CROWN PRINCE’S DEATH

Greymouth Evening Star, 31 May 1937, Page 8

CROWN PRINCE’S DEATH

SECRET MAY BE REVEALED. VIENNA, April 9. Further details have come to light concerning a box. containing Habsburg family papers, which has been discovered in the Palace of Justice at Brno, Czechoslovakia. It was de-

posited there in 1908, it is learnt, by the late Prince Rudolf of Lichtenstein, former Court Chamberlain to the Emperor Francis-Joseph. The papers may, it is believed, throw light on the mystery, of the in ISS9 of Archduke Rudolf, only son of the Emperor, and Baroness' Mario Vetsera. They were, found shot in the Royal hunting-box at Mayerilng and the theory has hitherto been that tliey were victims of a suicide pact.

It appears that two days after the burial of the Empress Elizabeth, mother of Archduke Rudolf, who was assassinated at Geneva in IS9S, Prince Lichtenstein showed to a friend a small wooden box, which the Emperor Francis-Joseph had found in a secret drawer of the Empress’s writing-desk. The Emperor said that he did not care to open it as it was obviously a personal secret of the Empress. He wished the box to be preserved and to be opened by trustworthy persons only after many years, when no

one of (hat generation would be still alive. In accordance with the Emperor’s wishes a strong box was made .to hold the wooden box, the former locked and sealed, the key thrown into tile Danube and the box itself deposited in Brno under the conditions that. it. should not be opened until 1950.

tj Valuable papers concerning the , Mayerling tragedy are known to be in the possession of Count Taaffe, in Ellischan Castle, Czechoslovakia. The Emperor confided these to Count TaalTe rather than to official records. Apparently expecting the revolution, ho did this, he said, “so that some [unexpected event may not cause them to lie made public." These papers are believed to in-l elude farewell letters nf the Crown

■ Prince Rudolf to his father. his . mother, his wife and various other members of the family. The letter to his mother is said Io contain the sentence, ”1 have no right to live longer for I have taken life." Other interesting documents of the ex-Empress Elizabeth are contained in a trunk which she deposited in Munich in IS9S with instructions that it was not to be opened until 1950.