“I mentioned several ladies” (Countess Marie continues) “who, I felt sure, would only be too delighted to console the imperial grass widower, but Aunt Cissi did not approve of them, and the matter dropped until she suddenly told me one day that she had discovered the right person in the actress Katrina Schratt, who was always considered to be more interesting off the Burg Theatre than on it.... People rather disapproved of Elizabeth’s attitude, but she was quite right in thinking well of the actress, who has, since the death of my aunt, proved herself to be a devoted friend to Francis Joseph.” That, assuredly, sounds as improbable as anything in “The Martyrdom of an Empress.” An Empress sallying into the highways and byways to seek a guardian angel for the Emperor, and finally extracting one from the _coulisses_, and presenting her, with the result that she becomes the friend of the family as well as the Emperor, and the Emperor takes a continual delight in her society for thirty years—that, indeed, is an amazing picture, not to be accepted, even on Countess Marie Larisch’s authority, without corroborative evidence. But the story seems, nevertheless, to be literally true. The corroborative testimony is available, and shall be produced. In the main, indeed, the Emperor’s attachment is as notorious as his marriage, and stands in as little need of proof. Frau Schratt at once became, and has ever since remained, a national institution—related to Court circles, though not exactly of them. It became the recognised thing that, when the Emperor went to Ischl, she should go to Ischl too; that she should have a cottage there, and that the Emperor should take tea at that cottage daily—entertained by Frau Schratt, but not by her husband, of whom one hears little, though it is understood that he was given an appointment which kept him usefully and profitably occupied at a distance from the tea-parties. Nor was it at tea-time only that Francis Joseph was to be heard of at Frau Schratt’s domicile. He was occasionally an evening visitor as well; and one of his evening visits concluded with a dramatic incident. He had stayed into the small hours, and desired, in consideration for the feelings of others, to depart without disturbing the household. Being unaccustomed, however, to stealthy movements, he stumbled over the furniture and disturbed the cook, who, suspecting that a burglar had intruded, came courageously downstairs, attired in her nightgown, and carrying a bedroom candle. Her impulse was to scream, but Francis Joseph checked it. “Don’t you see that I’m the Emperor, you silly woman?” he said in a stage whisper. Whereupon the cook, profoundly loyal, but not knowing exactly what course of conduct a manual of etiquette would prescribe in the situation, fell on her knees at her Sovereign’s feet, and began to sing at the top of her voice: _Gott erhalte Franz den Kaiser!_