Countess Marie Larisch Von Moennich - Biography

Biography

The Countess was born Marie Louise Elizabeth Mendel on 24 February 1858 in Augsburg, Bavaria, the illegitimate daughter of actress Henriette Mendel, Baroness von Wallersee (1833–1891). Her father, Ludwig Wilhelm, Duke in Bavaria (1831–1920) was the eldest son of Duke Maximilian Joseph in Bavaria and Princess Ludovika of Bavaria and had the title of Duke in Bavaria (German: Herzog in Bayern). He was properly addressed as "His Royal Highness," as a member of the cadet branch of the House of Wittelsbach in Bavaria. Ludwig Wilhelm was the first cousin of King Maximilian II of Bavaria and also of Emperor Franz Joseph I of Austria whose mother, Princess Sophie of Bavaria, was a daughter of Maximilian I. One of Ludwig Wilhelm's younger sisters, Elisabeth, married Emperor Franz Joseph and another, Maria Sophie, married Francis II of the Two Sicilies just before he became king. Yet her father renounced, on 9 March 1859, his rights as firstborn son, and Henriette (or Henrietta) Mendel was created Baroness of Wallersee (Freifrau von Wallersee) on 19 May 1859 in preparation for their morganatic marriage on 28 May 1859 in Augsburg. From 28 May 1859, Marie was thus a Baroness of Wallersee (Freiin von Wallersee).

Marie became the confidante of her aunt, the Empress Elisabeth of Austria, being selected at least partly because of her skills on horseback. On 20 October 1877 at Jagdschloß Gödöllő in Hungary she married Count Georg Larisch of Moennich, Baron of Ellgoth and Karwin (1855–1928). The marriage had been arranged by the Empress. They divorced on 3 December 1896. Marie had five children during this marriage, though only the first two were indisputably fathered by her husband: their first-born was oceanographer Franz-Joseph Ludwig Georg Maria, Count Larisch of Moennich, Baron of Ellgoth and Karwin (1878–1937), followed by Marie Valerie (1879–1915), Marie Henriette (1884–1907), Georg (1886–1909), and Friedrich Karl (1894–1929). As the countess always needed more money than Georg Larisch gave her, her cousin Crown Prince Rudolf paid bills for her - so she depended on his wishes. Their relationship was shattered by the revelation, after Crown Prince Rudolf's death - he shot Mary and committed suicide on 30 January 1889 - at Mayerling, that Marie had acted as go-between for him and his lover, Baroness Mary Vetsera. Her aunt, Empress Elisabeth, did not give her any chance for explanation and rehabilitation. Due to the scandal the nobility did not want to have any contact with her and she moved to Bavaria.

After divorcing Count Larisch in 1896 she married the musician Otto Brucks (1854–1914)in Munich on 15 May 1897. They had one child, Otto (1899–1977). Since 1898 Marie - her husband, a famous opera singer before, did not get engagements, because of his association with "that Countess Larisch" and he became dependent on alcohol - began to write about her time with the Empress and other Imperial and Royal relatives. The Imperial house paid her a great deal of "hush money" not to publish her memoirs. In 1906 her husband became director of the theatre of Metz. Marie Louise always wanted to publish her rehabilitation, but always was betrayed by journalists and editors. In 1913 she published her memoirs, My Past, not caring about her the contract with the Imperial house. She, of course, published her memoirs anyway — a series of ghost-written works which are factually undependable.

In World War I she worked at the front as a nurse. In 1921 she portrayed herself in a silent film about her aunt, the Empress Elisabeth (nobody cared that she was 62, while Carla Nelsen, portraying the empress, was 23!) In 1924 in New York an article was published, that she will marry anybody who will pay her and her son the transfer to America. On 2 September 1924 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, she married naturopath William H. Meyers (born 1859). They lived in Florida, he mistreated her and she flew to New Jersey in 1926, working as a housemaid. She returned to Germany in 1929.

Marie died very poor in 1940 in a nursing home at Augsburg and was buried in Munich.

Marie met and conversed with the poet T. S. Eliot, and part of their conversation found its way into his epochal poem The Waste Land.

And when we were children, staying at the archduke's,

My cousin's, he took me out on a sled,

And I was frightened. He said, Marie,

Marie, hold on tight. And down we went.

In the mountains, there you feel free.

I read, much of the night, and go south in the winter.