The Kapuzinerkirche (Church of the Capuchins) in Vienna's Neue Markt is one of the more curious attractions of the city, housing as it does the Kaisergruft crypt in which the Habsburgs are entombed, or rather in which their bodies are entombed: the hearts are usually kept in the Loreto Chapel of the Augustinerkirche (Church of the Augustinians), and the entrails beneath the Stephansdom (St Stephen's Cathedral). A total of 148 sundry Habsburgs lie there, from Empress Anna (1585-1618) to Archduke Otto (1912-2011), the son of the last Emperor of Austria-Hungary, Karl, whose reign was terminated by the overthrow of the empire in 1918.

Like those of Karl's Empress, Zita of Bourbon-Parma, and Archduke Otto, the most recent of the Habsburg tombs are in the so-called Crypt Chapel. That, in turn, lies off a chapel constructed in 1908-09, now known as the Franz Joseph Chapel, containing the tombs of Karl's predecessor and greatgrandfather, Emperor Franz Joseph (1830-1916), his greatgrandmother, Empress Elizabeth (1837-98), and the heir who should have succeeded to the imperial throne, Crown Prince Rudolf (1858-89). As is well known, Rudolf died -almost certainly by his own hand -at Mayerling in the company of his young mistress, Baroness Mary Vetsera: she was buried discreetly in the cemetery of the Holy Cross (Heiligenkreuz).

It was one of a long series of family tragedies, for Elizabeth (‘Sisi') was then assassinated by an Italian anarchist while she was visiting Geneva in 1898. One of Franz Joseph's brothers, Archduke Karl Ludwig, had already died after drinking contaminated water on a pilgrimage to Palestine in 1896. Another, Maximilian, had been executed by the Mexicans in 1867 after the failed French attempt to establish him as Emperor there...