Comments on: Illegal alien? https://lisawayman.com/2015/08/illegal-alien/ Lisa M. Wayman Sun, 30 Aug 2015 03:03:18 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.6.1 By: Jim Koetting https://lisawayman.com/2015/08/illegal-alien/#comment-23 Sun, 30 Aug 2015 03:03:18 +0000 http://lisawayman.com/?p=78#comment-23 Lisa, Grandma Begus would sometimes talk about Franz Josef, the last great Hapsburg emperor. I remember how she would get a far-away look in her eyes especially when mentioning “Rudy,” meaning the monarch’s ill-fated son and crown prince Rudolf, who made a suicide pact with his lover and executed it when his father tried to force him to stop seeing her. Rudolf’s brother Maximillian, who was executed by a firing squad in Mexico, may have been the son of Napoleon II (Bonaparte’s son), Sophie, his mother, was rumored to have had an affair with Napoleon II while the latter was in Vienna; his mother was Austrian (another Marie! Marie Louise; that name must have been really popular around that time). She was a very strong and smart woman who more or less ruled for Franz Josef during his early years on the throne.

There are tons of interesting stories about the Hapsburgs. I’m sure Gram absorbed all of them and brought them to America in her heart.

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