Modern Screen (Dec 1931 - Nov 1932 (assorted issues))

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(Right) The frontispiece and title page of the book on which the claim of Elissa's royal blood is based. (Below) The castle of Sassetot where Elissa's mother claims she was born in secret to the Empress of Austria. The Secret of an Empress Countess Zanardi Landi Wnh Fourteen Photogravure Illustrations Cassell and' Company, Limited London, New York, Toronto and Melbourne 1914 i-u-.tni M\K1K CHRIi By PRINCESS RADZIWILL IN the autumn of 1914, just after the first British and French reverses in Flanders during the World War, there appeared in London a book signed by Countess Zanardi Landi, in which that lady claimed to be a daughter of the Emperor Francis Joseph of Austria, and the Empress Elizabeth. She also claimed she had been brought up in ignorance of her real parentage owing to the desire of the Empress to have one of her children entirely to herself, and not educated according to the etiquette ruling the House of Hapsburg. This book was one of the many propaganda volumes published at that time, with the intention of discrediting the rulers of the Central Powers at war with the allies, and I have every reason to know this to be the fact, with proofs to strengthen these reasons. Based on the statements set forth in this book the story has been circulated which purports to prove that Ehssa 62 This story is offered to the readers of MODERN SCREEN with the purpose of presenting another side of the rumored and recently published story that the Countess Zanardi Landi, mother of Elissa Landi, is the daughter of the erstwhile Empress Elizabeth and the Emperor Francis Joseph of Austria. Whether Elissa Landi is a member of a royal family or not does not detract one whit from her great talents as an actress or her charm as a person. Princess Radziwill, whose knowledge of the European royal families has been shown in a number of brilliant historical works, considered the book a misrepresentation when she heard it was going to be published, back in 1914. She has written exclusively for MODERN SCREEN her version of the facts. In the interests of truth, her story is published on these pages. — The Editor. REFUTATION Landi is the granddaughter of an Empress. The first thing which must be told to disprove it is that at the time the Countess Zanardi Landi was born, the Empress of Austria, who the story says is her mother, had reached the age of forty-seven. That her last child, the Archduchess Valerie, had been born fifteen years earlier. And that since that birth the Empress had been extremely desirous of having another child — particularly a male child — but that she had never had any hopes of motherhood. It was very well known both in the familv