Empress Elisabeth of Austria is a
quite tragic figure. Her husband, who had a slew of royal titles and lands, was
the last major ruler of the Habsburgs and she was immortalized as one of the
most beautiful women of the nineteenth-century, perhaps of all time. Her name
is a byword for glamour and her life has been the subject of various films,
plays, and novels. She inspired fashion, looks, and etiquette in her own time
like no other. Yet, although she was envied by thousands of women for her
status and loveliness, this powerful consort was one of the most depressed
royals to ever live. But it was her terrible and untimely death that truly
immortalized her as a historic and romantic icon.
Elisabeth Amalie Eugenie, Duchess in Bavaria,
was the fourth child of Maximilian Joseph, Duke in Bavaria, and Princess
Ludovika of Bavaria, the daughter of King Maximilian Joseph I of Bavaria, as
well as the half-sister of King Ludwig I of Bavaria. Elisabeth, who was
affectionately named “Sisi”, was born on December 24, 1837 in Munich. Because
of her father’s personality and her parents’ shaky marriage, Elisabeth and her
siblings had a relaxed and carefree childhood that was unrestricted by
governesses, tutors, or any sort of rules and regulations. Elisabeth’s father
never wanted to be a duke and often skipped out on his noble duties by visiting
the circus, setting up his own drinking club, writing poetry, riding, and
socializing with artists and gypsies. He was also very unfaithful to his wife
and had numerous illegitimate children with different women. His marriage to
Ludovika was a constant cycle of him cheating on her or displeasing her in some
way and her becoming angry and moving to a different part of the family palace
until he charmed his way back into her good graces.
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| Elisabeth, Empress of Austria (Amanda Bergstedt, 1855) |
Elisabeth shared her father’s wistful
personality and was very close to him. She often skipped out on her lessons to
ride horses with him. He even told her that had they not been “princely born”,
they “could have performed in a circus”. But Elisabeth’s ambitious mother had
greater plans for her daughter than to let her become a performer – she wanted
all of her children to make advantageous marriages into regal families, as her
own sisters had done. So, she arranged for Elisabeth’s older sister, Helene, to
marry her first cousin, Franz Joseph, Emperor of Austria. Franz Joseph’s
controlling and possessive mother, Princess Sophie of Bavaria, wanted her son
to marry a relative instead of a complete stranger, so she made arrangements
with her sister, Ludovika, for the cousins to meet and agree to the betrothal.
In 1853, the fifteen year old Elisabeth traveled with her mother and sister to
the resort of Bad Ischl in Upper Austria to see Franz Joseph and his mother,
and, more importantly, to hear the young Emperor formally propose to Helene.
But when the cousins met, Franz was not attracted to the quiet and pious Helene
at all. Instead, he was charmed by the great beauty of his younger cousin,
Sisi. Though Sisi was shy and awkward in her royal cousin’s presence, Franz was
instantly captivated by her almond-shaped brown eyes, fair complexion, perfect
facial features, and her flowing locks of auburn hair, which fell to her knees
when not tied up. Franz focused all his attentions on Sisi and completely
ignored Helene, who he didn’t feel comfortable with at all. At a ball the
cousins attended, Franz gave Elisabeth not just a single bouquet of flowers but
all the other flowers that were supposed to go to the other ladies at the ball.
Franz disobeyed his mother (a shocking feat, considering the fact that he once
described her as “the only man in the Hofburg” for her dictatorial character)
and announced that if he couldn’t have Elisabeth, then he would never marry
anyone. The Archduchess gave in and permitted the marriage. Five days after
their first meeting, the betrothal of Sisi and the Emperor of Austria was
announced. When Sisi was told of the arrangement, she was not as happy as one
might have expected. Though she was fond of her cousin, she was not at all
prepared to be a royal consort of a great empire and didn’t feel that she was
well suited for her new role. But she had no choice – if Franz wanted her, then
she would have to marry him.
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| Franz Joseph I, Emperor of Austria |
Before the wedding, Sisi undertook a quick
period of training in history and other subjects to prepare her for her future
position. Eight months after meeting Franz, she traveled to Vienna where she married
him on April 24, 1854 in St. Augustine’s Church. At the time of her marriage,
the new Empress of Austria, Queen of Hungary and Croatia, Queen of Bohemia, and
Queen of Lombardy-Venetia was just sixteen years old while her spouse and first
cousin was twenty-three. But, even with all her new, impressive titles and
lavish lifestyle as an empress and queen, Elisabeth was unhappy from the start.
Poor Sisi was naturally shy and introverted, so now that she was being thrust
into the spotlight as the consort of one of the most powerful men in Europe,
she was never comfortable being constantly scrutinized. She also had a very
hard time getting used to the strict protocols and rigid mannerisms of the Habsburg
court, which was known for its restrictive decorum. Sisi, who had grown up
under a carefree and informal upbringing, was now tossed into a stifling,
inflexible royal court where structure and rules meant everything. Not to
mention that she had to undergo this transition with little preparation or
training. To put it simply, she was not born to be an empress.
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| Elisabeth on the day of her coronation as Queen of Hungary (1867) |
In
her adopted home, Elisabeth had basically nothing to remind her of home. She
was completely surrounded by strangers, as she had been forbidden to bring
anyone from Bavaria with her to the Austrian kingdom. Her new mother-in-law,
also her maternal aunt, was no easy woman to deal with either, to put it
lightly. She has often been described as a “mother-in-law from hell”. She was
not happy with her son’s choice in his wife and was always on hand to disparage
her nervous daughter-in-law in everything from her appearance to her hobbies.
The stress of this nightmarish scenario gave Elisabeth health problems early on
in her marriage. She began to suffer from coughing fits and became extremely
anxious whenever she had to go down a tight, steep staircase. Just ten months after the wedding, the
young Empress gave birth to her first child – a daughter named Archduchess
Sophie of Austria. Of course, the elder Archduchess Sophie berated Sisi for not
having a son and didn’t even let her name her own daughter; she named the
infant girl after herself. She also made sure that Sisi had almost nothing to
do with the upbringing of her own children. She outright refused to allow
Elisabeth to care for her daughter in any way or even breastfeed her. A year
later, Sisi gave birth to another daughter, Archduchess Gisela, who was taken
away from her by the elder Sophie as well.
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| Empress Elisabeth of Austria (Franz Xaver Winterhalter, 1865) |
Although Sisi, who was still just a
teenager at this time, had given birth to two healthy girls, she was looked
down upon by her own courtiers because she had not yet given birth to a son and
an heir. Sisi’s own mother-in-law most likely put a hateful pamphlet on her
desk that reminded Sisi rather cruelly of her royal duty to have a son.
Elisabeth, who was overwhelmed by everyone – her people, her courtiers, and
even her own family – tried to take control of the only thing she still could command
– herself. To control her weight, especially after having children, she barely
ate and heavily restricted what she did put in her stomach. Although she was a
tall woman at 5’8”, she was determined to keep a slim figure and weighed
herself three times a day to make sure her weight was at a constant 105 pounds.
She exercised everyday by having a gymnasium put in her rooms and when she
wasn’t in her gym, she was fencing, walking, or riding for up to eight hours a
day. But the physical feature she was most proud of was her famously long and
gorgeous hair. She treated her hair as if it was her own child; her locks were
placed under a silk cloth when it was brushed daily and was then washed with a
mixture of brandy and egg whites. After, the brushing was complete Sisi would
count exactly how many of her hairs had fallen out. If she found too many, she
had a breakdown. She also accentuated her acute slimness by “tight-lacing” with
dangerously narrow corsets and at one time her waist was a sickly sixteen
inches in circumference. But Elisabeth would always remain in a state of
depression for the rest of her life and when she was in a rather dark state,
she would refuse to eat for days. In her later years, she became even more
obsessed with her appearance and wasted away to near emaciation (her lowest
weight was 95.7 pounds). Unsurprisingly, she developed anorexia and displayed
signs of binge eating.
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| Elisabeth and her husband, Emperor Franz Joseph I |
Unfortunately, on a trip to Hungary in the
spring of 1857, little Sophie and Gisela both acquired diarrhea and seriously
high fevers. While Gisela, who was ten months old, recovered quickly, the two year old Sophie could not and she died in her mother’s arms late in the evening on May 29, 1857. Her death was either from dehydration due to
the diarrhea or from convulsions because of the high fever. Elisabeth suffered
a mental breakdown after her young daughter’s death and was plagued by the
grief of the loss for the rest of her life. The elder Sophie even blamed Sisi
for her granddaughter’s death, as Sisi had been the one who wanted to visit
Hungary with her family. Then, on August 21, 1858, Elisabeth finally gave birth
to the long-awaited male heir Rudolf, Crown Prince of Austria. Even though she
delivered the son she had been expected to produce for years, her relationship
with her husband had fallen apart by this time. Once she found out that her
husband had been and continued to be constantly unfaithful to her with various
mistresses (it is proposed that he even gave her a venereal disease that he
himself got from one of his lovers), she had another nervous breakdown. After
the couple’s falling-out, Elisabeth lived mostly away from her husband in her
residences in Hungary. She had loved Hungary even before her marriage and now
that she was its queen, her passion for the country and its people (who adored
her) only increased. She even surrounded herself with Hungarian aristocrats at
court. After the birth of her son, she became a more decisive woman and forced
her way into her children’s lives, despite her venomous mother-in-law’s
protests. She began participating more in her duties as an empress and also
began to act more like a regal monarch.
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| Empress Elisabeth of Austria (Franz Xaver Winterhalter, 1864) |
Sisi’s love for Hungary was apparent in
her tireless efforts to help improve the country. She started a riding school
there and visited hospitals and mental asylums as well. While she was in
Hungary, she was comfortable and happy. But back in Austria, she experienced
fits of paranoia and hated to be looked at by the people, who had an unfavorable
view of her (which she was well aware of). She also continued to be estranged
from her husband since the birth of their son, a separation that lasted about a
decade. However, Franz wanted to secure the succession by having another son in
case anything happened to young Rudolf. At first, Sisi was adamant in her
refusals to become pregnant for a fourth time. Her defiance towards her husband
and mother-in-law had risen to new heights after Rudolf’s birth. Sisi wouldn’t
allow her very sensitive son to get a military education, which his father
wanted, as she knew he wasn’t at all suited for that type of training. Rudolf
was a lot like his mother and the two shared the same personality as well as an
inability to fit in at court. Sisi didn’t want to have another child that she would
be taken away from her by her horrible mother-in-law. But, Sisi’s main reason
for not wanting to have another child was because of her vanity; she wanted to
preserve her beautiful, youthful appearance.
Eventually, Sisi gave in and decided to
give her husband what he wanted, for she knew that if she did have another
child, she could use this as leverage to raise Hungary’s status to match that
of Austria’s (a desire she had always pushed for). When she did become pregnant
in 1867, she got her wish with the Austro-Hungarian Compromise of 1867, which
created the double monarchy of Austria-Hungary. In June of the same year, Franz
and Elisabeth were officially crowned as the King and Queen of Hungary (they
had always been its rulers but now that it was a separate kingdom under their
control and was no longer considered to be a part of Austria, the couple had to
be specifically crowned). To thank the royal couple, Hungary gave them a
country residence in Gödöllő as a coronation gift. Elisabeth lived here for
most of her pregnancy, which irritated the Austrians, and on April 22, 1868, Elisabeth
gave birth to her last child – a girl named Archduchess Marie Valerie. Unfortunately
for Franz, Marie was not the second son he longed for but Elisabeth loved her
daughter dearly, who was called the “Hungarian child” because of her
birthplace. Elisabeth was firm in her desire to care for and raise her last
child herself since her mother-in-law’s influence at court had faded by this
time (thankfully for Sisi, the Archduchess Sophie died in 1872). Because Sisi
had been unable to take part in any of her children’s childhoods, she
transferred all her suppressed maternal emotions on little Marie to the point
of essentially oppressing her. Now, Sisi was done having children for good,
having produced three daughters and one son over a period of thirteen years
(although little Sophie had died young).
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| The Family of Emperor Franz Joseph I and Empress Elisabeth of Austria (1888) |
Elisabeth and Franz Joseph’s
children:
- Archduchess Sophie of Austria (1855-1857) died at the age of 2 after falling ill with diarrhea and a high fever
- Archduchess Gisela of Austria (1856-1932) married: Prince Leopold of Bavaria – had issue
- Rudolf, Crown Prince of Austria (1858-1889) married: Princess Stéphanie of Belgium – had issue
- Archduchess Marie Valerie of Austria (1868-1924) married: Archduke Franz Salvator of Austria-Tuscany – had issue
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| Empress Elisabeth of Austria |
After Marie’s birth, Sisi and Franz
remained married but separated for the rest of their lives. They only came
together for royal functions or trips. Sisi even encouraged her husband’s close
relationship with his confidante, the actress Katharina Schratt. Schratt’s
influence over the Emperor became so immense that she was dubbed “the uncrowned
Empress of Austria” by the people. While Elisabeth herself had a countless
number of admirers, she was always faithful to her husband. Given her position
and the fact that she was constantly studied by her husband’s subjects; she
couldn’t afford to have any privacy, which meant it would have been unfeasible
for her to have a lover. She did have a close male friend in George “Bay”
Middleton, a handsome Scottish soldier who also happened to be one of her many
admirers. She spent so much time with Middleton (although they only ever rode
and hunted together) that her people were astounded over their regal Empress’s
friendship with a lowly commoner. Her son, Rudolf, was especially unhappy about
the fact that his mother would mingle with the lower class. His disgust was so
profound that a permanent falling-out occurred between Sisi and her son.
As Elisabeth grew older, her obsession
with maintaining her beauty reached new heights. She started living on a diet
of just meat juice, fresh milk, and egg whites mixed with salt. She slept with
hot towels wrapped around her waist and a silk mask of raw veal on her face. To
keep her fair complexion, she would coat her cheeks with purified honey and a
protective ointment of strawberries compressed in Vaseline. Her beauty and
exercise regimes became so popular that a cult of beauty was developed around
her and newspaper articles were written dedicated to detailing her fashion,
diet, and exercise routines. When she had to give up hunting in her later years
due to the effects of sciatica, she walked for hours instead, no matter the
weather. After she turned thirty-two, she refused to have any more portraits made
or photographs taken of her since she wanted to preserve her beautiful,
youthful image. Of course, her wishes were not respected entirely and a few
photographs were taken of her without her knowledge after her request.
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| Elisabeth's son, Rudolf, Crown Prince of Austria, with his fiancée, Princess Stéphanie of Belgium (1881) |
In 1889, Elisabeth lost another child, her
son Rudolf, when he was found dead with his young lover, Baroness Mary Vetsera,
at his hunting lodge in Mayerling. The incident was most likely a
murder-suicide that both parties agreed to. Elisabeth, who had also lost her
father a year before, sank into a deep depression that she never fully
recovered from. Her grief only worsened when her sister, Helene, died a year
later with Sisi at her side, and her mother’s passing in 1892. After Rudolf’s
death, it was said she wore black for the rest of her life, although a few
dresses of color were found in her possession at this time. The only way Sisi
could escape from her melancholy and the prying eyes of the Austrian people was
through travel. She visited places in Africa and the Middle East, which were
not typically vacation destinations for European royals at the time. She also
became closer to her estranged husband in her later years, although she spent
essentially no time in Vienna with him. They did, however, talk more often and
their once cool and distant relationship became a warm, comfortable friendship.
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| Elisabeth's daughter, Archduchess Gisela of Austria (1870's) |
Elisabeth met her tragic and unexpected
end on September 10, 1898 when she was stabbed in the heart by an Italian
anarchist named Luigi Lucheni. She was visiting Geneva at the time and was
taking a walk with her lady-in-waiting when her assassin caught sight of her
and took her life. He had never planned to target the sixty year-old Empress;
he had initially planned to kill Prince Philippe, Duke of Orléans, the pretender to the French throne, but the
Prince had just left Geneva. Lucheni read that the Empress was in the city in a
newspaper and decided to kill her insteaad. He later said of the murder: “I am an
anarchist by conviction...I came to Geneva to kill a sovereign, with object of
giving an example to those who suffer and those who do nothing to improve their
social position; it did not matter to me who the sovereign was whom I should
kill...It was not a woman I struck, but an Empress; it was a crown that I had
in view”.
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| Elisabeth's youngest daughter, Archduchess Marie Valerie of Austria |
Sisi’s eldest surviving daughter, Gisela,
married her second cousin, Prince Leopold of Bavaria (who was ten years her
senior), in 1873. They had a happy marriage and had four children, two
daughters and two sons. Sisi’s late son, Rudolf, had one daughter with his wife
before his death – Archduchess Elisabeth Marie. In 1900, she married a man ten
years her senior and far below her rank named Prince Otto Weriand of
Windisch-Graetz. They had three sons and a daughter, although their marriage
was a troubled one. She divorced Otto in early 1948 and just a few months later
remarried a man named Leopold Petznek. Both she and her second husband were
socialists and members of the Austrian Social Democratic Party. Sisi’s youngest
daughter, Marie Valerie, married her cousin, Archduke Franz Salvator of
Austria-Tuscany, in 1890 and had ten children, six daughters and four sons,
with just one daughter dying in infancy.
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