Hapsburg Tragedy Part III: "Sisi"

This is my third and final post on the Hapsburgs. This installment is about the mother of Crown Prince Rudolf, who was the subject of the previous post. The Crown Prince’s mother was the beautiful, lonely, and tragic Empress Elizabeth of Austria, Queen of Hungary. She was known in her lifetime and now by the nickname “Sisi.”

Elizabeth Amalie Eugenie was born in Bavaria on Christmas Eve 1837. She was a duchess and a princess of the house of Wittelsbach. Sisi grew up with her parents and siblings in Possenhofen Castle. Her parents, Duke Maximilian Joseph and Princess Maria Ludovika allowed their children to be carefree and not conduct themselves like the children of the aristocracy. Her parent’s permissive attitude helped to transform Sisi into an independent spirit with a very humanitarian and democratic outlook on life. In our era, one of the royals of Europe who was similar to her in temperament but not in intellect was Diana, Princess of Wales.

At age 15, Sisi journeyed with her mother and her 18 year old sister Helene to the spa resort town of Bad Ischl in Austria. It was Sisi’s mother Maria Ludovika’s intention that she might put Helene in the path of the young emperor Franz Josef of Austria and that he would ask for Helene’s hand in marriage. Franz Josef was 23 and a cousin of the family. His mother was also very favorable about a match between her son and Helene. Maria Ludovika succeeded in meeting with the young emperor, but he was immediately enamored with Sisi instead. Determined to have her as his wife, Franz Josef was willing to defy his very strong-willed mother Sophie. In April 1854, the couple was married.

From the beginning, Sisi’s upbringing was to her disadvantage at the Austrian court, which was a place of rigid protocol ruled over with an iron hand by her mother-in-law. Also being a sensitive, romantic type, Sisi may have been frightened by the passion of her husband on their wedding night. Despite possibly being frigid, Sisi had her first child Sophie the year following her marriage. The following year she gave birth to a second daughter Gisela, and two years later Crown Prince Rudolf was born. During this period in 1857 tragedy struck. Sisi’s first child, little Sophie, died either of typhus or scarlet fever during a trip Sisi and Franz Josef had made to Budapest, Hungary. The death of Sophie threw Sisi into a deep depression. To make matters worse, her mother-in-law seemed to blame Sisi for the toddler’s death. She often referred to Sisi as her grandchildren’s “silly young mother.” Sophie promptly took charge of Gisela and later Rudolf right after he was born the following year. Completely unhappy with her life at the suffocating Austrian court and dissatisfied with her marriage, Sisi retreated into isolation and illness. After Rudolf was born she was determined to never get pregnant again. She would, however, have one more child, a daughter named Valerie a decade after Rudolf’s birth, but probably the only reason she allowed the emperor to get close to her was so she could get him to loosen his stance on the Hungarians, whom she supported. Her support of the Hungarian cause would help lead to the Austro-Hungarian Compromise of 1867. Sisi’s input on the matter of Hungary was the first and only time that she would get deeply involved in politics. Her ideas were liberal and quite ahead of her time. They were also in opposition to those of her husband who was a staunch conservative. Even today, Sisi is still a beloved icon in Hungarian society.

Frustrated with court life Sisi began a life of travel which would take her from Madeira in the Atlantic to the site of ancient Troy in Turkey . Sisi’s obsessions were with horseback riding, hunting, travel, ancient Greek culture and mythology, exercise and the preservation of her beauty which was legendary even in her own day. She became such an outstanding equestrian that she could almost conduct herself on horseback like a circus acrobat. Sisi developed such a love for the ancient Greeks that she was determined to learn how to speak Greek. She became fluent in both Modern Greek and Hungarian along with several other languages. Her fascination with ancient Greek civilization led her to commission that a palace be built on the Greek isle of Corfu. This palace she named after the mythical Greek warrior Achilles was called Achillion.

In her own way, Sisi strove to make herself like some of the immortals she read about and pondered. She was a fanatic about exercise. Her diet which consisted of little more than milk, raw steak, and orange juice kept her waistline below 20 inches. She was model thin and tall at 5’8”. When she finally abandoned horseback riding because of gout, she threw herself headlong into hiking. Sisi’s hikes could sometimes reach up to 20 miles in one day. Her ladies in waiting and bodyguards could barely keep up with her pace. Sisi also had what amounted to a primitive gym in the Hofburg Palace. Her equipment included weights and parallel bars. When she was not on her nearly continuous excursions throughout the Mediterranean and the Aegean, she would spend hours in her gym exercising. She even had some of her equipment shipped with her throughout her travels.

Sisi treated her body like a temple that had to be preserved. She was a devotee of a number of intense beauty treatments such as bathing in water containing milk and honey and heated to a little over 100 degrees! Glycerin, gelatin, and rose oil were massaged into her skin to keep her body and face looking youthful. Sisi’s auburn hair reached almost to her ankles, and was fantastically beautiful and wavy. She nurtured it with a concoction of henna, milk, and egg yolks which her hairdresser left on for 20 minutes. With her hair being luxuriantly long, it took up to three hours to have it styled. Her hairdresser would comb it out religiously each night dressed in a white garment and with a white sheet on the floor to catch all stray strands of hair that would inevitably be pulled out. Sisi was so obsessed with her hair that she had all the strands collected and she would count them. If the number of hairs pulled out were more than she expected, she would become depressed. A couple of beauty recipes for Sisi can be seen here.

Sisi was often reported to be suffering from illnesses, including tuberculosis. It is believed that many of her ailments were psychosomatic because as soon as she was able to escape from the rigors of court life, she would come energetic. Many also saw her as even being hyperactive at times.

Three more tragedies would strike and leave Sisi even more depressed and withdrawn from the realities of the world. Her brother-in-law the Emperor Maximilian I of Mexico would be executed in 1867. Her cousin and very close friend King Ludwig II of Bavaria drowned mysteriously in 1885, a day after being deposed. In February blogger Basje/19thcentury did a very good post about Ludwig. Finally in 1889, the biggest blow came for Sisi when her only son, the heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, was found dead from a possible suicide pact with his mistress at Mayerling. Her marriage could not stand the trauma, so she and the emperor rarely saw each other in the final years of her life. They did remain friends on a platonic level. The emperor finally got the love and attention he desired in his wife instead from an actress named Katharina Schratt. In fact, Sisi even encouraged the affair. Though she was rumored to have lovers, it is often believed that since she was probably sexually frigid, Sisi had an attitude towards men of “you may look a little, but do not touch.” In her later years, Sisi became more and more camera shy. She wanted only to be left alone to roam as she pleased. Also she had started to rapidly lose her beauty once she got past 30 despite all of her fanatical attempts to preserve it. This may also have made her camera shy.

In Geneva on September 10, 1898, Sisi was walking along the promenade to board a steamship to Montreux when she was stabbed in the chest with a nail file by a young anarchist named Luigi Lucheni. Lucheni had reportedly been on the prowl to assassinate a prince of the house of Orleans. Poor Sisi just happened to be at the wrong place at the wrong time, and Lucheni attacked her instead. Briefly Sisi was not even aware that she had been stabbed. She was knocked down, but managed to get up and walk a short distance before she collapsed on boarding the steamer. Her last words were, “What happened to me?” Her corsets had stopped the stab wound from being quickly fatal. When they were removed, it was seen that she had been stabbed in the heart. Sisi died that day in Geneva at age 60.

Emperor Franz Josef never fully recovered from shock over the assassination of Sisi. It is mentioned in some sources that he said, "She will never know how much I loved her."

Sisi continues to be the subject of television, film, theater, ballet and literature. There has even been a children’s series called Princess Sissi. American actress of the Golden Age of Hollywood, Ava Gardner, gave her interpretation of Sisi in the 1968 movie Mayerling. The Austrian actress Romy Schneider was the most famous Sisi of them all playing the empress in a trilogy of romantic films in the 1950s. Here is a video from all three movies with Schneider. I don’t care much for Avril Lavigne’s rock sound, but the video and the song captures the spirit of Sisi.

Like some view Diana, Princess of Wales as the “Queen of Hearts,” Sisi is still so to many over a century after her tragic death.

More photos and paintings of Sisi can be seen here.

In conclusion, here is a video about Sisi with a song from the musical “Elizabeth.”

Hapsburg Tragedy Part II: The Mayerling Mystery

The tragedy prone Hapsburgs of Austria-Hungary would be hit hard again 22 years after the Emperor Maximilian’s tragic death in Mexico. In 1889, marriages and lives of the principle members of the Hapsburgs would be battered. The dynasty would be shattered by an event so terrible and mysterious that even now, over a century later, historians still do not know fully what happened at a place called Mayerling.

The Mayerling Mystery’s main characters are Crown Prince Rudolf of Austria, Hungary, and Bohemia and his teenage mistress, Baroness Maria Vetsera. More later about Vetsera.

Crown Prince Rudolf, the heir to the Austro-Hungarian Empire was the son of the Emperor Franz Joseph I and his wife Empress Elizabeth, who was one of the most fascinating and beautiful women of her day. The Crown Prince was also the nephew of Emperor Maximilian I of Mexico. Rudolf was born near Vienna on August 21, 1858 . His father made sure that his son was taught by the best tutors of the empire. As a child, Rudolf showed an aptitude for natural science, starting a mineral collection at a young age. Portions of this collection became the property of the University for Agriculture in Vienna following his death. As an adult, Rudolf even wrote scientific articles to leading scientific journals in the empire.

Rudolf’s family was a classic dysfunctional family. He felt that neither his father nor mother truly loved him. Though his political ideas were liberal and very similar to that of his beautiful and eccentric mother, his father’s views were as different from his as night and day. Franz Josef was a reactionary conservative. He despised and feared his son’s new ideas and saw them as a threat to the empire and the dynasty. Being this kind of person, I am sure he feared for the future of the empire after his death, and envisioned his son placating socialists, anarchists, just about every type he saw as a threat to long held traditions. Indeed, Rudolf’s ideas were very advanced for his time. He once wrote:

"The principle of nationalism rests on the most base of human instincts. It is a victory of primitivism over the noble ideals of equality. The national and racial animosities are a step backward. It is characteristic that these principles are most often used by the most divisive elements of our society. As the science is cosmopolitan, so should be the just societies."

Rudolf obviously could see where the winds were blowing, and that if the imperial family did not start changing, it would be swept away. Like his uncle Maximilian’s toying with liberalism, Rudolf’s toying became a constant irritant to his father.

Rudolf did not clash completely with his mother on political principles, however. The problem was that the empress just did not have time for her son. The empress Elizabeth had developed highly erratic behavior for someone in her position. She traveled extensively and was away from her son and her husband for long periods of time. Rudolf naturally felt neglected.

One area of solace in his childhood had been his relationship with his elder sister Gisela. Both Gisela and Rudolf were raised by their maternal grandmother Sophie. The two little children loved each other dearly. Even when they were separated when Rudolf was 6 so he could begin training to be the next ruler of the empire, the two remained close. They stayed so until Gisela married and left Vienna.

Rudolf married Princess Stephanie of Belgium in 1881. In the beginning, Rudolf seemed to love his new wife, but his mother had only distaste for her. It is said Empress Elizabeth referred to her daughter-in-law as “a clumsy oaf’ and “a dull-witted prude.” Rudolf and Stephanie had one child, a daughter. Eventually, the marriage started to crumble, and the couple drifted apart. Looking for comfort and attention, Rudolf turned to women and drink.

During this swirl of womanizing, Rudolf met a young woman who may or may not have been the love of his life. The details on whether the liaison was one of real passionate love are disputed. Nevertheless, the affair of Crown Prince Rudolf and Baroness Maria Vetsera would determine the fate of an empire.

Baroness Maria Vetsera was either 17 or 18 when she met Rudolf who was 30. They met at the Prater which is a large amusement park in Vienna. Another story says that Maria contacted him by letter telling him how much she admired him, and that the letter led to a first meeting. Maria was the daughter of Baron Albin Vetsera and his wife Helene. Baron Vetsera was a diploma at the Austro-Hungarian court. Maria at the time of her meeting Rudolf appeared to be much older than her age. She was attractive and highly sensual. Whether Rudolf passionately loved Maria has been disputed by some. However, there has been no doubt about Maria’s feelings for Rudolf. She absolutely adored and worshipped the Crown Prince, and was willing to do whatever he asked her.

As the affair heated up, Rudolf’s cousin Countess Marie Larisch became the go-between of the two. Countess Larisch was the niece and confidante of Rudolf’s mother Empress Elizabeth. She was the daughter of Elizabeth’s brother Duke Ludwig Wilhelm and an actress named Henriette Mendel. Born illegitimate, the countess’s father had renounced his rights as the first born in his family to marry his lover. With such a background, Countess Larisch was a prime candidate for such an intrigue. Her father had rebelled again the norm, so she would too even letting Maria into the Hofburg Palace so she could meet secretly with Rudolf.

Rudolf decided to purchase a hunting lodge at Mayerling. By this time his father the emperor had learned about the affair. According to official reports Emperor Franz Josef had demanded that his son end the affair. This was typical of the cold hypocrisy of Franz Josef. He had mistresses, so if he did try to force his son to end the affair, his attitude was of the utmost hypocrisy. But something deeper and more political may have led to the way everything happened next. Angry and defiant, Rudolf left Vienna and took Maria with him to Mayerling on January 29, 1889. The next morning, one of Rudolf’s servants found the couple in their bedroom of the lodge dead. They had been shot. The legend of Mayerling has long been that since Rudolf and Maria realized they would never be allowed to marry, they decided to make a suicide pact. Rudolf is said to have shot and killed Maria, and later he shot himself in the head with his pistol.

The deaths at Mayerling rocked the empire, Europe, and the world. Conspiracy theories began to spring up in the mouths of millions and in the newspapers of the time. Some were outlandish such as Maria castrating Rudolf in his sleep because if she could have his love and his manhood, no one would. The story goes that when Rudolf awakened, in shock and shame, he killed her and then himself. This seems like the impulsive behavior of a teenager, but this is not one of the top theories. Another theory is that Maria had been pregnant by Rudolf and had gotten an abortion. At Mayerling, she had hemorrhaged and died. Distraught, Rudolf had killed himself. Another theory says that two of Maria’s uncles went to Mayerling to confront the lovers. There, in a classic case of honoring killing, they murdered both Rudolf and Maria.

After the suicide pact, the next theory that was put forward came from two members of Rudolf’s family who both claimed they really knew the true story of what happened that night. These two were Countess Larisch and Empress Zita, who became the wife of the last emperor of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Both the countess and the empress told the story of a plot to overthrow Emperor Franz Josef. Countess Larisch claims that Rudolf was complicit in the plot to overthrow his father and establish a more liberal government. An authentic article about her claim can be read online here from an article written in The New York Times in 1913. Another article from The New York Times Archive published in 1910 about how the Crown Prince and the Baroness met can be read here.

Empress Zita claims that Rudolf was approached by pro-French conspirators who wanted the overthrow of Franz Josef since he was pro-German. She stressed that Rudolf had adamantly refused, and had threaten to tell his father about the plot even though he disliked his father’s policies. To silence him, the plotters had gotten into the hunting lodge at Mayerling where they had beaten Maria Vetsera to death and then shot Rudolf six times. When Rudolf’s gun was examined, no one could explain that if he had shot himself, how he could he have shot himself more than one time in the head. The investigation showed that his pistol had been fired six times that night.

After the mysterious deaths at Mayerling, Maria’s body was taken out of the lodge in the middle of the night and secretly buried in cemetery of Holy Cross Abbey in Heiligenkreuz. In 1992 her remains were stolen. After the police finally located them, her skull was examined. There was no evidence that she had been shot in the head as the official story went. Instead it appeared that she had died from violent blows to the head.

Rudolf’s death was the event that finally tore his parents almost completely apart. The Empress Elizabeth had long been an avid traveler. After her son’s death, she never again spent much time at home with her husband.

The Hapsburgs were faced with a terrible dilemma after the death of Rudolf. How could the emperor allow his son be branded with the reputation of being a suicidal murderer? Also being a Catholic, Roman Catholicism does not allow a person who commits suicide to be buried in holy ground and receive holy rites at their burial.
The emperor wrote to the pope, and they came to some sort of agreement. Rudolf was given a Christian burial. What the emperor’s letter contains, no one now knows since to this day the letter is still locked away in the Papal Archive.

The Mayerling Mystery has captured the imaginations of authors and has been the subject of both films and plays. I first became aware of this tragedy when I saw the 1968 film Mayerling. It starred Omar Sharif as Rudolf, Catherine Deneuve as Maria Vetsera, James Mason as Emperor Franz Josef, and Ava Gardner as Empress Elizabeth. The movie was not perfectly put together, but it was highly romantic. Its’ theme song is the stirring Spartacus Suite by Aram Khachaturian which is one of my favorite classical themes.

In 1936, a French version of the story had also been produced. It too was entitled Mayerling, and it starred Charles Boyer as Crown Prince Rudolf. The film was an international success and opened doors to Hollywood for Boyer.






An irony of the entire sordidness of the Mayerling mystery is the fact that after the deaths of Crown Prince Rudolf and Baroness Maria Vetsera, the emperor Franz Josef had his sons’ hunting lodge at Mayerling converted into a convent for Carmelite nuns.


In 2006 the mini-series The Crown Prince was produced in Austria. The cast also included Omar Sharif again, but of course, not as Rudolf this time. A clip from the mini-series can be seen below. The entire production can be purchased on Amazon.com. I cannot give it a thumbs up or down because I have not seen it. Nevertheless, the preview does look interesting.


Was the Mayerling mystery the result of a tragic love affair or the kind of epic tragedy that only politics can bring?

Hapsburg Tragedy Part I: Maximilian and Carlota

Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.
---George Santayana

This is the first in a three part series about three tragic members of the imperial family of Austria-Hungary, or the house of Hapsburg-Lorraine. The Hapsburgs ruled over portions of Europe from Spain to the Balkans for centuries. The assassination of one of their family members, Archduke Franz Ferdinand, led to World War I. Here I will present Ferdinand Maximilian Joseph or Maximilian for short. He was the archduke’s uncle and was executed years before in a foreign land where he had journeyed to rule with the best of intentions.

On June 19, 1867 under the Mexican sky a tall, blonde Austrian of 35 faced a firing squad along with two Mexicans who had been his loyal generals. Far away in Europe, his wife was descending into madness after fleeing Mexico to unsuccessfully plead her husband’s case to the heads of France and Austria, and the pope. The Austrian who stood ready to die that day was the former emperor of Mexico, Maximilian or Maximiliano I. Who was Maximilian and how did he who was Austrian and who grew up along the Danube end up in Mexico?

Ferdinand Maximilian Joseph, the future Emperor Maximilian I, was born in Vienna, Austria on July 6, 1832. He was the second son of the Archduke Franz Karl and his wife Sophie. From the beginning there were contradictions about Maximilian. He looked nothing like his father or his brothers. In fact, it was said that he closely resembled Napoleon II, the Duke of Reichstadt who was the son of Napoleon I and the Archduchess Marie Louise. Maximilian’s mother Sophie had developed a tender friendship with the Duke that might have been transformed into passion love. From the time she had arrived in Vienna when she was 19 and the Duke had been 14, they had been extremely close. They had shared similar interests in books, beauty, opera, and liberalism. Napoleon II was the opposite of Sophie’s husband and siblings who were dull and prodding. In contrast to them, the Duke was tall, blonde, and glittering, especially once he became a man. Was Maximilian the product of this intense friendship? No one will ever know. When the Duke died at 21 of tuberculosis or as some have suggested, poisoning, Sophie never recovered from the loss of her best friend.

Maximilian would grow up to have a sparkle and a contradictory uniqueness about him. His dabbling in liberal politics would cause his elder brother Franz Joseph, the last emperor of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, fits. Maximilian was an eager learner showing early on a love for the arts and science. He also loved the military, and rose quickly to become a high ranking officer in the Austrian navy. His first stint as a ruler was as viceroy of the Kingdom of Lombardy-Venetia.

In 1857, he married Princess Charlotte of Belgium. The two were opposites in looks and temperaments. Where Maximilian was tall and fair, Charlotte was short and dark. Maximilian could be lively and frivolous, while Charlotte was quiet, serious, loved the music of Bach and books on history. In their case, which is often the case, opposites did attract.

Maximilian’s half brother, the Emperor Franz Joseph finally got fed up with his younger brother’s progressive policies. So he dismissed him from his position as viceroy of Lombardy-Venetia. Maximilian and Charlotte retired from public life and lived in Milan.


In 1859, Maximilian was faced with a highly unexpected proposal. He was approached by Mexican conservative monarchists to be their candidate as the emperor of Mexico. Maximilian eventually consented to the proposal, since he had a love for adventure and the exotic. His decision also fell in completely with Napoleon III’s desire to have permanent European control of Mexico.

In May of 1864, Maximilian and Charlotte landed in Veracruz, Mexico. Maximilian had spent the time since he had accepted the throne, learning enthusiastically all he could about his new country. Mexico was in turmoil when the couple arrived. French troops had been sent there after Mexico’s president Benito Juarez had been unable to repay foreign loans which Mexico had received from France, Spain, and Britain. Napoleon had used the issue of the loans to intervene militarily in Mexico. Maximilian and Charlotte had unknowingly arrived in the war torn country believing that a plebiscite by the Mexican people had declared him emperor. The plebiscite had been done under the gun with French troops around dictating that the Mexicans vote according to French plan. The majority of the population did not want foreigners running their country. They already had a leader, President Benito Juarez.

Like Maximilian, Benito Juarez was a remarkable individual. Where Maximilian had come from the halls of palaces, Benito Juarez had come from the dust. Juarez was an Amerindian of peasant stock. He said of his parents that they were "Indios de la raza primitiva del país," which in English means, "Indians of the primitive race of the country." He was the first pure blooded Indian to rule a nation in the Americas in over three centuries. Juarez grew up not even speaking Spanish. He spoke an Indian language, Zapotec. Until he was nearly a teenager, he worked as a farmer and a shepherd. A lay Franciscan noticed his high intellect and encouraged him to go into the priesthood. Juarez was a dedicated seminary student for awhile, but eventually his interests turned to law. He graduated from the seminary, but he also went on to earn a law degree.

Still not suspecting that they were dupes, Maximilian and Charlotte planned to have a coronation in the Metropolitana Cathedral in Mexico City. The coronation was never held because of constant unrest in the country. Maximilian and Charlotte made their home in Chapultepec Castle which is on a hill which had once been a retreat of the Aztec emperors. Since they were childless, they adopted a young Mexican child named Agustin de Iturbide y Green and his cousin Salvador. Both had been the grandsons of a former emperor of Mexico who had been forced to abdicate and was later executed. Agustin was to be Maximilian’s heir. Maximilian’s decision like so much he did in the beginning was an attempt to pacify the masses. Agustin was of Mexican, Spanish, and American descent. His mother had been an American named Alice Green. Perhaps Maximilian thought that by declaring a child of Mexican, Spanish, and American blood as his heir apparent, the Mexicans, Europeans, and Americans would see in a future ruler of mixed heritage someone who might be less threatening to their interests in the region. America was still engaged in its’ own turmoil with the Civil War. However, even though with it’s plate full, the American government did not feel comfortable with French interference in Mexico. The Monroe Doctrine clearly stated that European countries were not to interfere in any of the newly created states in the Americas. After the Civil War was over, the Doctrine would spell the end of Maximilian’s adventure.

Mexico had two rulers now: the Emperor Maximilian and President Benito Juarez. Maximilian began to steal ideas from the Juarez camp in an attempt to buy the trust of the Mexican people. He copied Juarez’s ideas on religious freedom, land reform, and voting rights which would go beyond the landholding classes. He offered Juarez amnesty if he would only swear allegiance to the crown. Juarez and the people were not about to be pacified by an unwelcomed, usurping foreigner. When pacification did not work, Maximilian ordered that all followers of Juarez be shot. This was in response to the republican (Juarez’s) force’s practice of executing followers of the empire. This draconian measure really turned the tide against Maximilian’s rule.

Once the American Civil War had come to a close, the US government began to ship arms to Juarez’s government. Napoleon III got nervous. With so much unrest in Mexico, being slapped by the Monroe Doctrine, and worries about mounting German power on the European continent, he suddenly withdrew all French forces leaving Maximilian and Charlotte (now Carlota) to fend for themselves. Betrayed and alone except for a few loyal followers, Carlota encouraged Maximilian to never waver in his determination. She reminded him that being a man of honor, it would be better to fight it out and die than to run back to Austria in defeat and disgrace. When they had accepted the throne of Mexico, they had relinquished any titles they had had back home. While Maximilian tried to hang on to power, Carlota went on an odyssey to France, Vienna, and Rome to plead her husband’s cause. When everyone looked the other way, including Napoleon III, who had been Maximilian’s chief supporter, Carlota had a nervous breakdown which turned into insanity. For 50 more years she would live in seclusion dying in 1927 at age 86.

Back in Mexico, Maximilian tried to hold out again the republican forces of Benito Juarez. While trying to escape through enemy lines, he was captured. He was imprisoned, court-martialed and sentenced to death. Many of the crowned heads of Europe including the author Victor Hugo sent letters and telegrams to the Mexican government begging that Maximilian’s life be spared. Benito Juarez refused. He wanted to send a clear message to the world that any government imposed on Mexico by foreigner powers would never again be tolerated. So on June 19, 1867, the former emperor of Mexico, Maximilian I was shot along with two of his generals Tomas Mejia and Miguel Miramon.

This is Eduard Monet’s artistic view of the event. Maximilian did not wear a sombrero, and he did not stand in the middle. He asked that his executioners fire at his heart because he wanted his mother’s last view of him to be with a face unmarred by bullets. However, a possible stray bullet hit him in the eye. When his body was embalmed, a glass eye was positioned where the bullet had struck him.

Maximilian’s last words may have been either,

“Mexicans! Today I die for a fair cause: the freedom and independence of Mexico. May God allow my spilling blood to put an end forever to the disgraces of my new homeland. ¡Viva México!"

or

"I forgive everybody. I pray that everybody may also forgive me, and my blood which is about to be shed will bring peace to Mexico. Long live Mexico! Long Live Independence!”

Like his great aunt Queen Marie Antoinette 70 years earlier, Maximilian had been died violently so far from home. This macabre photo is of Maximilian's corpse.

In 1939, Warner Brothers Pictures produced the drama Juarez with Brian Aherne as Maximilian, Bette Davis as Carlota, Paul Muni as Benito Juarez, and Claude Rains as Napoleon III. Aherne's Maximilian is almost saintly in his idealism. Also in the movie, Juarez’s hero and role model is President Abraham Lincoln, whose portrait he always keeps with him almost as if it is a religious icon. When Juarez asks one of his spies about the appearance of Maximilian, the man describes him as a “magnifico, who is tall and fair with hair like the summer corn.”

Below are two clips from the movie. In the tragedy of Maximilian and Carlota, the lessons of history have been forgotten by many, especially when we look at some recent events that have occurred on the world stage.