Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
MYSTERY AT MAYERLING
It's the stuff of lurid pulp fiction: the heir to the throne found dead in a hunting lodge with his teenage mistress.
It became fact in Mayerling on 30 January 1889, yet for years the details of the case were shrouded in secrecy
and denial. Even now a definitive picture has yet to be established - the 100th anniversary of the tragedy saw a
flurry of books published on the subject.
The heir was Archduke Rudolf, 30-year-old son of Emperor Franz Josef, husband of Stephanie of Coburg, and
something of a libertine who was fond of drinking and womanising. Rudolf's marriage was little more than a
public facade by the time he met the 17-year-old Baroness Maria Vetsera in the autumn of 1888. The attraction
was immediate, but it wasn't until 13 January the following year that the affair was consummated, an event com-
memorated by an inscribed cigarette case, a gift from Maria to Rudolf.
On 28 January, Rudolf secretly took Maria with him on a shooting trip to his hunting lodge in Mayerling. His
other guests arrived a day later; Maria's presence, however, remained unknown to them. On the night of 29
January, the valet, Loschek, heard the couple talking until the early hours, and at about 5.30am a fully dressed
Rudolf appeared and instructed him to get a horse and carriage ready. As he was doing his master's bidding,
Loschek reportedly heard two gun shots; racing back, he discovered Rudolf lifeless on his bed, with a revolver
by his side. Maria was on her bed, also fully clothed, also dead. Just two days earlier Rudolf had discussed a sui-
cide pact with his long-term mistress Mizzi Caspar. Apparently he hadn't been joking.
The official line was proffered by Empress Elisabeth, who claimed Rudolf died of heart failure. The newspa-
pers swallowed the heart failure story, though a few speculated about a hunting accident. Then the rumours
began: some believed Maria had poisoned her lover, that Rudolf had contracted an incurable venereal disease, or
that he had been assassinated by Austrian secret police because of his liberal politics. Even as late as 1982, Em-
press Zita claimed the heir to the throne had been killed by French secret agents. Numerous books have been
written on the subject, but no one can say what exactly occurred on that ill-fated morning.
Through all the intrigue, the real victim remains Maria. How much of a willing party she was to the apparent
suicide will never be known. What has become clear is that Maria, after her death, represented not a tragically
curtailed young life but an embarrassing scandal that had to be discreetly disposed of. Her body was left un-
touched for 38 hours, after which it was loaded into a carriage in such a manner as to imply that it was a living
person being aided rather than a corpse beyond help. Her subsequent burial was a rude, secretive affair, during
which she was consigned to the ground in an unmarked grave (her body was later moved to Heiligenkreuz).
Today the hunting lodge is no more - a Carmelite nunnery stands in its place.
Sights & Activities
Arnulf Rainer Museum
(
www.arnulf-rainer-museum.at
;
Josefsplatz 5; adult/child €6/3; 10am-5pm)
Located inside the former
Frauenbad (Women's Bathhouse) near the tram terminus, this interesting museum show-
cases the work of its namesake Arnulf Rainer, who was born in Baden in 1929 and stud-
ied for one day at the School of Applied Arts in Vienna. He also went to the Academy of
the Fine Arts but left after three days, only to return as a respected artist and become a
professor there. He began painting in a surrealist style before developing his characterist-
ic multimedia works, some of them (like painting with chimpanzees) idiosyncratic and
MUSEUM
