In Memoriam

By order of ex-Empress Zita of Austria-Hungary, Monarchists attended the 25th anniversary of the assassination of the late Empress Elizabeth, * celebrated in the Capueiner Church in Vienna. During the ceremony a detective arrested Count Hoying, President of the Austrian State (Monarchist) Party, charging him with attempting to kill Eckartsau, Executor of ex-Emperor Karl's estates. Count Hoying denied the charge, characterizing it as an attempt at political revenge. He admitted, however, that he had charged Eckartsau with "wilfully sabotaging" settlement of the Habsburg estates. Empress Elizabeth, daughter of Duke Maximilian Joseph of Bavaria, became the consort of Emperor Franz Josef of Austria in 1854. Empress Elizabeth was a great sportswoman; she was beautiful; moreover she had the brilliant intelligence of a Wittelsbach. From her arrival in Vienna she unwittingly offended Viennese society because she rode horseback, because she tried to simplify court etiquette, and lastly, because she had voiced an unerring predilection for Hungary and the Hungarians--a heinous offense in Austrian eyes. It was largely through the Empress that the Dual Monarchy came into being in 1867.

*Empress Elizabeth was assassinated on Sept. 10, 1898, by Luigi Luccheni, anarchist, while walking from a hotel in GeneTa to a steamer.