Her jewels, given her by her royal lover, are gone. Her clothes are in tatters, and she is a living reminder of the curse of the Hapsburgs. When the emperor died in 1910, he left $250,000 to Katherine Schratt to care for her in her declining years. But the ravages of war, and her many gifts to those less fortunate, soon depleted this small fortune, until at last she was reduced to poverty. Once the beauty of the Austrian stage, petted and feted wherever she appeared, she now lives in a barren garret, dependent upon charity for her livelihood. 55 years, from the bloom of youth until middle age bent her shudders, Katherine Schratt virtually ruled Austria through her hold on Fratric Joseph. For her he built a little villa rigid by the gates of the royal palace, and there he spent much of his time, especially after the events which tended to uphold the Hapsburg curse. The first manifestation of this curse came with the death of mad King Ludwig of Bavaria, Francis Joseph's cousin, and of his brother, Maximilian, shot in Mexico. Then there was the case of Johann Orth, his nephew, who ran away to sea as a common sailor and was never heard from again. The death of the young daughter of Archduke Albrecht, whose dress caught fire from a cigarette she was smoking, and that of the Duchess d'Aleneon in the charity ball fire in Paris, quickly followed. In 1889, Francis Joseph's son, Rudolph, committed suicide in Meyerfling, and nine years later his son, Rudolph, was killed.  wife, Elizabeth, was assassinated at Geneva.
Then, to crown his sorrows, came the tragic assassination of the heir to the throne. Archduke Ferdinand, at Sarajevo, the incident that started the World war. Through all his troubles. 