Above: Franz Albin "Feri" Vetsera (1872-1915) (detail). He was the last of Helene's children.

Source: Osterreichische Nationalbibliothek (Austrian National Library).

18. Aftermath: Helene (continued)

The statement that Helene had, in printing her memorandum, "obtained her desired satisfaction from the Emperor", as though Franz Josef and his advisors had not done everything in their power to suppress it, was particularly insulting.

The real message of the reply lay in a final statement which Franz Josef himself crossed out of the draft, perhaps deciding that it was a bit too blunt. It warned Helene "not to undertake anything that might be an obstacle to the gradual reconciliation of conflicts."

Helene must have understood that she was being offered nothing but before giving up she tried addressing a second Petition of Mercy to Franz Josef. This time the reply was silence.

Helene's cup of bitterness had not yet filled. In 1901 her elder daughter Hanna died at the age of 32 due to complications following a miscarriage. Her younger son Franz (Feri) was drowned while fighting on the Russian front in Poland in 1915.

Postwar inflation robbed her of nearly all her fortune. To add insult to injury, the newly-independent nation of Czechoslovakia refused to continue paying her late husband Albin's pension on the grounds that, living in Vienna, she was now a foreigner.

Helene lived her final years in modest circumstances, dividing her time between a flat in Vienna and a farm near Payerbach, 57 miles to the southwest. She died in February, 1925 at the age of 79 and was buried in Payerbach cemetery where her son Franz and brother Alexander Baltazzi are also buried. A large crowd attended her funeral.