Nellie Ryan was the English governess hired in to the household of the Archduke Karl Stefan of the ruling House of Habsburg during the years preceding the First World War. The Archduke was Grand Admiral of the Austro-Hungarian navy, cousin of Emperor Franz Josef I of Austria and candidate for the Polish crown. From this privileged position Ryan provides and interesting sidelight on the workings of the Royal family in its time spent at work, at leisure, in diplomacy and at home.
"IT has been written that the Emperor of Austria is most unlucky in his family circle, because the shadow of madness dogs the footsteps of the Hapsburgs, and there is hardly any branch of the family which does not possess some insane, epileptic or vicious member.
As I spent some delightful years at the Court of Vienna, and personally knew many of these so-called degenerate Hapsburgs, it is my intention to write of those whom I always found extremely clever and interesting, and by no means mad. If at this great European crisis we compare the two Kaisers, around whom the nations of the world are fighting, we find two men of totally different characters: William II, the German Emperor, who forced this terrible war—a madman if ever a ruler lived—and Franz Josef, the Emperor of Austria, peace-loving, sad and weary, on whom this war was forced."