Note 23 — Chapter XIV · Reunited with His Family in England
Reading edition
The last letter that Maury received from the unfortunate Empress enclosed photographs of herself and Maximilian. After becoming insane, she was taken to the Château de Bouchout in Brabant, Belgium, where she continued to write pathetic love letters to her “dearest Maximilian”, whom she did not realize to have been dead. Death came to her at the age of eighty-six, on January 19, 1927. During the World War, a heavy guard was placed around her villa by order of the Kaiser and this placard set up: “This villa is the property of Her Majesty the Empress of Mexico, sister of His Majesty Francis Joseph, Kaiser of Austria. Disturbances in the neighborhood will be punished with the utmost severity”.