PATHETIC REUNION.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVIII, Issue 20988, 26 September 1931, Page 3 (Supplement)

PATHETIC REUNION.

ARCHDUCHESS AND SON. PRINCE WHO REFUSED THRONE. A pathetic family reunion took place in a Budapest nursing home on August 12 between the ill and aged Archduchess Isabella of Hapsburg, wife of the Archduke Friedrich, ex-commander of the Austrian Army, and her son, the Archduke Albrecht. Albrecht. once pretender to the throne of Hungary, is now " nobody," on account of his romantic runaway marriage with the beautiful Frau Irene von Rudnay, divorced wife of a Hungarian diplomat. The proud old Archduchess, who had worked secretly for years to put her son on the throne, has not seen Albrecht since that dramatic day, a year ago, when the impetuous young' lover bartered his chances of becoming king by swearing loyalty to his kinsman, the Archduke Otto, son of the ex-Enipress Zita, as head of the House of Hapsburg, in return for the right to mjjrry the woman of .his choice. On Albrecht's marriage to a divorcer he ceased to exist in the eyes of nis mother. Now the Archduchess, worn out with disappointment at the failure of her ambitious plan, was lying dangerously ill. She had been visited in the previous few days" by every aristocrat and personage of note in Budapest, including even Admiral Hocthy. the Regent of Hungary. Ori the night of August 11, the Archduchess' condition taking a turn for the worse, she gave a command that every member of her family must attend her bedside, and next clay Archduke Albrecht saw his mother again. What passed between mother and son ? Did the Archduchess make a last endeavour to win Albrecht from the side of the wife with whom, incidentally, ho has never shared a home, because the civil nuyriage at Brighton was never recognised by the Roman Catholic Church, or did she abandon her life's work in a last-moment forgiveness and bless her son ?