already, as the prince saw, even better than his father, Austria was giving signs of the crumbling that' would take place when Francis Joseph and his beloved consort were no more.