She was a princess, the daughter of King Leopold II of the Belgians, the wife of a prince, and a familiar figure in the court of the aged Emperor, Franz Joseph of Austria-Hungary. Her lover was second lieutenant Geza Mattachich. Ten years younger than the princess, a dashing figure in his fitted tunic and shiny boots, he was an unknown, undistinguished, unmoneyed subaltern: a man of dubious origin and extravagant ambition. Ahead of them both lay assignations, adultery, flight, the squandering of a fortune (not his; not hers either, as things worked out), a duel, imprisonment, bankruptcy, morphine, madness (or alleged madness). And, as well, a real-life heroine - in the form of canteen-worker Maria Stoger - who was no less ready than the princess and her soldier to risk all for love.