pinkworld256-blog: On This Day In History~ January 30th 1889; Crown Prince Rudolf of Austria is foun
pinkworld256-blog:On This Day In History~ January 30th1889; Crown Prince Rudolf of Austria is found dead with his mistress Baroness Mary VetseraIn 1887, Rudolf of Austria bought Mayerling hunting lodge. In late 1888, the 30-year-old crown prince met the 17-year-old Baroness Marie Vetsera, known by the more fashionable Anglophile name Mary and began an affair with her. According to official reports their deaths were a result of Franz Joseph’s demand that the couple end the relationship: the Crown Prince, as part of a suicide pact, first shot his mistress in the head and then himself. Rudolf was officially declared to have been in a state of “mental unbalance” in order to enable Christian burial in the Imperial Crypt (Kapuzinergruft) of the Capuchin Church in Vienna. Mary’s body was smuggled out of Mayerling in the middle of the night and secretly buried in the village cemetery at Heiligenkreuz. After the deaths, the Emperor had Mayerling converted into a penitential convent of Carmelite nuns. Today prayers are still said daily by the nuns for the repose of Rudolf’s soul. -- source link