equal birth and to children of archdukes or
marriages of equal birth." Franz Ferdinand, further, recognised
that his children from this marriage would have no right to
succeed to the throne in the kingdoms and lands of Austria nor,
consequently, to the lands of the Hungarian Crown and that they
were excluded from the order of succession.

He further agreed and promised not only for himself but for his
wife and children, that none of them would ever attempt to revoke
this declaration.

The old Emperor gave the wife of Franz Ferdinand the title of
Princess Hohenberg and later raised her to the rank of duchess
which, in the Central Empires, is a higher rank than that of
princess. She was also created a Serene Highness after the birth
of her third child, Prince Ernest, in 1904. The first child,
Princess Sophie, was born in 1901, and the second, Prince
Maximilian Charles, in 1902.

In spite of the rank thus granted to her, the Duchess of
Hohenberg was frequently slighted by Archdukes and Archduchesses
of the House of Hapsburg, and when the present Emperor, the
Archduke Charles Francis Joseph, married Princess Zita of
Bourbon-Parma, in 1911, and this marriage was followed by the
birth of a son, on November 20, 1912, it was plain to Franz
Ferdinand and his wife that the hostility of the old Emperor and
the other members of the House of Hapsburg, aided by events, had
succeeded in definitely excluding his children by Countess Sophie
from the throne.

These slights to his wife, so marked as to cause the publication
of articles inspired by himself in a newspaper devoted to his
interests, and the birth of the heir to Carl, must have had a
profound influence on melancholy Franz Ferdinand.

In all Europe there was one monarch clever enough to take
advantage of the situation, to win Franz Ferdinand to him by the
honours he paid to the Duchess of Hohenberg,--the German Emperor.
Kaiser Wilhelm invited the pair to Potsdam and there both were
made to feel that in one court, at least, the honours due to a
wife of equal birth were paid to the ex-Countess Sophie. This
Potsdam visit was in 1909, and I believe that, thereafter, the
German Emperor and Franz Ferdinand met on other occasions.

In the chapter on Emperor Wilhelm, I have stated the belief
prevalent, even in Germany, that he intended as his first step
towards his openly expressed ambition for world dominion, to make
himself, on the death of Francis Joseph, Emperor of a Grea