The life of the emperor Francis JosephGribble, Francis Henry
History
The life of the emperor Francis Joseph
Gribble, Francis Henry
Austria -- Court and courtiers; Austria -- History -- Franz Joseph I, 1848-1916; Franz Joseph I, Emperor of Austria, 1830-1916
Some of these stories are more plausible than others; and the one of
them which has stuck in the minds of men is that which identifies John
Orth with Frederick Otten, or, as some versions of the story style him,
Baron Ott. But another story, never before printed, may be added here.
A gentleman who spoke English fluently with a German accent, was in
England a little while ago, attended by a well-known London solicitor,
and prepared to negotiate with publishers. The solicitor invited Mr.
Eveleigh Nash to meet him; and he dropped the hint which gave the
opening for overtures, by saying something about “my niece.” “Then
you,” said Mr. Nash, “must be the Archduke John of Tuscany.” “I am,”
replied the mysterious stranger; and then the conversation turned on
literary matters. “I can’t write my life under my own name,” said the
stranger, “but if you want reminiscences of the House of Habsburg, I
can provide you with plenty of them.”
There, for the moment, the matter was left; but presently there was
a sequel. Information was received that the same traveller had also
visited Paris, and, there also, had been invited to a little dinner in
a restaurant; but, in Paris, the inquiry into his representations was
pursued more carefully. Princess Louise of Saxe-Coburg, who was then in
Paris, and who had known John of Tuscany well, consented to come to
the restaurant, and look at the stranger, without making herself known
to him. He did not recognise her, and she did not recognise him. “That
man,” she said, “is no more John of Tuscany than I am”; and when Mr.
Nash subsequently tried to get into communication with his mysterious
acquaintance at the address which had been given to him, his letter was
returned to him.
So that that identification falls to the ground; and, indeed, the
plausibility of the most plausible of the identifications weighs but
little in the balance when set against the difficulty of vanishing,
as John Orth is supposed to have vanished, from human ken. What Jabez
Balfour failed to do, in the same part of the world, with considerably
stronger motives for doing it, John Orth is not in the least likely
to have done. Nor need his melodramatic exit speeches—if he really
delivered them—influence our judgment in the matter; for there is
nothing in a determination to “die without dying” which can avail to
save a sailor from the perils of the sea.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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