Archduke Rudolf, Crown Prince of Austria, vintage Photo Postcard

Portrait photo ( real Photo – style ) of the tragic historic figure, Archduke Rudolf, Crown Prince of Austria, Hungary and Bohemia (1858 - 1889). Rudolf was the son and heir of Emperor Franz Josef I of Austria and Empress Elisabeth of Austria.





His death, apparently through suicide, along with that of his mistress, Baroness Mary Vetsera, at his Mayerling hunting lodge in 1889 made international headlines, fueled international conspiracy rumours and ultimately may have sealed the long-term fate of the Habsburg monarchy.

According to official reports, their deaths were a result of Franz Josef's demand that the couple end the relationship: the Crown Prince, as part of a suicide pact, shot his mistress in the head, then himself. Rudolf was officially declared to have been in a state of "mental unbalance" in order to enable 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 cemetery of Holy Cross Abbey in Heiligenkreuz, and 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.