Death of Crown Prince Rudolf of Austria ~ 30th January 1889
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Deep in the Vienna woods, on a snowy morning in January, 1889, a servant hacked open a locked door, of a remote hunting lodge.
Inside, he found two bodies sprawled on an ornate bed, blood oozing from their mouths.......
Crown Prince Rudolf of Austria-Hungary appeared to have shot his seventeen-year-old mistress Baroness Mary Vetsera, as she slept.
He then sat with the corpse for hours and, when dawn broke, turned the pistol on himself.
What happened in that locked room, remains one of historys most evocative mysteries.
What led Rudolf to do this desperate act?
Was it really a suicide pact?
Or did something far more disturbing take place at that remote hunting lodge?
Crown Prince Rudolf, was the only son and third child of Emperor Franz Josph, and Duchess Elisabeth (Sisi).
Youth, wealth, and rank, Rudolf soon discovered, had their privileges.
Eager young females positively dropped into the lap of Rudolf, and the lusty young prince saw it as his patriotic duty, to have them all.
Rudolf wasnt discreet about his interests, and made few distinctions, between the married and the unmarried.
There was nothing anyone could teach him about love and sex, Rudolf knew it all.
After using his position to charm numerous women to bed, he usually grew bored, very quickly, and soon moved on to a new liaison.
Rudolf's affairs were merely physical, not emotional, and Rudolf viewed them through a curiously bureaucratic lens.
The names of his sexual partners were entered in a ledger, with red ink used to denote those women Rudolf had deflowered, and black ink, for other conquests.
On the 10th May 1881, Rudolf married the 15 year old, Princess Stéphanie of Belgium.
Although their marriage was initially a happy one, by the time their only child Elisabeth, was born in 1883, the couple had drifted apart. Rudolf found solace in drink, and other female companionship.
Due to his sexual affairs outside the marriage, Rudolf infected his wife with syphilis, rendering Stéphanie infertile.
In 1886, Rudolf bought 'Mayerling', a hunting lodge in the woods of Vienna.
Here he would entertain his Ladies.
His sexual indulgences were simply curiosity, rather than the urge to satisfy a physical appetite.
Some of these liaisons, however, were more serious than others.
Baroness Mary Vetsera, the 17-year-old who was the other body at the scene of the mysterious deaths, was only the most recent, in a very long line of conquests.
Reports at the time, say~
" She had fine eyes, a pert nose, a generous inviting mouth, and a determind tilt to her chin"
She was no ravishing beauty, but she was pretty and secuctive.
She had 'flowered' early, and looked older than her tender age of 17.
Pretty much everyone at the Imperial Court, knew that Rudolf and Mary were having a steamy affair, even his parents (the Emperor and Empress) and his wife, Stéphanie.
Mary Vetsera did love Rudolf, and by most accounts, she agreed to this suicide pact.
In retrospect, though, examining their age difference and power dynamic, its unclear if she believed she really had a choice....
On the 29th January, Rudolf drove to 'Mayerling', where he was joined by Mary Vetsera.
He had arranged for a hunting party, the next day.
Rudolf's friend Joseph Graf Hoyos, went to wake him for the hunt the next morning, 30th January, but got no response.
They tried to open the door, but it would not give.
Fearing the worst, they decided, to fetch a valet, who smashed in one of the doors panels, so that they could open the door from inside.
Loschek (the valet) alone entered, and reported back.
What he found was both Rudolph and Mary dead.
Mary was stretched out on the bed, and Rudolf leaning over its edge, a pool of blood in front of him.
Half of Rudolf's skull had been blown off, by a bullet fired at close range.
Several suicide letters, were discovered alongside the bodies.
Immediately after, the Imperial family tried to hush-up the scandal.
Mary Vetsera's body was smuggled out of Mayerling in the middle of the night, and secretly buried in the village cemetery at Heiligenkruez.
The family attempted to state that Maria, had died on her way to Venice, and her uncles propped up her body with a broomstick, to cover-up the double suicide, as they left the lodge.
The imperial court refused to let Mary's mother see her daughters grave, for over two months after the burial
In 2015, her private letters to Rudolf, were discovered in a safe deposit box, in an Austrian bank.
They revealed that she was preparing to commit suicide, alongside Rudolf, out of love.
Rudolf's death plunged his mother Sisi, into despair.
She wore black, for the rest of her life, and spent more and more time away from the imperial court in Vienna.
In popular culture, several movie have been made about Rudolf's life~
*'Mayerling' a 1957 film, starring Mel Ferrer as Crown Prince Rudolf, and Audrey Hepburn as Baroness Mary Vetsara.
*'Mayerling', a 1968 film, starring Omar Sharif as Crown Prince Rudolf, and Catherine Deneuve as Mary.
*A highly fictionalized version of the incident at Mayerling is depicted in the 2006 film 'The Illusionist' with Rusus Sewell.
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