DIVULGING A SECRET

Evening Post, Volume LXXXVIII, Issue 54, 1 September 1914, Page 9

DIVULGING A SECRET

NEW LIGHT ON OLD TRAGEDIES. CLAIM OP A COUNTESS. (FROM OUR OWN CORRESPONDENT.) LONDON, 24th July. "The Secret of an Empress" promises to be a book of sensation. Its publica^ tioh is due in a few weeks' time, and its contents will reveal to the world a new chapter in the chequered history of the House of Hapsburg. Counter Zanardi Landi is the writer. She claims to be the unacknowledged daughter uf the Empress Elisabeth of Austria, and says that the public re* cognition was frustrated by the tragic death of the Empress, who was assassinated by Lucceni. She gives 1882 as the year of her birth, and her* book is an explanation of how and why her Royal mother decided*' to bring her up in a human way, 'out of reach of Court intrigue and Papal influences — to subsequent Papal pressure brought to bear upon an aged man the Countess partly attributes refusal of recognition after the death of her mother. It had been arranged, she says, that on the jubilee of the Emperor Francis Joseph in 1898 she should be publicly acknowledged by the Emperor and the Court, but almost at the moment when arrangements to this end were to be completed, the assassin's hand kept her from the position claimed by her to be hers by right. REASON FOR CONCEALMENT. To a London interviewer the lady has given something of her history and the purpose which hag prompted the publication of the volume. "That two quite understandable questions will be asked by the public — Why was my birth concealed? and Why did the Emperor refuse me recognition? — I fully realise," says the Countess. "In the' first place, it must be remembered, that the extraordinarily circumscribed atmosphere of the Court in Vienna precluded any interchange of natural affection or solicitude between any Empress and her children. What more natural than that a true mother, with high maternal instincts, should wish to train Mier child as her very own? In short, it was a victory of mother love over narrow Court restrictions. Her first four children had been taken from her, and she decided that her fifth should be brought up as her own, in order that it might have scope to develop personality and power under her own guidance." In 1898 the Emperor, she aays, was about to go to Switzerland 'to meet the Empress in order to complete the arrangements for the Countess's public acknowledgment. But the assassination occurred, and later on Court influence and Papal pressure were brought to bear to prevent that recognition. But the Countess refused to give way, and she tells that only a year ago, in Vienna, still striving to achieve her object, ah© was offered one million marks if she would promise to relinquish it. The sum she indignantly declined. At every turn, she declares, the power of the Court has hampered the presentation of her case, prohibited the attendance of witnesses in support of her claim, and barred all access to fchose proofs of the birth in Normandy that might establish it beyond a doubt. KING LUDWIG AND PRINCE RUDOLF. As confidant© of the Empress the Countes3 has some striking revelations of historic interest to nutko known to the world. " I want to tell you," she said, " that the most entire freedom existed between my mother and myself. She explained to me many things that I can only characterise as carefully-guarded Court I secrets. Take, for instance, the heart- ! breaking that resulted in the death of Sing Ludwig 11. of Bavaria. She told me the story in all detail as it was told to her hardly an hour after the event by one who was there. Without divulging too much of the circumstances, I may say that in pathos and reality the story differs entirely from the popular belief. " Again, when the world was thrilled •with the horrdr of the 'tragedy at Meyerling, the death of the Crown Prince Rudolf, the Empress's only son, a garbled version, very far from the truth, was all that was allowed to descend to current history. But my mother's narrative, as related to me, _ still fills ,me with horror at its unpitying relentlessness. "My life's blood is in this book, the contents of which will be discovered to be the best proof that I am what I claim to be."