She was raised as a foundling by the Viennese merchant Hannes Stritzinger.
She was, as they said in Viennese, a “Rabenbratl”, she had never met her parents.
However, her temperament betrayed her Eastern European origins.
She was already seducing young men at the age of 14.
One day she fled from his house and never came back. Her name was Klara Zischka and as a sutler she made the soldiers in Emperor Franz I’s army camp in Schwarzlackenau near Jedlersee happy. Napoleon Bonaparte had taken Vienna and most of the neighboring villages were occupied by his troops. The French commander defeated the Austrians at Austerlitz and demanded a war indemnity of 40 million francs. Emperor Franz sent a contingent of troops to Hungary to fetch hidden gold reserves to Vienna as a down payment of the sum demanded.
A week late, the imperial money transport arrives in Purkersdorf , which is occupied by the French.
Napoleon was also staying there at the time. Klara Zischka accompanied the wagon train. The commander wanted to pay the advance payment for the war indemnity personally.
When he had the top opened, he was amazed.
The sutler, dressed only in a woolen coat, was sitting on a crate and smiling.
He looked at the racy woman , he liked her.
He took her by the hand and led her to another covered wagon.
They both climbed in and the tarpaulin fell.
Two guards secured the vehicle.
When the native Corsican returned to Vienna, the courtesan came to him again. This woman had the best time of her life with Napoleon.
He rented her an apartment on Kohlmarktand dressed her.
When France and Austria made peace, Napoleon Bonaparte left Vienna.
The emperor ‘s secret police were looking for her.
She was to be tried as a traitor . The police find Klara Z ischka hanging dead from a window cross in her apartment.
Before the marriage of Marie Louise von Habsburg, the daughter of Emperor Franz I to Napoleon Bonaparte, she insists that all stories about the sutler Klara Zischka be suppressed by the authorities.
(Sources: Czeike, Felix: Der Graben, (Wiener Geschichtsbücher, Band 10), 137 pages, Vienna, Zsolnay 1972, ISBN: 978-3552024014; Welfenburg, Hubert: Die frivolsten Geschichten aus dem alten Wien, 305 pages, Vienna, Elektra, 1980, ISBN: 978-3272070162; Czeike, Felix: Unbekanntes Wien 1870-1920, 22 pages, 44 sheets of illustrations, Lucerne, 1998, ISBN: 978-3765812170) Time Travel Tip: In der Schwarzlackenau, Wiesengebiet und Straße in Floridsdorf.
Battlefield against the French forces.
Editor: Michael Ellenbogen
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