Early Life
Known by the fashionable English form of her name, "Mary", she was the youngest child of Baron Albin von Vetsera, a diplomat in foreign service at the Austrian court, and his much younger wife, Eleni (known as Hélène) Baltazzi, who was a member of a wealthy Greek banking family prominent in the Ottoman Empire. Albin, who was made a Baron in 1870 by the Emperor Franz Joseph, was twenty-two years older than his young and socially ambitious wife. She had three older siblings: Johanna (known as Hannah), Ladislaus, and Franz Albin.
Both of Hélène's sisters had married counts, and the expectation was, that Vetsera and her sister would raise the family's social status by continuing the tradition of marrying into families of importance.
Instead of attending a school or the gymnasium, Vetsera attended an "Institute for Daughters of the Nobility". These exclusive boarding schools, for girls of noble birth between the ages of 12 and 17, were not geared to an academic education, which might give a young woman intellectual pretensions, but a moral one. With emphasis on social graces, French, music, drawing, dancing, and handicrafts, they prepared young women for their roles in society as aristocratic wives and mothers.
"Viennese society had, since the days of Austria's eclipse at Sadowa, sought to conceal the injured patriotic emotions born of that disaster by affecting a hysterical sort of gaiety which was somewhat foreign to the real character of the people...like all forced characteristics, the new-found frivility of the Viennese degenerated quickly into a positive mania for wickedness, without, at the same time, taking on any of the picturesque artistry which conceals - and often condones - the refined viciousness of Parisians...who, also, after 1870, went through for many years a phase of social madness similar to that which affected Austria...Viennese society was probably the most dissipated in Europe, and so became a happy mart for ladies of that type that serves the foibles of a prince."
"Smart Society", made up of parvenu elements, who were "poor in pedigree", but full in purse, now began to command more attention from the leaders in more aristocratic circles of the beau monde. The Vetsera family occupied this niche, and Hélène held lavish parties in attempts to socialize with the upper echelons of the Austrian court, all in order to introduce her daughter to the most elegible men. Famous for "her elegance and taste in dress", the attractive and vivacious young Baroness soon acquired the nickname "The Turf Angel" for her love of horserace meets at the Freudenau course. It was very apparent to the Imperial family, that Vetsera was being blatantly groomed by her mother for an advantageous marriage; Empress Elisabeth noted in 1877: "Madame Vetsera wants to come to Court and gain recognition for her family." Marie Larisch, an illegitimate cousin of the Empress' and one of Vetsera's closest friends, claimed she had confided: "Mamma has no love for me...Ever since I was a little girl she has treated me like something she means to dispose of to the best advantage."
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