THE OBSESSED MARY BARONESS OF VETSERA - CROWN PRINCE RUDOLF - AND THE SELF PRESERVING "MIZZI" KASPER

MARY BARONESS OF VETSERA

March 19, 1871 - January 30 1889

Photo of MARY VETSERA from Wikimedia Commons

Crown Prince Rudolf was a rogue.  A man who was in line to be King of the Austria and Hungarian Empire, but whose lust for women was more important than any sense of integrity in his liaisons or duty.  He was said to have had about thirty illegitimate children who he did not recognize or support.  His accounting of conquests included keeping track of those he had deflowered. Young women who succumbed to him might have felt they could not say no to such an important person of high rank. Any hope of real romance was extinguished when they had been had and never heard from him again. Was he tired of women who threw themselves at him? Was he even capable of love?

An arranged and incompatible marriage to Princess Stephanie of Belgium, who was only fifteen at the time, but whose marriage was probably not consummated until she had completed her education and was seventeen, produced one daughter. He, like all those who would one day be King, needed a legitimate son to succeed him. He had refused a number of arranged marriages already. The marriage with the Princess hadn't changed him any and bringing a venereal disease home to her surely ended any hope of love or another child there. 

And yet, what really happened, if you've never heard this mystery story before, may be  confusion or surprising.  At the end of his life - by suicide or double suicide or murder and suicide - Crown Prince Rudolf is said to have had two mistresses; Mary and Mizzi.  One a virginal teenager who left letters asking forgiveness as she followed her lover to  her own death at seventeen and one a prostitute who he first asked to be his partner in death and who he had provided well for. The self preserving Mizzi said no thank you and went to the police hoping someone would warn others that he was serious. She was discredited because of her sex and class. The teenage Mary, Baroness of Vetsera, met with him at the Mayerling Hunting Castle, and there met her death as it seems she expected to do. She said she was too obsessed with him to have saved herself? Had she really written that letter suggesting she willingly went to her death as an act of love or was it all part of a cover up by the Royal Family or their advocates?  Was she really a femme fatale?

While researching Mary and Mizzi, I thought of another of our Mistresses of the Month here at Mistress Manifesto BlogSpot, Adolph Hitler's long time Mistress whom he married in the final moments before their suicide pact, Eva Braun. 

There was tremendous secrecy about this tragedy which is still made small by being called an "incident."  The Crown Prince lay in his casket with his head wrapped in a bandage. Mary Vestera was buried and reburied and reburied. 

MARY VETSERA was born MARIE ALEXANDRINE FREIIN VON VETSERA. While a member of the aristocracy she wasn't royal enough to actually contemplate marriage to the Crown Prince.  MIZZI KASPER was a commoner who had even less a chance. The death of Crown Prince Rudolf and without any male heirs to the Kingdom of Austrian-Hungary shifted history as the Kingship was to go to another line of the family. 

Prime reference for this months posts are books include Mary Vestera - which can be linked to at www.timetravel-vienna and The Life of Emperor Francis Joseph by Francis Henry Gribble on Google Books.  I'll share my reading notes with you.

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Note that Eva Braun as Adolph Hitler's Mistress can be found in the archives here in as Mistress of the Month, June of 2010 and there are other references to her. You can use her name to search within this blog.

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