The first case was that of Princess Elizabeth, his granddaughter—the eldest daughter of the Archduchess Gisela, and the sister of that Princess Augustine, already mentioned as the wife of the Archduke Joseph. She sought a private interview with her grandfather, in order to tell him a secret which she had not ventured to tell her mother; and the secret was that she had given her heart to Baron Otto von Seefried zu Buttenheim, a dashing young lieutenant of cavalry in the Bavarian army. It was very objectionable—the more so because love, in this instance, was laughing not only at rank, but also at religion. Otto von Seefried zu Buttenheim was a Protestant; and the Houses of Wittelsbach and Habsburg resemble each other, not only in their liability to mental derangement, but also in the soundness of their Catholic principles. Still the case was one in which excuses and allowances could be made. Princess Elizabeth, though a granddaughter, was not an Archduchess; the disgrace, if disgrace there was, would fall not on Austria, but on Bavaria. Moreover, Otto von Seefried zu Buttenheim, though a subaltern, was a baron; and we have several times noted the ancient maxim of the Austrian aristocracy that “mankind begins with the baron.” Creed may count for more than lineage in church, and before the throne of grace; but lineage counts for more than creed at Court and in Society. If principles might be tampered with at all, this was a proper time for tampering with them—especially as Princess Elizabeth pleaded very pitifully and prettily. So Francis Joseph tampered—showing, as it were, that the Habsburgs could afford to be more tolerant than the Wittelsbachs because they were greater and grander. He not only consented to the marriage, but gave the young Bavarian bridegroom a refuge in his dominions and a commission in his army. Nor has he had any reason to regret his indulgence; for this is one of the happy marriages which have no history. And what one says of that marriage—the one which made the first effective breach in the wall of Habsburg pride and prejudices—one may say of the marriages of various other bridal couples who presently insisted on following through the breach which had been made: the marriage of Archduchess Stéphanie to Count Lonyay; of Stéphanie’s daughter, the Archduchess Elizabeth, to Otto von Windischgraetz; and of the Archduke Francis Ferdinand to Countess Sophie Chotek. Even against those marriages—or against some of them—the breach which Princess Elizabeth and Otto von Seefried zu Buttenheim had made was to be defended; but the stories are of sufficient interest and importance to be related separately. CHAPTER XXVIII