As long as he was looked upon as the heir to the throne, and people reckoned on him for the future, he was the centre of all possible attention; but when he fell ill and his case was considered hopeless, the world fluctuated from hour to hour and paid homage to his younger brother Otto.

I do not for a moment doubt that there was a great deal of truth in what the late Archduke told me; and no one knowing the ways of the world can deny the wretched, servile egotism that is almost always at the bottom of the homage paid to those in high places.

More deeply than in the hearts of others was this resentment implanted in the heart of Franz Ferdinand, and he never forgave the world what he suffered and went through in those distressful months.

It was chiefly the ostensible vacillation of the then Minister for Foreign Affairs, Count Goluchowski, that had so deeply hurt the Archduke, who had always imagined that Goluchowski was deeply attached to him.

According to Franz Ferdinand's account, Goluchowski is supposed to have said to the Emperor Francis Joseph that the Archduke Otto ought now to be given the retinue and household suitable for the heir to the throne as he--Franz Ferdinand--"was in any case lost." It was not so much the fact as the manner in which Goluchowski tried "to bury him while still living" that vexed and hurt him whom a long illness had made irritable.