One fine quality in the Archduke was his fearlessness.  He was quite clear that the danger of an attempt to take his life would always be present, and he often spoke quite simply and openly of such a possibility.  A year before the outbreak of war he informed me that the Freemasons had resolved to kill him.  He even gave me the name of the town where the resolution was passed—­it has escaped my memory now—­and mentioned the names of several Austrian and Hungarian politicians who must have been in the secret.  He also told me that when he went to the coronation in Spain he was to have made the journey with a Russian Grand Duke, but shortly before the train started the news came that the Grand Duke had been murdered on the way.  He did not deny that it was with mixed feelings that he stepped into his compartment.  When at St. Moritz news was sent him that two Turkish anarchists had arrived in Switzerland intending to murder him, that every effort was being made to capture them, but that so far no trace of them had been discovered, and he was advised to be on his guard.  The Archduke showed me the telegram at the time.  He laid it aside without the slightest sign of fear, saying that such events, when announced beforehand, seldom were carried out.  The Duchess suffered all the more in her fears for his life, and I think that in imagination the poor lady often went through the catastrophe of which she and her husband were the victims.  Another praiseworthy feature in the Archduke was that, out of consideration for his wife’s anxiety, he tolerated the constant presence of a detective, which not only bored him terribly but in his opinion was absurd.  He was afraid that if the fact became known it would be imputed to timidity on his part, and he conceded the point solely with the view of calming his wife’s fears.

But he anxiously concealed all his good qualities and took an obstinate pleasure in being hard and disagreeable.  I will not endeavour here to excuse certain traits in his character.  His strongly pronounced egotism cannot be denied any more than the hardness of character, which made him insensible to the sufferings of all who were not closely connected with him.  He also made himself hated by his severe financial proceedings and his inexorable judgment on any subordinate whom he suspected of the slightest dishonesty.  In this connection there are hundreds of anecdotes, some true, some false.  These petty traits in his character injured him in the eyes of the great public, while the really great and manly qualities he possessed were unknown to them, and were not weighed in the balance in his favour.  For those who knew him well his great and good qualities outweighed the bad ones a hundredfold.