Some years ago a German prince, who was unable to distinguish between the numerous archdukes, came to Vienna.  A dinner was given in his honour at the Hofburg, where he was seated next to Franz Ferdinand.  Part of the programme was that he was to have gone the next morning with the Archduke to shoot in the neighbourhood.  The German prince, who mistook the Archduke Franz Ferdinand for someone else, said to him during dinner:  “I am to go out shooting to-morrow, and I hear it is to be with that tiresome Franz Ferdinand; I hope the plan will be changed.”  As far as I know, the expedition did not take place; but I never heard whether the prince discovered his mistake.  The Archduke, however, laughed heartily for days at the episode.

The Archduke invariably spoke of his nephew, the present Emperor Charles, with great affection.  The relations between the two were, however, always marked by the absolute subordination of the nephew to the uncle.  In all political discussions, too, the Archduke Charles was always the listener, absorbing the precepts expounded by Franz Ferdinand.

Charles’s marriage met with the full approval of his uncle.  The Duchess of Hohenberg, too, entertained the warmest affection for the young couple.

The Archduke was a firm partisan of the Great-Austria programme.  His idea was to convert the Monarchy into numerous more or less independent National States, having in Vienna a common central organisation for all important and absolutely necessary affairs—­in other words to substitute Federalisation for Dualism.  Now that, after terrible military and revolutionary struggles, the development of the former Monarchy has been accomplished in a national spirit, there cannot be many to contend that the plan is Utopian.  At that time, however, it had many opponents who strongly advised against dissecting the State in order to erect in its place something new and “presumably better,” and the Emperor Francis Joseph was far too conservative and far too old to agree to his nephew’s plans.  This direct refusal of the idea cherished by the Archduke offended him greatly, and he complained often in bitter terms that the Emperor turned a deaf ear to him as though he were the “lowest serving man at Schoenbrunn.”

The Archduke lacked the knowledge of how to deal with people.  He neither could nor would control himself, and, charming though he could be when his natural heartiness was allowed free scope, just as little could he conceal his anger and ill-humour.  Thus it came about that the relations between him and the aged Emperor grew more and more strained.  There were doubtless faults on both sides.  The standpoint of the old Emperor, that as long as he lived no one else should interfere, was in direct opposition to that of the Archduke, who held that he would one day have to suffer for the present faults in the administration, and anyone acquainted with life at court will know that such differences between the highest individuals are quickly raked together and exaggerated.  At every court there are men who seek to gain their master’s favour by pouring oil on the flames, and who, by gossip and stories of all kinds, add to the antipathy that prevails.  Thus it was in this case, and, instead of being drawn closer together, the two became more and more estranged.