LOVE AND SORROW.

Wanganui Herald, Volume LIII, Issue 15977, 20 November 1919, Page 11

LOVE AND SORROW.

TRAGEDY OP A BEAUTIFUL WOMAN. Australian and N.Z. Cable Association. LONDON, Nov. 16. Mrs Steanes’ story reveals a tangled skein of love and sorrow. It stated that the Emperor Francis Joseph gave a priest fifty thousand sterling for her upbringing and education in America under the name of Alma Vetsera, She appeared to receive large supplies of money from Austria. Being remarkably beautiful she fascinated many men. She was married at the age of 17 to a Canadian stockbroker who took her to Vienna, hut failed to gain an audience with the Emperor. She returned to New York and entertained regularly, moving in the most exclusive and gayest society. She divorced her husband, and after several brilliant seasons in New York married another Canadian, whom she shortly divorced on" the grounds of desertion. Early in the war she came to London, where she made many aristocratic friends, and became engaged to a distinguished soldier. The engagement was broken off, and as a result she became melancholy and wrote- a friend to the effect that she intended to follow her parents’ example and commit suicide. She took poison, but recovered. Scotland Yard inquiries show that the income from Austria ceased a month ago.

1 Her husband states that this had no effect on her, as he had ample means. She continued spending lavishly, giving parties and dances in her fiat. Being one of the most beautiful dancers in London she was in great demand at private society balls. She wore the most artistic dresses, enhancing the notable beauty of her figure. She confided to a friend that as a child, through Prince Rudolf’s unfortunate infatuation, she was doomed to unhappiness. When she married Si cane, the places in the register for the bride’s parents were .left blank.

Newspapers, examining the facts, conuude that she is Prince Rudolf’s daughter, but a London stockbroker, who lived in Vienna at the time of the Royal tragedy and was a friend of the Vetsera family, declares that the Prince and the Baroness had no child. He gives a new version of Rudolf’s death, stating that the Baroness, then 19, was affianced to Count Hoyos, an intimate friend of Rudolf. Hoyos learned that the Baroness was staying at Meyerling, and knowing the nature of Rudolf’s amours, he hurst into the house and shot the Baroness, then shouting: “You are not worth a bullet,” crashed Rudolf’s skull with a silver candle stick. An Equerry shot the Count, and the Hapsburg’s circulated the story that the lovers had suicided.