mostly unhappy, of his long reign, so that the distinct colours which were perhaps there at first had faded more and more and gradually vanished. But this much is certain and cannot be denied, that his sphere of intellectual interests had always been a very narrow one. He never cared much for science or art, with the exception of painting; and it has never been reported of him that he expressed sympathy with this or the other poet. As a matter of fact, he had one favourite pursuit onlyhunting, to which he remained faithful to the end of his life. Apart from this, he sought in the society of his friend Frau Schratt the relief and recreation in which his great sense of duty only permitted him to indulge to a limited extent.

His relations with this lady were an open secret, which no one took amiss, with the exception of the clergy. He himself made no mystery of it, and during his summer residence at Ischl he used to spend every afternoon at his friend's villa. An indication of the unusual nature of this relation was given by the fact that his wife knew of it and gave evidence of a real feeling of sympathy with Frau Schratt; that the Empress went so far as to present this lady with her portrait was surely by no means an ordinary occurrence. The people begrudged the Kaiser this relief all the less because it was well known how unhappy he was in his family life. His marriage with Princess Elizabeth of Bavaria had been a love-match on his part, which is not surprising in view of her extraordinary charm. But her independent and self-willed nature, which had developed in comparative freedom, could not feel at home amid the Spanish ceremonial of the Viennese Court, and put her out of sympathy with her husband, so that a feeling of coldness and estrangement arose between them, which led, in the course of time, to an actual though not official separation. They led their own lives apart and met but seldom. If the Kaiser was in any way to blame for this state of affairs it was certainly much against his will, for, just because he had at other times always to be the 'Kaiser,' he occasionally felt the necessity of being human also; and, as he could not satisfy this need at home, he sought to do so elsewhere and found what he sought in the company of Frau Schratt.

In spite of this estrangement, he felt the tragic de of his wife very deeply; perhaps, as a man, he felt it e more deeply than that of his only son Rudolf. The ef on him of the news of Archduke Rudolf's death is s to have been terrible; but here it was doubtless rat the monarch who found himself bereft of his sole l than the father who had lost an insubordinate troublesome son; for the relations between father a son had been very unhappy. Like his mother, wh nature he had apparently inherited, Rudolf felt ill ease in the strict, narrow-minded atmosphere of Court; and in his rebellion against it he turned to a worse extreme-a deliberate contempt and scorn of th considerations which were due to his position. S behaviour was especially calculated to offend and e bitter the Kaiser, who set such store by dignity and duties of royalty, so that a gulf stretched between th which grew ever wider and deeper. The Kaiser, ho ever, cannot be altogether absolved from blame for t unhappy estrangement, for, by the very fact that jealously kept his son apart from affairs of State, naturally helped, though unintentionally, to drive h deeper and deeper into the wild Don Juan-like pat which led to so tragic a conclusion. It was the ugly a painful circumstances attending the Crown-Prince's dea that probably caused his father the bitterest suffering his life, suffering more bitter than could have been caus by his death alone. For how deeply must the Kais have suffered with his proud nature, his dignifi reserve, his horror of anything which might exci scandal-through the enormous sensation caused by th death, which stirred the whole world with its bloo stained eroticism, and unloosed a perfect deluge of t most revolting type of sensational journalism.

Of the population of his kingdom, numbering ov fifty millions, there can, indeed, be but few who ha experienced such an abundance of tragedy within the own family circle. His brother Maximilian, executed Emperor of Mexico; his wife killed by the hand of a assassin; his nephew and heir also; added to these, oth painful events in his family, not to speak of the hea blows dealt him by fate in his capacity of ruler. T whole constituted such an immense tragedy that it wou

not have been wonderful if he had collapsed beneath it. The wonder was that he did not collapse-a miracle to be explained not only by the extraordinary elasticity of his physical constitution, but doubtless also by the selfsufficiency and calmness of his nature which gave him a spiritual equilibrium that even the most terrible blows of fate could not permanently injure. This tragedy helped, moreover, to gain for him, through pity, feelings of sympathy which would otherwise probably not have been accorded him to such an extensive degree. People saw a crown of thorns upon his grey head, from which a radiance emanated. This radiance added a warmer tone to the frigid halo which had encircled him, and thus increased his popularity. For popularity he enjoyed, however far removed from the people his nature essentially was. In the early days, indeed, especially at the time when he was under the evil influence of General Count Grünne, there were few signs of popular favour. It only became evident in the course of years, and was perhaps mainly due to the force of habit. His people had become used to regarding him as their ruler; three generations, from childhood to age, had known no other Kaiser; and they could scarcely imagine that there would ever be any other Kaiser in Austria than this kindly old gentleman with the characteristic white whiskers, who had suffered 80 many misfortunes and still had to endure so much as Sovereign, owing to the difficulties of his position. Thus custom and pity wove about him a species of popularity which his own personality would scarcely have won.

II. ARCHDUKE FRANZ FERDINAND.

ALTHOUGH Archduke Franz Ferdinand never came to the Habsburg throne, nevertheless in considering the last of the Habsburgs he must not be omitted; for, in spite of the fact that Franz Josef's jealous love of power limited his sphere of action, he succeeded, as heir apparent, in making his influence felt very effectively, and would have been destined to play an important part on the political stage. To the public, Franz Ferdinand appeared as a sort of shrouded figure like that of Sais, whose veils their fingers were always itching to lift.

But these veils were never to be completely raised, curiosity was never to be entirely satisfied, for Fr Ferdinand passed into the great darkness before chiaroscuro in which he was hidden during his lifet could be illuminated. Those, however, who were clos connected with him, or who had any opportunity considering him attentively and impartially, even i were through the veils which shrouded him fr publicity, were able to perceive the outlines of personality so clearly that for them it had no myste and they realised that his individuality was the m remarkable produced by the House of Habsburg si the Emperor Josef II.

The tragic death of the Crown Prince Rudolf Jan. 30, 1889, caused Archduke Franz Ferdinand to ta a prominent place before the world. Although the n heir to the throne would, in fact, have been the Empero brother, Archduke Karl Ludwig, it was taken for grant that the latter would resign his right to the throne favour of his eldest son, Archduke Franz Ferdinan especially since, in view of the Emperor's vigorous co stitution, he would not have succeeded until he was w advanced in years. The public knew little of Fra Ferdinand, and that little was not calculated to exci sympathy for him or to cause any great hopes to be s on him; for rumour attributed to him, as to his young brother Otto, all manner of frivolous escapades in whi he had played no very creditable rôle. When it becan known that he was suffering from tuberculosis, a disea which he had inherited from his mother, who had die while still in her youth, and that on this account he w obliged to go south, it was generally believed that the: was no question of his succeeding, even if he survive the Emperor; and his younger brother Otto, who wa married and had sons, was regarded as the futur sovereign. But this belief was, before long, seen to hav been erroneous, for Franz Ferdinand soon let it be know that he was not prepared to renounce the throne t which, after the death of his father, he had become th immediate heir.

The first time that he courted publicity was when h accepted the patronage (Protektorat) of the Catholi Schulverein and, on this occasion, let fall a significan

remark on the 'Los von Rom' movement, so active at that time. 'Away from Rome,' he said, 'is equivalent to "Away from Austria!" In this mot he hit the nail on the head, for the propaganda against the Catholic Church set on foot by the Pan-Germans was solely to be attributed to the fact that the latter regarded the Catholic Church as the greatest obstacle to the spread of Pan-German thought among the people. The object of this school of thought, however. was none other than to hurl the Habsburgs from the throne and to affiliate Austria to the German Empire as a vassal State. But this move

ment naturally roused the indignation of the heirapparent and provoked him to severe condemnation of the Pan-German propaganda. His words called forth a very vehement and hostile response from the public. The Liberal Jewish press, at that time leading opinion in Austria, vied with the Pan-German and SocialDemocratic press in expressing its indignation that the future sovereign should, in accepting the patronage of a confessedly Catholic association, have taken up a definitely partisan attitude, and they disputed his right to do so.. There is no question that, if he had accepted the patronage of a Liberal or German-nationalist association, and had given utterance to opinions in sympathy with these, the very same journals would have hailed his utterances with enthusiasm; as, however, he had adopted the contrary standpoint, they assumed an air of virtuous indignation and demanded impartiality. Indeed, the Liberals, Social-Democrats, Jews, and-a strange medley-PanGermans were all beginning to have fears for the future, which held no promise of good to them when Franz Ferdinand should come to the throne. Hence the commotion.

The Magyars were also to have a foretaste of this future, which was but little relished by them and gave them much food for reflexion; for, when the Archduke was about to pay a visit to the court of the Tsar at Petersburg and chose Count Zichy, a man of his own political views, as his Hungarian Lord-in-Waiting, the Liberal clique in Hungary expressed themselves as highly offended, brought a protest before the Emperor, and demanded that the Archduke should make his choice from their ranks. This objection was so far successful

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