Archduk :: Majorca :: From Florence to Mallorca

“The discovery of this fragility hidden beneath the skin of the Danubian mammoth marks the beginning of his falling out with the court. A letter from the Empress Elizabeth of Austria, known as Sisi, read: ‘There are people who I find as agreeable as the trees and the sea: fishermen, peasants and other simple folk. Amid the ruckus of the package-carriers and donkeys of Cairo, I feel less oppressed than I do at a palace ball.’ The Archduke felt the same way. Accompanied by an eccentric entourage that was mistaken wherever it went for a circus troupe, under sunlight similar to that of Tuscany, he would reconstruct his lost paradise among the vegetation of a garden that his family was unable to defend.”

Prologue of Llop, J.C., Pavana para un Archiduque difunto, in March Cencillo, J., El Archiduque, Biografía ilustrada de un príncipe nómada, La Foradada, 1991.