Evening Republican, Volume 17, Number 96, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 22 April 1913 — HOUSE OF TRAGEDY [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

HOUSE OF TRAGEDY

Friend of Franz Josef Tells Story of Royal Family. Hatred of the Magyar to the People of Austria—Emperor's Position Perilous—Was Once Attacked by an Armed Maniac. .~ ■

Budapest—My little old man was back in his corner again, sipping his Turkish coffee, when I appeared, writes “A Diplomat” in the Saturday Journal. A few days had passed since, lounging in the same corner, he had told me the story of King Peter of Servia and had promised me for today a story of the Austrian royal family. “Was it Holland I promised Y* he asked. "No; Austria,” I reminded him. “Ah! Franz Josef; yes, I remember his coronation. v I was a boy then—an unknown boy—with a fancy for wandering; and I stood in his study two days before he was taken ill Just lately—a friend. You are having verimouth, I see. Get the waiter to bring you a fragment of lemon for it "I first met Emperor Franz Josef at Murzteg. He was after capercailzie, and bo was I. We had both set out overnight to climb the mountains so as to be ready when

we heard the first call of the cock bird to his mate in the dawn. 1 fired my first shot Just as daylight was breaking and In a few minutes I saw a man emerge out of the nfist. dressed In a knteker suit, with Tyrolean hat He was obviously In the worst of tempera, for I had just disturbed some capercailzie which he had followed since before daybreak. However, the bird I had killed was a fine one; we fell to chatting and parted, 1 without recognizing him the emperor of Austria. Six .years afterward I met him'at Budapest and he reminded me of the incident He had remembered my face. "It was on his coronation day, however. that I first saw him as emperor. I remember it was a warm Jude day

in 1867, and he had assumed the title jot king of Hungary. He was seated on a white charger shod with gold, a dozen orders blazed on Ills breast In the sunlight, and, urging his horse to the top of a mound, he waved his sword to the four corners of the compass and uttered the coronation oath to protect the kingdom from all invaders. “Now, please follow me closely. Had Franz Josef declined to do this, had he taken his seat on the throne as emperor of Austria only, he would probhbly have been assassinated within a short space. For your Magyar Is a man who when he hates is the worst enemy on earth, and the inhabitants of Hungary had got it into their heads that Franz Josef meant to grind down the Hungarians beneath the Austrian heel. “You remember that about the time the split occurred between Norway and Sweden there was an undercurrent of ill feeling in Hungary which caused the papers to immediately prophesy a similar split between that country and Austria. It was all caused by a simple incident; an Austrian minister —a firebrand, by the way, and a wholesome hater of Hungary—omitted to invite the wife of a certain Hungarian minister to a society function, when by all the laws of etiquette she should not have been omitted. A feud immediately sprang up. “No man, however, brilliant a diplomat he may be, can exceed the en/ peror as far as his hold upon these

two nations is concerned, and direct* ly he dies there will be, politician* declare, a sharp move on the part of a certain European empire in the north for war between Austria an# Hungary. It is not ill health alone that binds the emperor to his so much as the fear that his absence from the territory will be like removing the buffer that keeps two enemies apart. “I wonder how many secrets of such import that any of the biggest newspapers In Europe would pay a king’s ransom to secure a single copy for publication are locked in that little egriot wood cabinet in the emperor’s study. “The house of Hapsburg has ever since his accession been absolutely dogged by disaster. Just before he ascended the throne a maniac attacked him with a knife and Inflicted such Injuries that his life was despaired of. Then nine days after his coronation at Budapest his brother Maximilian was assasinated in Mexico. His sister became engaged to King Ludwig of Bavaria, but the match was broken off. ■ And fortunately for the prinoess it was that the marriage was never celebrated, for shortly afterward the king lost his reason and drowned himself in the lake of Star-' enberg. But the princess did not cape; she married the Due d’Alencon and was burnt to death in the Pari*' bazar fire.

Emperor Francis Joseph.