ne in superhuman dimensions. His passion for buying
and collecting antiquities was proverbial and fabulous. A first-rate
shot, sport was for him a question of murdering _en masse_, and the
number of game shot by him reached hundreds of thousands. A few years
before his death he shot his 5,000th stag.

His ability as a good shot was phenomenal. When in India, during his
voyage round the world, and while staying with a certain Maharajah, an
Indian marksman gave an exhibition of his skill. Coins were thrown
into the air which the man hit with bullets. The Archduke tried the
same and beat the Indian. Once when I was staying with him at
Eckartsau he made a _coup double_ at a stag and a hare as they ran; he
had knocked over a fleeing stag, and when, startled by the shot, a
hare jumped up, he killed it with the second bullet. He scorned all
modern appliances for shooting, such as telescopic sights or automatic
rifles; he invariably used a short double-barrelled rifle, and his
exceptionally keen sight rendered glasses unnecessary.

The artistic work of laying out parks and gardens became in latter
years his dominating passion. He knew every tree and every bush at
Konopischt, and loved his flowers above everything. He was his own
gardener. Every bed and every group was designed according to his
exact orders. He knew the conditions essential to the life of each
individual plant, the quality of the soil required; and even the
smallest spot to be laid out or altered was done according to his
minute instructions. But here, too, everything was carried out on the
same gigantic lines, and the sums spent on that park must have been
enormous. Few people had the varied artistic knowledge possessed by
the Archduke; no dealer could palm off on him any modern article as an
antique, and he had just as good taste as understanding. On the other
hand, music to him was simply a disagreeable noise, and he had an
unspeakable contempt for poets. He could not bear Wagner, and Goethe
left him quite cold. His lack of any talent for languages was
peculiar. He spoke French tolerably, but otherwise no other language,
though he had a smattering of Italian and Czech. For years--indeed, to
the end of his life--he struggled with the greatest energy to learn
Hungarian. He had a priest living permanently in the house to give him
Hungarian lessons. This priest accompanied him on his travels, and at
St. Moritz, for instance, Franz Ferdinand had a Hungarian lesso