http://www.liburnija.net/devet-bisera-opatijskih-kruna-stockau/

Rudolf killed Mary, it was not suicide I toliko eksploatirana drama u Mayerlingu, u kojoj je prijestolonasljednik Rudolf ubio svoju ljubavnicu Mary Vetseru nije u našoj Opatiji prošla nezapaženo. Vlasnica opatijske vile br. 143, bila je udana Baltazzi. Brat njezinog muža Aristida, Alexander Baltazzi i njezin stric Georg grof Stockau obavili su onu opskurnu noćnu vožnju iz Mayerlinga do groblja u obližnjem selu posadivši između sebe mrtvu Mary, čiju je uspravnost u vožnji kočijom jamčila ugurana letva za vratom. Priča gotovo kao izmišljena za salonske skandalozne opatijske tračeve. Mary Vetsera je bila kćer Helene Baltazzi, sestre Arstida Baltazzia, supruga naše Opatijke.

The death of Marie

The truth is hidden, we will not all know the truth about when Marie or her lover Rudolf died. History is probably different in this case then we all think to know.

Marie Vetsera, or Mary, as she preferred to be called, was no innocent flower either. She came from minor nobility, but as a mere Baroness she was not admitted into inner Imperial circles. Her father, Albin von Vetsera, was a career diplomat, awarded the title by Frans Josef for his services. Her mother, Helene Baltozzi Vetsera came from an extremely wealthy cosmopolitan family whose fortunes were made in the Levant. Albin spend most of his career away from his family on various official missions. Helene, twenty-two years younger, took advantage of his numerous absences to conduct extra-marital affairs, including, possibly Rudolf when he was in his early twenties. The family had ennobled relatives in England, moving in the fast set of the Prince of Wales there, and Mary was raised to be fluent in several languages. By the time she was in her mid-teens, Mary had blossomed into a very voluptuous and flirtatious femme fatale. Her mother raised her and groomed her to marry well in the highest circles of nobility, hopefully to gain access to the courtly inner sanctum. She evidently did not worry about her daughter's virginity in the process. Helene engineered Mary into Rudolf's presence whenever possible, and Mary duly became infatuated, and by the time she was sixteen, was embroiled in what started out to be a passionate love affair with the Crown Prince, including visiting him once in his palace apartment clad only in a nightie with a fur coat on top.

Mary was aided and abetted by a rather shady court parasite, Countess Marie Larisch (Marie Gräfin Larisch-Wallersee). Countess Larisch was a niece of Empress Elizabeth, who basically made her way through court life via pandering and blackmail. Using her courtly connections, she encouraged the liaison between Mary and Rudolf. The prince's reputation as far as women were concerned was certainly well-known, but Mary flaunted her relationship with him in a very brazen way, most notably refusing to curtsy to Princess Stephanie at a diplomatic reception. If she wasn't so blatant she might have aspired to become his official mistress, just as Katherina Schratt was with Frans Josef. Though there are stories that Rudolf tried and failed to secure an annulment from his marriage to Princess Stephanie, it certainly wasn't in order to marry Mary, and there is now evidence to suggest that the time of his suicide, he was pursuing other women as well as keeping his friendship with Mitzi Kaspar.

Mary's distinction, then, was so tangled up in infatuation, bad advice and fantasy that she became a consensual partner in Rudolf's double suicide plan (he had previously asked various male friends and Mitzi Kasper to join him in this pact, but they refused).

What finally set Rudolf to take his own life was the failure of the latest Hungarian conspiracy to break away from Austria, in this case offering him the crown of an independent Hungary. Perhaps he saw this as his last chance to make a contribution to his imperial heritage. At any rate, he shot Mary, and then sat with her body for six hours before he shot himself.

To avoid an imperial scandal, the government of Frans Josef enacted a coverup, burying Mary in secret in the monastery of Heiligenkreutz and giving Rudolf a state funeral, concealing his suicide with various prevarications so that he could have a Catholic state burial. In consequence, much of the evidence and documentation was hidden or destroyed.

Over the years, details of this scandalous story were either leaked, or rediscovered, and Wilson and King's study does a great deal to clarify what could be pieced together. It seems that, as with other contemporary royal dynasties, the period of their glories lay far behind, and almost all of them would perish with World War I.

In spite of all the murkiness, Maurice Anet's tale of star-crossed lovers and its movies endured during the 20th century for over 30 years. But the story also inspired other interpretations in film, dance, plays and a miniseries of the Mayerling legend right into the 21st. century, though with tweaks as new evidence surfaced. These will be explored in part II of this blogpost.

Part I https://jbsmusings.blogspot.com/2018/06/star-crossed-lovers-probabl...

Part II https://jbsmusings.blogspot.com/2018/07/star-crossed-lovers-probabl...

https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Vetsera