Imperial procession

Procession of Corpus Christi in Vienna, circa 1910. Emperor Franz Joseph is walking behind the canopy. The beginnings of the great Habsburg worship of the Blessed Sacrament can already be seen in the progenitor of the family – Rudolph who, according to a legend, gave his horse to a priest going with the Viaticum to a dying person because, as he said, he was not worthy to ride a horse when his Master was going on foot. Rudolf also refused to take his horse back after the Viaticum was administered because he did not feel worthy to ride the horse which his Savior rode.