Baroness mary vetsera biography
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Women's History Network
Carved onto the gravestone of Baroness Mary Vetsera in Heiligenkreuz, this Bible verse provides a sobering outlook on her short life. In the early hours of the 30th of January 1889, seventeen year old Mary was shot – willingly – by Crown Prince Rudolf of Austria, who then turned the gun on himself. This tragic event caused a scandal throughout the Austrian empire, and it is by her death at Rudolf’s hands that Mary has been remembered. The Baroness has gone down in history as a ‘titled trollop’ and sexual adventuress. Because Mary is framed in terms of her death alongside Rudolf, the events of her life have been of less interest.
But what of the young Baroness who sang in church choirs, devoured romantic novels, enjoyed the music of Beethoven, and whose heroine was Mary Stuart? Marie Alexandrine, Baroness of Vetsera, was born on the 19th of March 1871. Following the fashion of the time, she chose to go by the English ‘Mary’. She was the third of
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Vetsera, Marie (1871–1889)
Austrian baroness who died at Mayerling. Name variations: Marie Alexandrine; Baroness Mary Vetsera. Born on March 19, 1871, in Vienna, Austria; died on January 29, 1889, at Mayerling, near Vienna; daughter of Baron Albin Vetsera and Helene Baltazzi Vetsera ; never married; no children.
The short and tragic life of Marie Vetsera began in 1871 in Vienna. She was the eldest daughter in a prosperous Austrian family. Her mother was Helene Baltazzi Vetsera ; her father Albin Vetsera was a career diplomat in the Austro-Hungarian Empire who was made a baron in 1870. Marie spent most of her childhood traveling with her parents on the baron's assignments; she was not well educated, preferring horses and fashion to her studies. She was particularly fond of horse racing, a very popular sport in Austria at the time. It was at one race in around 1885 that the Vetseras met the future King Edward VII of England. Edward subsequently introduced them to the Austri
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Baroness Mary Vetsera
Austrian noble adolescent, mistress to Crown Prince Rudolf of Austria (1871–1889)
Baroness Marie Alexandrine "Mary" von Vetsera (19 March 1871 – 30 January 1889) was an Austrian noblewoman and the mistress of Rudolf, Crown Prince of Austria. Vetsera and the crown prince were found dead at his hunting lodge in Mayerling on 30 January 1889, following an apparent murder-suicide, which is known as the Mayerling incident.
Family and early life
[edit]Marie Alexandrine MaryFreiin von Vetsera was born on 19 March 1871 as the third child and second daughter of Albin Freiherr von Vetsera (1825–1887), an Austrian diplomat from Pozsony, Kingdom of Hungary (present day Bratislava, Slovakia),[1] and his wife, born Eleni Hélène Baltazzi (1847–1925), member of a wealthy noble family from Chios, Greece (then part of the Ottoman Empire).[2][3] Albin Vetsera had been the guardian of the orphaned Baltazzi children and married the el