Above: The equestrian portrait of Crown Prince Rudolf by Tadeusz Ajdukiewicz (1852-1916), who found the Countess's incriminating letter in one of the tunic's pockets (detail).

Source: Wikimedia Commons.

19. Aftermath: The Countess

The Countess's efforts to conceal her role as gobetween for Rudolf and Mary had been clumsy and scatterbrained but despite this she nearly succeeded in covering her tracks. Her downfall came through an almost comic-opera twist.

In one of his last messages Rudolf ordered that the Countess's letters to him be destroyed and this was done so far as those found in his apartment at the Hofburg were concerned.

However, in one of his final acts Rudolf commissioned an equestrian portrait of himself painted by the Polish artist Tadeusz Ajdukiewicz. Rudolf posed wearing his uniform of General of Infantry and between sittings he left his uniform tunic in the studio so that Ajdukiewicz could use it for reference.

After Rudolf's death Ajdukiewicz asked permission to keep the tunic as a souvenir, which was granted. When the artist went through the pockets he found an incriminating letter from the Countess which Rudolf apparently forgot about. Ajdukiewicz made sure that the letter was handed over to Franz Josef. The letter exposed the Countess's role in the Mayerling tragedy and as a result she, like Helene was banished from Court.

Beginning in 1898 the Countess took her revenge by writing tell-all books about the Austrian royal family and accepting hush money from the Court in exchange for not publishing them. This changed in 1913 when she published her autobiography, My Past. She followed this up with a biography of Empress Elisabeth and several other books.

The Countess divorced her husband in 1896 and married for the second time in the same year. In 1924 she married an American naturopath and lived in Florida. In 1926 she was working as a housemaid in New Jersey. She returned to Germany in 1929 and died in 1940 in an Augsburg nursing home at the age of 82.