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archduchessofnowhere · 4 months

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“A portent of the catastrophe in the making”: on sources and misquotations regarding Rudolf’s last Christmas

In my post about Rudolf’s last present to his mother I told you I had a second post about the Christmas of 1888, which turned out to be the last Christmas of Rudolf’s life. This post is, however, a little different to the Heine one, since this time I’ll be talking about the sources themselves. Please bear with me because this will be long, and probably also kinda dull.

To be honest I was not planning to write this post. But when I was preparing the Christmas posts I shared the 24, I came across a quote from Greg King and Penny Wilson’s Twilight of Empire I had shared previously on this blog two years ago:

Three aromatic blue fir trees, branches alight with wax candles and bedecked with gilded ornaments, stood over tables crowded with gifts when the imperial family gathered at the Hofburg to celebrate Christmas. Rudolf had bought toys for his young daughter at Vienna’s traditional Christkindlmarkt, or Christmas market; for his mother he had purchased some original letters written by her favorite poet, Heinrich Heine—a thoughtful gift that the empress all but ignored [71]. Indeed, Elisabeth seemed most taken with showing off her latest, unlikely acquisition: Much to her husband’s horror, she’d had her shoulder tattooed with an anchor [72].

Smiles and gifts couldn’t conceal the undercurrent of tension. Something was so obviously wrong with Rudolf that Elisabeth pulled Marie Valerie aside and again warned her of her brother’s malicious behavior. Then she turned to her son. After making him promise that he would be kind to Marie Valerie, Elisabeth embraced Rudolf and said that she loved him. Hearing this, Rudolf collapsed into agonized sobs; his mother, he cried, hadn’t said those words “for a long time.” [73] Franz Josef and Elisabeth were embarrassed at the display; neither recognized their son’s emotional breakdown as a last, dramatic cry for help as Rudolf slipped ever closer to the edge of an abyss. (2017, 98)

And I realized that there is a huge misquotation here. King and Wilson explicitly cite “73. Marie Valerie, diary entry of December 24, 1888, in Schad and Schad, 164-65” as the source of Rudolf telling his mother that she hadn’t sad to him that she loved him “for a long time”. But I have the very same edition of Valerie’s diary, and this is what she actually wrote down (on January 3, recounting the events of Christmas Eve):

Rudolf and Stephanie left with the King [?] before seven o’clock and Mama promised to come over with us as soon as it was done. When the three of us were now in Mama’s toilet room, Papa said he was surprised that Stephanie didn’t find it offensive that Rudolf had been taken into confidence [regarding the engagement] before her… they should get him. Mama hugged him and said with sisterly tenderness: “I love you so much.” I can’t say how happy that made me, because it made him feel so good, he hugged her and asked with great emotion: “No, really? It hasn’t been for a long time.” Excited as I was, I immediately began to cry and yet I was doubly happy that it was Franz [Salvator, Archduke of Austria-Tuscany]’s and my bond of pure young love that had brought my parents this sacred and beautiful hour of union.

Like, she clearly is talking about Elisabeth telling Franz Josef she loved him, and is he who replies that she hadn’t say that “for a long time”. Rudolf had already left when this happened, and Valerie explicitly states she is talking about her parents (“that had brought my parents this sacred and beautiful hour of union”). I couldn’t understand how this error even happened; they are literally citing Valerie’s published diary, the mistake is just baffling. Could they really have read the diary so badly? What was going on?

Since just one mistake in citation is enough to make you doubt an entire book, I started to double check the other two sources King and Wilson cite for this passage:

71. Hamann, Reluctant Empress, 339; Listowel, 207; Morton, Nervous, 177-79; Salvendy, 144-5. 72. Morton, Nervous, 179.

Hamann is obviously the source for Elisabeth ignoring the Heine letters (as I wrote in my post about the present). As for Listowel and Morton their books simply describe the Christmas trees and presents, mention Valerie’s engagement, and finally note that Rudolf “hugged his future brother-in-law. When he put his arms around his mother, there broke out of him a sudden sob” (Morton, 1980, 170) and “solemnly promised [to look after his sister], but with such a sad expression that Valerie felt almost frightened” (Listowel, 1986, 207). No source cited by neither of them.

Not a great start for my misquotation hunt. But my luck changed when I looked up John Salvendy’s work. The book that King and Wilson cited is Royal Rebel: A Psychological Portrait of Crown Prince Rudolf of Austria-Hungary, published in 1988. Sadly this book isn’t on the archive but after a lot of perseverance I was able to get a peak at pages 144-45 through Google Books. And guess what I found out:

Rudolf’s last Christmas, that in 1888, had a crucial effect on his assessment of his mother’s inclination towards him. Valerie described what happened following Rudolf renewed reassurance to Elisabeth of his benevolence toward his younger sister and her future husband: “Mama embraced him and told him affectionately how much she loved him… he was so moved and said that he had not heard it for long time”. [54] (144)

Reading this passage felt like being a school teacher that catches a student cheating on a test because they copied the same mistake as their seat neighbor. Now, I’m not saying that Greg and Wilson never read Valerie’s diary, but they absolutely were quoting Salvendy instead of the published edition of the diary when writing the Christmas Eve passage of their book and forgot to double check it. This however opened a second mystery, and one that will remain open for the time being: how did Salvendy make this mistake? Because he also cites Valerie’s December 24 entry as the source:

Which is just wrong. Google books didn’t let me see the bibliography page so I don’t know where did Salvendy got Valerie’s diary, because by the 1980s the original manuscript wasn’t available to the public anymore. But until I can see the bibliography the mystery will remain open; as of know, I’ll consider him the sole responsible of the misquotation.

By this point in my journey of double checking sources I started to wonder which are the sources for Rudolf’s alleged breakdown on his last Christmas, because at no point in the whole entry of December 24 Valerie mentions such thing (you can read it fully here). The only thing that she wrote about her brother was “Rudolf was watching her [Empress Elisabeth], then me, and was very friendly”, and again, after she got engaged “It may have been 8 o’clock when we went over to Rudolf’s, Papa and Mama in front, Franz [Salvator] and I behind - arm in arm. He gave us a very friendly welcome and even kissed Franz” (1998, 164, 166). No word of the supposed breakdown.

So does this mean it didn’t happen? Not necessarily. Brigitte Hamann, in her 1978 biography of Rudolf, quotes a second account of the Christmas Eve of 1888: that of Countess Marie Festetics, lady-in-waiting of Empress Elisabeth. In 1909, Festetics was interviewed by historian Heinrich Friedjung, who wrote of their talk:

However, the Empress knew about the Crown Prince’s shattered health from the scene at Christmas before he died.… On Christmas Eve, the Empress led Crown Prince Rudolf to his sister, the bride, and told him that she hoped that he would always look after his sister with kindness after the parents had passed away. At this point, the Crown Prince flung his arms around her neck and burst into lengthy, uncontrollable sobbing, which alarmed her greatly. This was a portent of the catastrophe in the making. The Empress and the Emperor, too, burst into tears. Immediately after this scene, Countess Marie and the adjutants were called to the Christmas tree and found the members of the Imperial family still tear-stained and emotional. One did not give his remarks that he was nearing his end the importance they deserved, remembering them only later. (2017)

Festetics account seems to be the main (and so far, also only that I could find) source for Rudolf crying in front of his family on December 24 of 1888. But how can we reconcile this statement with Valerie’s diary? Whose words weight more, Festetics recounting an event twenty years after it happened, with the hindsight of knowing that Rudolf took his own life less than a month later? Or Valerie’s account, written a few days after the event but biased by the happiness of her engagement?

A possible answer to this dilemma may be found on a previous entry from Valerie’s diary, dated December 16:

After dessert, Mama asked Papa to entertain Stephanie while she called Rudolf into her toilet room with me to “tell him a secret.” He seemed excited, even frightened, by this and I don’t think he was pleased. But he wasn’t unfriendly at all and so I felt encouraged to throw my arms around his neck for the first time in my life… Poor brother, he also has a warm heart in need of love - for he embraced and kissed me with all the intimacy of true brotherly love - and again and again he drew me to his heart, you could feel that it did him good that I showed him the love that had been almost suffocated by fear and shyness for so long. Mama asked him to always be good for me, for us, once we were dependent on him, and he swore and affirmed it simply and warmly. Then she put the cross on his forehead and said that God would bless him for it (and it would bring him luck) - she assured him of her love and he kissed her hand fiercely and was deeply moved. I thanked him and embraced Mama and him in a hug, saying almost unconsciously, “We should always be like this!” (1998, 157)

Doesn’t this sound almost identical to the scene Festetics described? Couldn’t it be that she is actually misremembering the scene that took place December 16 as happening on Christmas Eve?

I’m reaching to the end of the post and I don’t really have an answer. This started simply as a “double checking King and Wilson because they misquoted something” then it turned into “tracking down accounts by people that saw Rudolf the Christmas Eve of 1888” and finally into “contrasting the only two accounts of said day, which actively contradict each other”. And even after all that, I still can’t tell you for sure whether Rudolf actually cried or no in front of his whole family on December 24. Personally I feel more inclined to believe that Festetics misremembered the dates, but who knows, maybe Valerie actively decided to omit any unrest that happened during the day on her recount, remembering only the happiness that she thought her “pure young love” brought to her family.

Writing this post made me reflect a lot not only on the importance of sources, but also of the importance of sources in its original context. Because neither of the two accounts that we have now come from the hands of Marie Festetics and Valerie themselves: we have what Friedjung wrote down of his conversations with Festetics, and we have the copies made by Corti and Sexau of Valerie’s diary, not her original manuscript. Which opens a lot of more options as to why the two testimonies don’t match. Either way, is disappointing that almost no book about Rudolf and Mayerling notice this contradiction, and instead inadvertently (or not) repeat the same information, sometimes with the same mistakes.

Sources:

Hamann, Brigitte (2017). Rudolf. Crown Prince and Rebel (translation by Edith Borchardt)

King, Greg and Wilson, Penny (2017). Twilight of empire: the tragedy at Mayerling and the end of the Habsburgs

Listowel, Judith (1986). A Habsburg tragedy: Crown Prince Rudolf

Morton, Frederic (1980). A nervous splendor: Vienna, 1888/1889

Schad, Martha and Schad, Horst [ed.] (1998). Das Tagebuch der Lieblings Tochter von Kaiserin Elisabeth. 1878-1899

#I had this in my drafts since christmas but didn't feel like editing it before #ironically the only author i've seen so far (peaking through google books) notice the difference between the two testimonies is SALVENDY #who's the one who misquoted valerie's diary in the first place!!#also if you know of any other account of rudolf's last christmas please share them!#crown prince rudolf of austria #archduchess marie valerie of austria #countess mária festetics #empress elisabeth of austria #franz josef i of austria #house of habsburg

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