Rudolf then began to hesitate, and he spent several hours beside Mary’s body as the dawn approached. At half-past six, he unlocked the door and asked to have breakfast prepared and to be called down in an hour’s time. He then went back into the bedroom and locked the door behind him. He poured a glass of brandy and sat back on the bed. He placed a flower into Mary’s hands and then lifted the revolver to his temple before finally pulling the trigger.1
When the Crown Prince didn’t come to breakfast when called, the door to the bedroom was eventually broken down. His valet Loschek went into the room to confirm what the others had already feared; both were dead. Rudolf’s hunting companion Count Hoyos rushed to Vienna to break the news to the family. Rudolf had been bleeding from the mouth, which had led to the assumption that he had been poisoned. Prince Philipp of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, the husband of Rudolf’s wife’s sister, was also present when the bodies were found, but he remained at Mayerling while Hoyos went to Vienna. A Dr Widerhofer was called to Mayerling by Loschek by telegram.
Hoyos first informed Empress Elisabeth, who was having a lesson in Greek and was quite annoyed at being interrupted. However, Elisabeth was reportedly quite composed when she went to her husband to tell him the news. She took Katharina Schratt, Franz Joseph’s mistress, with her because she knew that Katharina would be able to comfort him.
Elisabeth then went on to inform her youngest daughter, Marie Valerie, who immediately assumed that he had taken his own life. Elisabeth resisted this and said, “No, no, I will not believe that, it is so likely, so certain that the girl poisoned him.”2 The next to be told was Rudolf’s widow Stephanie, who described the scene in her memoirs, “The Emperor sat at the centre of the room, the Empress, dressed in dark clothes, her face white and rigid, was with him. In my bewildered, shaken state, I believed that I was being looked at like an unfaithful wife. A crossfire of questions, some of which I could not answer, some of which I was not permitted to answer, descended on me.”2
Meanwhile, Mary’s desperate mother Helene was looking for her daughter and demanded to speak to Elisabeth. Sobbing, she exclaimed, “I have lost my child, she is the only one who can give her back to me.”3 Eventually, Elisabeth came to see the sobbing woman to tell her of her daughter’s death. Marie Valerie wrote in her journal, “Her Majesty, full of grandeur, stands before the agitated woman who demands her child, and speaks to her softly. She tells her that the girl is dead. At that, Vetsera break out in loud weeping: My child, my beautiful child! But do you know, says Her Majesty, raising her voice, that Rudolf is dead as well? Vetsera staggered, fell to her knees before Her Majesty, and clasped her knees. My unhappy child, what has she done? This is what she has done!! So she, too, saw the matter in that light and believed, as did Her Majesty, that the girl had poisoned him. A few words more, then Her Majesty leaves Vetsera with the words, “And now remember that Rudolf died of a heart attack!”3
Back at Mayerling, Dr Widerhofer had arrived around lunchtime. He examined the bodies and probably needed little information to establish the cause of death – gunshots to the head. It took a while before the corrected version reached Vienna, but the cause of death was still announced as heart failure. Court officials came to remove Rudolf’s body later that day while Mary’s body was hastily removed to a lumber room. Other court officials went to the Vetsera residence, and Mary’s uncles Alexander Baltazzi and Count Stockau were sent to fetch Mary’s body, though they were not allowed to bring a hearse or a coffin. By the time they arrived, she had been dead for almost two days.
The body was washed by the surgeon-in-ordinary Auchenthaler and fully dressed, even in her coat, hat, boa and veil. Her uncles then linked arms with the body and carried her out to a waiting carriage. She was placed in a half-sitting position between the two men. Despite the darkness, the carriage was not allowed on the main road. Slowly, the carriage travelled to Heiligenkreuz, and they did not arrive at the cemetery until midnight. Here they were awaited by a group of police officers and hastily made coffin in which Mary was placed. The coffin was then placed in a small shack, which was guarded by the police officers. Her uncles then went inside the monastery of Heiligenkreuz so they could rest.
She was buried the following day – 1 February 1889 – with a full church ceremony conducted by the Prior of Heiligenkreuz. Her uncles and a few police officers were the only other people present. Mary’s mother was told that she would eventually be allowed to move Mary’s body to a place of her choice, but Helene initially refused to disturb her daughter’s eternal rest. Helene and Hanna went to the grave every week to lay flowers on the grave. Her tombstone says, “Man cometh forth like a flower and is cut down.”4 Mary was eventually moved to a more permanent grave just a few yards away from the original grave. The hastily made coffin was replaced with a copper one.
Despite the best efforts of the court to suppress the real story, it was soon public knowledge. Subsequently, Mary’s grave has been disturbed several times over the years.
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