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AUSANNE, Switzerland. A
strange story comes from
Vienna.
I can go to Vienna for dinner and
back to Lusanne for breakfast- You
understand?
The story is not made for expor
tation. Call it pure Viennese. Evi
dently the retun to Paris of the
Aiglon would gh e pleasure to the
French, who havi long desired Na
poleon's son to re; t beside his mighty
father, under thd dome of the In
valides. But this rumor is quite
other. It does not care, a hang for
the desires of the French. For a cen
tury the body was'reposed beside that
of Marie Louise, his mother, in the
mysterious and unexplored vaults of
the Kapuziner Church of Vienna and
there has always been a superstitious
unwillingness to budge it.
When Napoleon III arrived in power
one of his first acts was to begin ne
gotiations for the "return" of the
body because the boy was born in
Paris and forcibly taken from Paris
by the allied Kings.
In 1855 the cession was almost
agreed upon. In 1857 there was a
hitch. The final failure of the project
was variously ascribed as cause or
effect of the war with Austria in 1850,
and later to general hostility; but
there would seem to have always been
a hidden motive and this story gives
an idea of it.
Black and grewsome legend to
touch so pretty a baby, so unfortunate
a youth, yet beautiful because it takes
a people's hopes in hand, however
strangely. The child's birth, as King
of Rome, was hailed by Europe as a
guarantee of peace, uniting the Na
poleonic war power with the family of
Kings. Truly, this is different. .
Son of Napoleon, heir of the em
pire, born in the Tuileries, the Aiglon
lived three years in France, baby idol.
After Napoleon's abdication the allies
confided him to the Emperor of Aus
tria, his grandfather. He never saw
France again. But, just as Napoleon
at St. Helena continued begging for
his boy in vain, so the common people
of France continued buying copies of
his various portraits, whose supply
never equaled the demand.
The legend is that he was "killed
by kindness." Growing up a gilded
princeling in a corrupt court, he was
led into pleasures weakening to his
tender years, while cunningly deflected
from healthy exercise. Rostand makes
him turn the danger, nobly aided in
secret, though too late. There Is no
need to believe that the danger ex
isted. The heroic explanation of the
Aiglon's death is quite sufficient he
died of sorrow.
He had the education of an Arch
duke of his time. He was not pre
vented from reading about his father
and his campaigns. On the other hand,
they kept him isolated, strictly, from
France, the French and all Bona
partist sympathizers.
The Aiglon lived in a gilded prison.
So living, he developed a veritable
cult for his father, and desired only
to resemble him. Recognizing that he
could not begin as Emperor of the
French though aware that he had
been proclaimed Napoleon II by the
Chamber of the Hundred Days he
craved for the throne of Poland or
Greece, successively promised and
withheld from him. Colonel of a sim
ple Austrian regiment, he was not
even allowed to command his men.
They feared that the Napoleonic
genius might blaze out in him.
He hoped it might.
He mourned to death, at 21, be
cause he lost his hope.
And now for the strange story of
Vienna:
He sleeps in the black Kapuziner-
crypt, along with casemated Era
perors and Archdukes. For outsiders
the dismal labyrinths have harrowing
yet fascinating reputation. The end
less vaults under the court church are
ostensibly connected with the palace
by broad subterranean passages, used
bv the court on great funeral occa
sions. In them, during the Kossuth a Hapsburg but a great black.
strueeles. a band of Danubian con- from Bohemian. Polish and Magyr cient iron key.
federates, seeking entrance to kidnap magnates, dark riches, unclean, to be "The key of Black Mathias!" said
the Emperor, was treacherously per- purified only by some noble use. ' an aged, doddering valet. When they
mitted to penetrate half way and then None of the succeeding Emperors asked him why he said it, he replied,
mowed down by cannon. Their have found them. "My father served the castle back 300
shrieking ghosts are said to dash con- Many sought. years. It would be strange if I
fusedly through a maze of secret Horrible tales are told of lost en- should not know the key of Black
passages, but in remote chambers gbieers. Mathias 1" And not another word
these common or garden ghosts are They say, even, that a later Em- could they get out of him.
themselves, terrified by gibbering peror added to the hoard, or, rather,: And one more thing Vienna tells
wraiths, who exceed them in horror. salted down a supplementary treasure, about the Aiglon. J oseph Balsamo,
What are they? Suffering spirits it was that Duke Francis of Lor- the famous Count Cagliostro who pre-
of faithless palace servants, lost 500 raine who, marrying Maria Theresa, dieted the French revolution and so
years back, hunting for "the treasure." became Emperor, but did not resign, the fate of so many of its actors,
The treasure! He devoted his talents and oppor- finally perished in the Castle of St.
"The" treasure! There is certainly tunities to vast financial speculations. Angelo, Rome. Wandering from
a treasure. The Capuchins crypts are They netted him some $40,000,000, France after the adventure of the
ruled, they' say, by the terrible dead they say, on which he spent five years Queen's necklace, he was temporarily
Emperor Mathias, who guards forgot- in liquidating, very skillfully, into gold imprisoned in Vienna. How he es-
. ten crown jewels, chests of ancient and jewels. In any case, it was not caped has always been disputed, but
booty, bags of diamonds and rubies, found after his death. it would seem that he impressed a
barrels of coined gold and ingots, loot And it is useless to seek it in the cousin of the Emperor by revelations
of the Turks at the doors of Vienna, cyrpts. and predictions. Among other things,
treasure ot Venice, tribute wrunj Tradition tells that the treasure they told him of the treasure which
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will come to light unexpectedly, and
only on a particular occasion when
the Hapsburg dynasty has vital need.
Also, in the cyrpt, dwells the skull.
What skull ? Nobody knows. It is
the skull. It warns the Hapsburg
family just before they die. It is
unique. The doomed one finds the
skull lying on his bed. They carry it
back, with fearful veneration, to the
Capuchin vaults. Then the warned
one makes his will.
In such surroundings lies Napoleon's
son, half French by blood, all French
by birth and spirit. What has he to
do with these old Hapsburg skulleries ?
Why, this and here comes in the
queer part. The day before the 1
AiHnn's dpath thev found lying on
his bed, not the skull for he
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ought to be discovered, unexpectedly,
in the great need of the Hapuburgs.
and asked him for a calculation of
the dato when need and discovery
fould coincide. His reply was inex
plicable "When the boy goes home."
How connect it with the Aiglon?
1'he Aiglon was not born.
Men shrugged their shoulders. Aus
tria was prosperous. , And through th
century no wars, however, unsuccess
ful, threatened the dynasty with vital
need. The Great Napoleon married
into the family. The birth of a son
was joy to Europe. His death was
probuhly no less a joy. And the ad
venture of the key was forgotten as
a servants' mystery.
Nowadays, however, Vienna is in
fever.
The enemy advances. Sedition is
in the Empire. The dynasty is
threatened.
The most fantastic rumors find be
lief. The dynasty is threatened. Now is
the time for the treasure.
All becomes clear.
The boy is the key to the treasure
aye, the dead by whose birth was
hailed 100 years ago as Austria's boy.
The treasure is in the crypts. The
boy is in the crypts. Where is the
big, black ancient key of Black
Mathias?
Nobody knows.
No matter. "Whe:i the boy goes
home," said Cagliostro.
It is obvious, argues Vienna. The
boy is Napoleon's son, and home
means Paris. Whether or not th
French want him, in removing the
Aiglon from the crypt.-;, the treasure
will-be found. A crumbling wall, a
sunken slab, or other accident will
show it.