Above: Countess Marie Wallersee (detail).

Source: Osterreichische Nationalbibliothek (Austrian National Library)

7. The Countess

Countess Marie Larisch is also known to history as Countess Marie Louise Larisch von Moennich and Countess Marie Louise Larisch-Wallersee.

The Countess was the niece of Empress Elisabeth and only three months older than her first cousin Rudolf. Her mother, Henriette Mendel, was an actress who had an affair with Elisabeth's older brother Duke Ludwig of Bavaria and became pregnant. Ludwig and Henriette were married six months after Marie's birth.

A few days before the wedding Henriette was granted the title Baroness Wallersee and the legitimized baby (who as a countess outranked her mother) inherited the name Wallersee.

Empress Elisabeth was fond of her niece but when Countess Marie received an offer of marriage from Count Nicky Esterhazy Elisabeth ordered her to refuse him because the Esterhazy family was too exalted for the daughter of an actress.

Countess Marie was forced to marry Count Georg Larisch von Moennich whose country estate was in Pardubice in Bohemia, then a town of 18,000 people about 80 miles east of Prague and about 170 miles north of Vienna.

The couple had five children, though only two of them were fathered by Count Georg. Not surprisingly the marriage was unhappy and Countess Marie longed to return to the glittering social whirl of Vienna and the imperial court.