'Please forgive me, I could not resist love': Heartbreaking letter hidden in Austrian bank vault for 90 years is discovered and reveals passion of one of history's greatest affairs

'Please forgive me, I could not resist love': Heartbreaking letter hidden in Austrian bank vault for 90 years is discovered and reveals passion of one of history's greatest affairs

Baroness Mary Vetsera died with her lover Crown Prince Rudolf of Austria

A collection of her farewell letters were discovered in a bank vault in Vienna

Mystery of their deaths in 1889, believed to be murder-suicide, hit headlines

Mary died just two months before 18th birthday, at the prince's hunting lodge

By IMOGEN CALDERWOOD FOR MAILONLINE

PUBLISHED: 14:18 GMT, 1 August 2015 | UPDATED: 15:12 GMT, 1 August 2015/ http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3182262/Please-forgive-not-resist-love-Sensational-letter-hidden-bank-vault-90-years-reveals-passion-one-history-s-great-affairs.html

A collection of letters stashed for 90 years inside a bank vault in Vienna could finally solve the mystery of one of the world’s greatest love stories.

Baroness Mary Vetsera, who wrote the letters, famously committed suicide with her lover Crown Prince Rudolf of Austria in 1889.

But the mysterious circumstances of their deaths hit international headlines and sent ripples of curiosity across the world.

Hailed as one of the world’s greatest romances, the affair has inspired numerous films, novels, ballets and plays.

Her farewell letters, addressed to her mother, brother and sister, were discovered in the Vienna bank vault 126 years after her death, by bank employees having a vault clear out.

‘Please forgive me for what I’ve done, I could not resist love’, the Baroness wrote to her mother, Helen Vetsera.

‘In accordance with Him, I want to be buried next to Him in the Cemetery of Alland. I am happier in death than life.’

The Austrian National Library said in a statement: ‘An unknown person deposited a leather-bound folder containing numerous personal documents, letters and photographs of the Vetsera family, including the farewell letters of Mary Vetsera from 1889.’

The bodies of the Baroness and the Crown Prince, then aged 30, were discovered in January 1889 at his hunting lodge in the Viennese woods near the town of Mayerling.

But the exact circumstances of their suicide pact, known generally as the ‘Mayerling incident’, still remain unclear.