The failure of a marriage—of a royal marriage as of any other—is necessarily wrapped in mystery. The full facts are never made known; and one always feels that the facts kept secret were probably more important than the facts disclosed. Moreover, personality—that mysterious thing which none of us ever reveals completely to any one observer—inevitably counts for more than the tangible events on which we can lay our fingers. So with this marriage of Francis Joseph’s. The outcome of it—what the world has been allowed to see of its outcome—can only be understood, in so far as it is intelligible at all, if we examine it in the light of a personality which perplexed Europe for a generation, perplexing it more and more as years went on. Not two personalities, be it observed, but one. There are some personalities which fail to create an atmosphere of mystery even behind an impenetrable screen; and Francis Joseph’s personality is of that type. One always feels that, beyond what one knows of him, there is very little to be known. It is characteristic of all the Habsburgs that they cannot cross the road without striking an attitude which shows us exactly where they stand and what they think of things; and it is easy enough to accept the present Emperor as typical of the Habsburgs at their best. He comes before us, frank and brave, adaptable and affable, but, at the same time, proud as Lucifer; infinitely gracious to those who do not presume—readily regarded by such as a gallant soldier who has grown into a genial old gentleman, anxious to make things pleasant for everybody—yet seeming, at some crises of his fate, to mistake himself for God, and the Archdukes for the archangels; not because they behave as such, but because they are Habsburgs and ought to. That is a perfectly simple type; one does not complicate it when one adds that Francis Joseph has always been a punctual observer of Roman Catholic ritual, and, taking the _métier_ of Emperor seriously, has risen early throughout a long life in order to work at it with all the diligence of a devoted civil servant. All that—down to and including the occasional ceremonial washing of the feet of the poor, in imitation of his Master Christ—has been the straightforward fulfilment of an intelligible programme. If Francis Joseph had washed the feet of the poor because he had felt that they needed washing, and would not otherwise get washed, the case would have been different, and one would have suspected subtlety in his character. But he has only washed them gingerly—after servants had seen to it that they were already clean—in the manner of an actor aiming at spectacular display; and one no more finds anything subtle or elusive in that piece of symbolism than in anything else that he has done.