Emperor Franz Joseph I (1830-1916) and Empress Elisabeth (Sissi) (1837-1898)


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Julia

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Elisabeth
Empress of Austria & Queen of Hungary


In 1998 the world will remember one of history's most fascinating women. One hundred years ago, on September 10, 1898, Austria's Empress Elisabeth died from wounds inflicted during an assassination attempt. Exhibitions throughout Austria will commemorate the country's beloved Empress. They will document the intriguing life story of a woman who was an "empress against her will", who was at once fairy-tale princess and liberated woman, a dieting fanatic and expert equestrian, a poet and inveterate traveler.

The empress, affectionately known to millions as "Sisi", was as intelligent as she was extravagant, and was decades ahead of her time. Although the imperial surroundings of Schönbrunn Palace and the glittering Vienna Hofburg were her home, the consort of the Austrian emperor established a special relationship with all classes of her subjects. Little wonder then that following her tragic death Princess Diana was often likened in obituaries to Sisi: Both were women of extraordinary beauty and represented their countries with dignity and elegance. Both succeeded in winning a special place in people's hearts even amidst the ceremony and protocol of ancient dynasties. Both were dedicated to social causes. And both died tragically before their time.

Elisabeth was born on Christmas 1837 in Munich, Bavaria, as the daughter of Duke Maximilian and Maria Ludowika, daughter of the Bavarian king. She grew up in Possenhofen castle (foto right) far from the ceremony of court, and developed like her brothers and sisters into an unconventional, freedom loving, and extremely sensitive person. The romatic legend of how Sisi and Franz Joseph met has been immortalized in the wonderfully romatic and melodramatic Austrian "Sissi" Films starring Romy Schneider as young Sisi. The musical "Elisabeth", which has attracted tourists from all over the world to Vienna for more than five years, is much more realistic.
In the summer of 1853 at the scenic Salzkammergut town Bad Ischl she met Emperor Franz Joseph of Austria, who was actually supposed to marry her sister, Helene.

Imperial Villa in Bad Ischl, build as "E" for Elisabeth.

However, the Emperor defied his mother's marriage plans and fell in love with Helen's sister Elisabeth, then only 15 years old, who had accompanied the party rather accidentally. Already one day after their first encounter Francis Joseph and Elisabeth celebrated their engagement.
The engagement to Sisi was a sensation. Everyone wanted to know who she was. She quickly became a rising star. The Papparazzi of the day, the court painters and engravers were quickly producing pictures of this beautiful young duchess "Sisi". They married on 24th April 1854 in the Vienna Augustine Church. The festivites lasted for over a week.

In 1855, Sisi gave birth to a daughter, Sophie, and in the following year to another girl, Gisela. Finally, in 1858 the long-awaited crown prince, Rudolph, arrived.
With her charm and natural grace Elisabeth soon became a fairy-tale princess in the eyes of the public. In her private life, however, insoluble problems began to make their appearance. From the first day she arrived in Vienna the young empress felt constrained and unhappy by the strict life at court, personified by her mother-in-law, Sophie. During the early years of her marriage, Elisabeth took refuge in isolation and illness. Sisi could not adapt to the strict court etiquette, and soon immersed herself in rigourous exercise and horse riding. Later she spent a lot of time in Madeira and Corfu trying to escape. The official public explanation was "severe illness". Her children were forced from her and had to remain in the hands of her mother-in-law and the court. (right: Postcard "Departure of the Empress")

After the birth of the crown prince, however, with whose education she was not entrusted, she broke into open rebellion. In 1859, Elisabeth left her husband and small children to live in seclusion on Madeira, Corfu, and in Venice. The Empress had exchanged a carefree country life with the strict etiquette of the Imperial Court and could hardly adapt to it. Francis Joseph loved his wife dearly, but he ruled over an empire of 50 million people and had little time to be with "Sisi" who felt lonely. "I wish he were no emperor", she confided her former governess.

After a lengthy interval due to marital problems, a fourth child, Marie Valerie, was born to the imperial couple. Marie Valerie was dubbed the "Hungarian child" because she was brought up and educated in the Hungarian language. The youngest offspring was a symbolic gift from the Queen-Empress to the Hungarian people who she loved so much. The new baby arrived exactly ten months after the coronation of her husband as King of Hungary, which Elisabeth had been so energetic in promoting.

Although Sisi usually stayed out of politics, she made a great exception as far as Hungary was concerned. Elisabeth's interest in politics developed as she grew matured. She was liberal and forward-minded. The empress placed herself decisively on the Hungarian side in the nationality conflict thereby making an important contribution to the historic compromise of 1867. Hungary's gaining an equal footing with Austria also strengthened the liberal element in the monarchy as a whole. Elisabeth attained an unparalleled position of respect and affection in Hungary, one which has lasted until the present day. It was due to her influnce that the reconciliation with the rebellious peoples of Hungary was established. Elisabeth learned to speak Hungarian fluently and spent more time in Budapest then in Vienna, much to the anger and displeasure of her mother in law and her cohorts in the Viennese Court.

In the 1860's Elisabeth was considered the world's most beautiful monarch. In the 1870's she became the most famous, and probably also the world's best, female equestrian. She trained as hard as a professional sportswoman for years to achieve this goal. After the Hungarian compromise had been reached, Elisabeth had little choice but to withdraw from politics. Later when gout made riding impossible she tried to make a name for herself as a poet in the mold of Heinrich Heine, who she revered.

All of these efforts were meant to prove herself as an individual and not as an empress. They were at the same time an expression of Elisabeth's contempt for the monarchy, which she considered a "ruin". Sisi remained consciously individualistic and dedicated herself exclusively to her self-expression and physical beauty. Elisabeth was also a highly educated woman, who not only learned Hungarian and modern Greek perfectly, but who even in later years immersed herself in the world of the ancient Greeks. It was for this reason that she built a palace on the Greek island of Corfu and named it "Achilleion" (foto) after her favorite hero of the ancient world, Achilles.

Personal blows left heavy marks on the life of Austria's empress. She lost her daughter, Sophie, in 1857, and her favorite cousin, King Ludwig II of Bavaria, in a tragic fashion. Her brother-in-law, Emperor Maximilian of Mexico was shot by revolutionaries. She never was able to get over her most terrible tragedy, the suicide of her son, Rudolph, in 1889. Her son dead, her favorite daughter happily married, her husband the Emperor was in a mutually satisfying relationship with a lady named Katharina Schratt, the Empress found herself alone and set out travelling in Italy and Greece.

Now invariably dressed in black, Sisi spent the last years of her life far from the pomp and ceremony of the Viennese court traveling widely, especially in Greece. Her decades-long hunger diets coupled with a need for movement and exercise which compelled her to undertake lengthy and strenuous hikes, caused malnutrition and depressions and led finally to suicidal fantasies. The sixty-year old empress was stabbed with a file by a twenty-four year old anarchist, Luigi Lucheni, shortly after noon on September 10, 1898 on the promenade of Lake Geneva as she boarded a steamship for Montreux. After the incident the Empress still walked for a few minutes. Because she was so strictly corsetted, she was unaware how seriously she had been wounded. Her last words were "What happened to me?"
For the assassin Elisabeth represented the monarchic order which he despised, but she was in fact simply a survivor, who tired of life looked forward to her own death.

Sisi (nickname for Elisabeth) was already a legend in her lifetime. And especially in Budapest (Hungary) many buildings or institutions are named after her, and Elisabeth is still the most often given girlname in Hungary. Even a century after her death, Sisi's hold on the popular imagination remains undiminished. This can be seen in the popularity of Sisi films and the musical "Elisabeth", which has run for years in Vienna. The sites where the empress lived continue to draw tourists from the world over. Among these are her apartments in Schönbrunn Palace, the Hofburg, and the Hermes Villa in Vienna, her tomb in the imperial burial vault of the capital's Capuchin Church, and the imperial villa in Bad Ischl, as well as many other places throughout Austria.
 

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Thanks, that's great information and just the kind I was hoping for. I wonder how daring the assassination was though if they didn't have any body guards? Maybe body guards for royalty came into being much later. I guess his mother didn't have any body guards either when she was assassinated.
 
Hi thissal!

Yes, the question of bodyguards is a good one. I could be quite wrong, but I believe that only close attendands (ladies-in-waiting, aides, etc...) were the buffers between the royal members and would be assassins in private. In public, I would think that male members would have somekind of military aides that travelled along side them, and that they would also provide protection for the ruling female member as well. I could be quite, quite, off, but in my readings on Marie-Antoinette there were really just various members of royalty (Princes and Princesses of the Blood, etc...) who were there to comfort and aid their sovereigns. I know that the Swiss Guard was very loyal to M-A and that the king's guards were only there to keep out the "riff-raff". I wonder when bodyguards as we know them today came into being??
Having said that, I would think that the military did not approve of Crown Prince Rudolf's actions and probably looked the other way. I would think the same in regards to the assassination of Empress Elisabeth.
 
Elissa Landi

Elissa Landi was an actress in 1923 - 1943 and a writer 1944 - 1948 writing 6 novels and books on poetry. She was born Elizabeth-Marie Kuhnelt in Venice, Italy December 6, 1904 and lived only 43 years until 1948 when she died of cancer in New York. She had one daughter, Carolyn Maude Thomas. Elissa Landi is believed by some people to have been the secret granddaughter of Sissi (Empress Elizabeth), the beautiful consort of Emperor Franz Josef of Austria. (Imdb)

http://www.elissa.org/images/landi-stand2.jpg
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http://www.elissa.org/images/landi-still.jpg
http://www.elissa.org/images/landi-prone.jpg
 
A wonderful article about one of my personal favorite royals. A lot of parallels to the life of Princess Diana, too. Thanks very much.
 
Originally posted by Empress Aleksandra@Feb 20th, 2004 - 5:09 pm
What happened to that barbarian Luigi Lucheni? Was he punished?
He had some mental isssues. It's too bad he lived in an age where he couldn't get some help.
 
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Emperor Franz Josef I

  

Franz Joseph I Karl, Emperor of Austria, King of Hungary, Bohemia etc. (Schönbrunn 18 August 1830 - Schönbrunn 21 November 1916); married in Vienna on 24 April 1854 Duchess Elisabeth Amalie Eugenie in Bavaria (Munich 24 December 1837 - Geneva 10 September 1898)

Reign: 1848 - 1916

Dynasty: Habsburg-Lorraine

Predecessor: Emperor Ferdinand of Austria

Successor: Emperor Karl I of Austria

Children: Archduchess Sophie of Austria; Princess Gisele of Bavaria; Archduke Rudolf of Austria and Archduchess Marie Valerie of Austria (-Tuscany)

Parents Franz-Joseph: Archduke Franz Karl of Austria and Archduke and Princess Sophie of Bavaria

Parents Elisabeth: Duke Maximilian in Bavaria and Princess Ludovika of Bavaria

Siblings Franz-Joseph: Emperor Maximilian of Mexico; Archduke Karl-Ludwig, Archduke Ludwig-Viktor and Archduchess Maria Anna of Austria

Siblings Elisabeth: Duke Ludwig Wilhelm and Duke Wilhelm Karl in Bavaria; Hereditairy Princess Helene of Thurn and Taxis; Duke Karl-Theodor in Bavaria; Queen Marie of the Two Sicilies; Princess Mathilde of the Two Sicilies, Countess of Trani; Princess Sophie of France, Duchess of Alençon and Duke Maximilian in Bavaria
 
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Franz Joseph I (in Hungarian I. Ferenc József, in Czech František Josef I, in English Francis Joseph I) (August 18, 1830 – November 21, 1916) of the Habsburg Dynasty was Emperor of Austria, Apostolic King of Hungary, King of Bohemia from 1848 until 1916. His 68-year reign is the second-longest in the recorded history of Europe (after that of Johannes II, Prince of Liechtenstein; Louis XIV of France reigned effectively from 1661 to 1715).

Franz Joseph was born in the Schönbrunn Palace in Vienna, the oldest son of Archduke Franz Karl (the younger son of Emperor Franz), and his wife Princess Sophie of Bavaria. Because his uncle, from 1835 the Emperor Ferdinand, was weak-minded, and his father unambitious and retiring, the young Archduke "Franzl" was brought up by his mother as a future Emperor with emphasis on devotion, responsibility and diligence. Franzl came to idolize his grandfather, der Gute Kaiser Franz, who had died shortly before his fifth birthday, as the ideal monarch. At the age of 13 young Archduke Franz started a career as a colonel in the Austrian army. From that point onward, his fashion was dictated by army style and for the rest of his life he normally wore the uniform of a junior officer.

Franz Joseph was soon joined by three younger brothers - Archduke Ferdinand Maximilian (born 1832, the future Emperor Maximilian of Mexico); Archduke Karl Ludwig (born 1833), and Archduke Ludwig Viktor (born 1842), but a sister, Maria Anna (born 1835), died young, at the age of four.
Following the resignation of the Chancellor Prince Metternich during the Revolutions of 1848, the young Archduke, who it was widely expected would soon succeed his uncle on the throne, was appointed Governor of Bohemia on 6 April, but never took up the post. Instead, Franz was sent to the front in Italy, joining Field Marshal Radetzky on campaign on 29 April, receiving his baptism of fire on 5 May at Santa Lucia. By all accounts he handled his first military experience calmly and with dignity. Around the same time, the Imperial Family was fleeing revolutionary Vienna for the calmer setting of Innsbruck, in the Tyrol. Soon, the Archduke was called back from Italy, joining the rest of his family at Innsbruck by mid-June. It was at Innsbruck at this time that Franz Joseph first met his cousin Elisabeth, Duchess in Bavaria, his future bride, then a girl of ten, but apparently the meeting made little impact.

Following victory over the Italians at Custoza in late July, the court felt safe to return to Vienna, and Franz Joseph travelled with them. But within a few months Vienna again appeared unsafe, and in September the court left again, this time for Olmütz in Moravia. By now, Prince Windischgrätz, the influential military commander in Bohemia, was determined to see the young Archduke soon put onto the throne. It was thought that a new ruler would not be bound by the oaths to respect constitutional government to which Ferdinand had been forced to agree, and that it was necessary to find a young, energetic emperor to replace the kindly, but mentally unfit Emperor.

Read the entire wikipedia article here.
 
Elisabeth Amalie Eugenie, Duchess in Bavaria, Princess of Bavaria (December 24, 1837 – September 10, 1898) of the House of Wittelsbach, was the Empress consort of Austria and Queen consort of Hungary due to her marriage to Emperor Franz Joseph. Her father was Maximilian Joseph, Duke in Bavaria and her mother was Ludovika, Royal Princess of Bavaria; her family home was Possenhofen Castle. From an early age, she was called "Sisi" ("Sissi" in films and novels) by family and friends.

She was born in Munich, Bavaria. Elisabeth accompanied her mother and her 18-year-old sister, Helene, on a trip to the resort of Bad Ischl, Upper Austria, where they hoped Helene would attract the attention of their cousin, 23-year-old Franz Joseph, then Emperor of Austria. Instead, Franz Joseph chose Elisabeth, and the couple were married in Vienna on April 24, 1854. Elisabeth later wrote that she regretted accepting his proposal for the rest of her life.
Elisabeth had difficulty adapting to the strict etiquette practiced at the Habsburg court. Nevertheless she bore the Emperor three children in quick succession: Archduchess Sophie of Austria (1855–1857), Archduchess Gisela of Austria (1856–1932), and the hoped-for crown prince, Rudolf (1858–1889). A decade later, Archduchess Marie Valerie of Austria (1868–1924) followed. Elisabeth was denied any major influence on her own children's upbringing, however — they were raised by her mother-in-law Sophie, and soon after Rudolf's birth the marriage started to deteriorate, undone by Elisabeth's increasingly erratic behaviour.
To ease her pain and illnesses, Elisabeth embarked on a life of travel, seeing very little of her offspring, visiting places such as Madeira, Hungary, England, and Corfu, where she commissioned the building of a castle which she called Achilleion — after her death the building was sold to the German Emperor Wilhelm II. She not only became known for her beauty, but also for her fashion sense, diet and exercise regimens, passion for riding sports, and a series of reputed lovers. She paid extreme attention to her appearance and would spend most of her time preserving her beauty. Her diet and exercise regimens were strictly enforced to maintain her 20-inch (50 cm) waistline and reduced her to near emaciation at times (symptoms of what is now recognized as anorexia). One of the few things she would eat was raw veal meat juice, squeezed from her juice press, then boiled and seasoned. Some of her reputed lovers included George "Bay" Middleton, a dashing Anglo–Scot who was probably the father of Clementine Ogilvy Hozier (Mrs. Winston Churchill). She also tolerated, to a certain degree, Franz Joseph's affair with actress Katharina Schratt.
National unrest within the Habsburg monarchy caused by the rebellious Hungarians led, in 1867, to the foundation of the Austro–Hungarian double monarchy, making Elisabeth Empress of Austria and Queen of Hungary. Elisabeth had always sympathized with the Hungarian cause and, reconciled and reunited with her alienated husband, she joined Franz Joseph in Budapest, where their coronation took place. In due course, their fourth child, Archduchess Marie Valerie was born (1868–1924). Afterwards, however, she again took up her former life of restlessly traveling through Europe, decades of what basically became a walking trance.

Read the entire wikipedia article here.
 
Official Kaiservilla Homepage - Welcome to the Kaiservilla

An interesting page about the holiday home of Franz Joseph and Elisabeth in Bad Ischl - when Franz Joseph died, he left the villa to his younger daughter Marie Valerie who had married her cousin, an Archduke of Habsburg-Lothringen-Tuscany. After the revolution the archduke and archduchess signed their resignation from the House of Habsburg, so could stay in Austria and keep their estates and possessions. Thus, the Kaiservilla is still owned by a descendant of Franz Joseph and Elisabeth, Archduke Markus, and is open to the public in summer.
 
for me the best and most informative biography about elisabeth is written by the german-austrian historian brigitte hamann "elisabeth". I don't know if it is also edited in english. it could be recommended to everybody as a serious information due to describing the political circumstances in austria-hungary too.
 
One wonders what would have happened to Austria and the Habsburgs if he had lived for 10 more years or died 10 years earlier. Would the monarchy in Austria have survived WWI in the first case? Or would WWI never have happened had Franz Ferdinand been the emperor and thus not in Sarajewo on that fateful day in 1914? So many what ifs...
 
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The things one finds on YouTube... :D
Here is 'Franz Josef & the Emperor Waltz'
nb.. the pics are very slow to change, but there are some good ones.

I simply love Viennese Waltzes... Thank you, Warren.:flowers:
 
Empress Elisabeth in Hungarian costume - Franz-Josef as emperor of Austria
 

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Lady Diana and the Empress Elisabeth

Lady Di and
Elizabeth of Austria
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There are so many similarities and parallels in the lives of Lady Diana and Empress Elizabeth of Austria.
Elizabeth, like Diana married her prince while she still a
young teenager, a decision she was to regret for the rest of her life.
She married into the Austrian Habsburg dynasty and joined a court, hide bound by rules and suffocating in formality
which Elizabeth, ( like Diana ) was eventually to reject and begin to build her own independent life.
Like Diana she was expected to breed and supply
male heirs for the dynasty.
Elizabeth eventually had one son .....Rudolf in 1858 the heir to the Hapsburg Dynasty who tragically committed suicide in 1889 at Mayerling.
She also gave birth to 3 daughters.

Elizabeth, like Di, became obsessed with fitness and keeping her trim figure. In the case of the Elizabeth she went even further in the pursuit of a svelt figure and wore elaborate corsets that reduced her waist down to 16 inches.
All this amazed the Austrian public but infuriated Elizabeth's overbearing mother in law.... the Archduchess Sophie who wanted to see her son's wife pregnant with the future dynasty not laced up for the sake of vanity.

Elizabeth , like Di, seemed to be endlessly travelling Europe... England, Madeira, Corfu, Hungary. It was as if by all this travel she could escape her problems and anxieties.
Unlike Di however , Elizabeth was a brilliant rider and horsewoman with a deep love of horses and hunting.
Elizabeth was tall for her era... 5ft 8 inches , tall and slim, just like Lady Di.

Like Lady Di, Elizabeth was famous and celebrated all over Europe, she was a stunning beauty with an amazing head of rich chestnut hair..... hair that reached down to her knees.
That rich, luxuriant hair also became a fetish, requiring hours and hours of care and preparation.
Tragically, Elizabeth, like Lady Di, died suddenly and violently
... in her case stabbed by an assassins knife in broad daylight on the shores of Lake Geneva ...she was age 60.
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I feel that , if they had met, they would have recognized so many similarities in their lives and situations.
I'm sure they would have swapped anecdotes about the stuffiness and overformality of each of their respective Royal Dynasties.
They might even have become soul mates !
..... at least they would have had a lot to talk about !l

Elisabeth was born in 1837 of the eccentric Bavarian Wittelsbach royal line, and married the young Emperor Francis Joseph of Austria-Hungary when she was sixteen. After the relative freedom of her Bavarian childhood, she found herself thrust into Europe's most ossified court.
Her sense of personal dignity and independence as well as her very real democratic and humanitarian instincts continuously offended against the role into which she was cast.
Her first ''political'' duty was to breed. She had three children in quick succession, after which, despite her excellent health and natural fertility, she refused to have any more (although she was later to have a fourth child), and encouraged her husband to take a mistress and develop a ménage à trois rather than suffer his sexual attentions.
This sexual rejection was all the more publicly scandalous and personally painful in that the Emperor was known to be (or have been) infatuated with his wife. The result was that the Empire, after the suicide of their only son, the Crown Prince Rudolph, (Mayerling ) was left without a male heir.
In the oppressively rigid Habsburg court, and under the constant interference of her mother-in-law, the Archduchess Sophie, which prevented her from breast-feeding her children and developing a natural relationship with them, she became reputed sexually frigid (she had been virtually raped on her wedding-night), and unmaternal, as she herself confessed, ''loath(ing) the whole business of child-bearing'' .
ELIZABETHEMPRESSAUSTRIA.jpg
Elizabeth and Emperor Francis Joseph

Her sexuality was sublimated in her attachment to her younger daughter Valerie, large animals (especially horses), and the cultivation of her own body. She was famous for her equestrianship - haute école, circus-style stunt riding, and hunting.
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At 44 years ''she looked like an angel and rode like the devil'' . When she finally gave up riding in 1882, she devoted herself to marathon solitary hikes, swimming, gymnastics and fencing.
The Empress' fear of pregnancy, her mania for sport and violent exercise, her preoccupation with her physique, her peculiar diet, her attitude to dress - all had one common denominator: the preservation of a figure which was naturally very slender, small-boned and muscular.
She was tall ( five feet eight inches), and never weighed over 50 kilos (111 pounds) all her adult life. Her legendary beauty and charm brought her oppressive adulation wherever she went in Europe. She preserved her youthful appearance in the face of what press and medical opinion viewed as bizarre, not to say improper, excesses in sport, diet and slimming. She hated to have to sit down to eat. She abominated banquets.
For long periods she lived on a daily diet of raw steak and a glass of milk or orange-juice. She struck people as hyperactive, and astonishingly hardy. Her illnesses were all evidently psychosomatic, and her neurotic crises always cleared up when she was away from court, and was free to travel and ride, free of the gaze of courtiers and public, which she experienced as physically painful - as a visual rape.
Her diary, alas, was destroyed by the police after her death. But further study of archival material, of medical and newspaper reports, might reveal much more of the precise circumstances surrounding her youthful reputation for tight-lacing. It seems that around 1860-61 her waist measured no more than the 16 inches of the belt exhibited in London at the Great Exhibition . Why was an object with such scandalous associations put on public display? With her horror of publicity, especially as regards details of her personal life, it seems inexplicable that the Empress would have encouraged gossip around so intimate a matter as a waist-measurement.
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If the numerous biographies remain silent on this curious episode, is it because domestically the matter was hushed up? After all, in order to protect the imperial dignity the police actively suppressed stories of her equine acrobatics, and destroyed photographs pertaining to it.
If the 16 inch belt was displayed with her permission and knowledge (and it seems hard to conceive otherwise) or, worse, on her personal initiative, was it intended as a provocation? Was it the bizarre symbol of or satire upon the exhibitionism to which the most adulated woman in Europe was subject?
Her ''peak tight-lacing period'' seems to coincide with the prolonged and recurrent fits of paranoid depression which she suffered 1859-60, which have been attributed to her husband's political defeats, her three pregnancies, her sexual withdrawal, and quarrels with her mother-in-law over the rearing of her children.
Immediately after each pregnancy, she dieted and exercised rigorously; the smallness of her waist, which she appeared to flaunt and exaggerate, angered the Archduchess, who wanted her to be continuously pregnant. There were frequent rumours of grave illnesses at this time; consumption was widely diagnosed, and she was even accused of killing herself with tight-lacing.

Her health improved immediately after she left Vienna for extended travels, and was able to confront the physical hardships of nature and sport. On her return to Vienna in August 1862, a lady-in-waiting noted her improved sociability, and that ''she looks splendidly, she eats properly, sleeps well, and does not tight-lace anymore'' . At this time her waist-measure had probably increased to 18 inches, its reputed extent (more or less) until her death
. Other costumes exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art had external measures of 18 1/2 inches and 19 1/2 inches (two, including the bodice through which the Empress was stabbed to death).

In 1882, she is described by the Prince of Hesse as ''almost inhumanly slender.'' In 1887 she was ''scarcely human in (her) fantastic attributes of hair and line'' (Haslip, pp. 334 and 373). In 1890, she is still ''graceful, but almost too slender'' and ''excessively slender, but still in terror of growing stout''
. She was at this time having herself heavily massaged, and wrapped naked in wet sheets impregnated with seaweed. She transmitted her horror of fat women to her daughter Valerie, who was positively terrified when, as a little girl, she first met Queen Victoria.
Her body became a religious cult, but one of a highly ascetic and solitary nature. Clothing, as such, was excluded from the cult. She disliked the expensive accoutrements and the constant changes of outfit to which her role condemned her. She caused offence by the plainness, the preferred monochrome of her attire .
What mattered to her was perfect fit.
An essential and early constituent of her legend was that she was regularly sewn into her riding-habit. ''It was common knowledge in the hunting-field that a tailor from Whitchurch went every day to the Abbey to sew the skirt of the Empress' habit onto her close-fitting bodice, so that there should not be the slightest crease or wrinkle around her 18 inch waist'' .

Her niece Countess Marie Larisch (p.65) confirms this custom, and that ''she wore high laced boots with tiny spurs.''
Her English hunting companions loved her for her warmth, modesty, ease of manner, for the fact that she was not at all ''sewn-in,'' and for her anger at any instance of cruelty to horses which came to her attention .
Some of her corsets were made in leather, like those of a Parisian courtesan. ''Her many-coloured satin and moiré corsets were made in Paris, and she only wore them for a few weeks. They had no front-fastenings (i.e., no split busk, current since c. 1860), and Elizabeth was always laced into her corsets, a proceeding which sometimes took quite an hour .
She never wore petticoats ... when she took her walks she slipped her unstockinged feet into her boots, and wore no underlinen of any description ... she slept on an iron bedstead, with no pillows'' .
Her hair was a glory, in texture very thick and wavy, a rich chestnut in colour, and hung down below her knees.
Dressing it was the most important ritual of the toilette, which lasted up to two hours, during which she usually read, or studied languages. Many anecdotes testify how her self-imposed ''enslavement'' to her hair sublimated her sense of enslavement to the public role, how she used her capillary crown ''in order to get rid of the other one'' (the imperial crown).
The hair was inviolable, mystical, almost literally sacred, a cult of which her spoiled and arrogant hairdresser was the high-priestess .
The biography of the Austrian Empress contains a whole psychology of fetishism, which emerges with peculiar intensity and pathos as a function of her struggle within her uniquely elevated social rank. The rituals around her riding, slimming cures, corseting and hair were various channels of escape from and protest against her public role, attempts to recover an individual identity of which a pettifogging court, a devouring public, insatiable reporters and photographers constantly worked to deprive her.
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Elizabeth was born in Munich, Bavaria. She accompanied her mother and her 18-year-old sister, Helene, on a trip to the resort of Bad Ischl, Upper Austria , where they hoped Helene would attract the attention of their cousin, 23-year-old Franz Joseph, then Emperor of Austria.
Instead, Franz Joseph chose the younger sister... Elisabeth, and the couple were married in Vienna on April 24, 1854. Elisabeth later wrote that she regretted accepting his proposal for the rest of her life.
Elisabeth had difficulty adapting to the strict etiquette practiced at the Habsburg court. Nevertheless she bore the Emperor three children in quick succession:
Archduchess Sophie of Austria (1855–1857),
Archduchess Gisela of Austria (1856–1932),
and the hoped-for crown prince, Rudolf (1858–1889).
A decade later, Archduchess Marie Valerie of Austria (1868–1924) followed.
Elisabeth was denied any major influence on her own children's upbringing, however — they were raised by her mother-in-law Sophie, and soon after Rudolf's birth the marriage started to deteriorate, undone by Elisabeth's increasingly erratic behaviour.
To ease her pain and illnesses, Elisabeth embarked on a life of travel, seeing very little of her offspring, visiting places such as Madeira, Hungary, England, and Corfu.
In Corfu she commissioned the building of a castle which she called Achilleion — after her death the building was sold to the German Emperor Wilhelm II.
She not only became known for her beauty, but also for her fashion sense, diet and exercise regimens, passion for riding sports, and a series of reputed lovers.
She paid extreme attention to her appearance and would spend most of her time preserving her beauty. Her diet and exercise regimens were strictly enforced to maintain her 20-inch waistline and reduced her to near emaciation at times (symptoms of what is now recognized as anorexia).
One of the few things she would eat was raw veal meat juice, squeezed from her juice press, then boiled and seasoned.
Some of her reputed lovers included George "Bay" Middleton, a dashing Anglo–Scot who was probably the father of Clementine Ogilvy Hozier (Mrs. Winston Churchill).
She also tolerated, to a certain degree, Franz Joseph's affair with actress Katharina Schratt.
National unrest within the Habsburg monarchy caused by the rebellious Hungarians led, in 1867, to the foundation of the Austro–Hungarian double monarchy, making Elisabeth Empress of Austria and Queen of Hungary.
Elisabeth had always sympathized with the Hungarian cause and, reconciled and reunited with her alienated husband, she joined Franz Joseph in Budapest, where their coronation took place. In due course, their fourth child, Archduchess Marie Valerie was born (1868–1924). Afterwards, however, she again took up her former life of restlessly traveling through Europe, decades of what basically became a walking trance.
The Empress also engaged in writing poetry (such as the "Nordseelieder" and "Winterlieder", both inspirations from her favorite German poet, Heinrich Heine).
Shaping her own fantasy world in poetry, she referred to herself as Titania, Shakespeare's Fairy Queen. Most of her poetry refers to her journeys, classical Greek and romantic themes, as well as ironic mockery on the Habsburg dynasty.
In these years, Elisabeth also took up with an intensive study of both ancient and modern Greek, drowning in Homer's Iliad and Odyssey. Numerous Greek lecturers (such as Marinaky, Christomanos, and Barker) had to accompany the Empress on her hour-long walks while reading Greek to her.
Her Greek genealogical roots are presented in Greek pedigree of Empress Sisi. According to contemporary scholars, Empress Elisabeth knew Greek better than each of the Bavarian Greek Queens in the 19th century.
In 1889, Elisabeth's life was shattered by the death of her only son: 30-year-old Crown Prince Rudolf and his young lover Baroness Mary Vetsera were found dead, apparently by suicide.
The scandal is known by the name Mayerling, after the name of Rudolf's hunting lodge in Lower Austria.
After Rudolf's death, the Empress continued to be a myth, a sensation wherever she went: a long black gown that could be buttoned up at the bottom, a white parasol made of leather and a brown fan to shun her face from curious looks became the trademarks of the legendary Empress of Austria.
Only a few snapshots of Elisabeth in her last years are left, taken by photographers who were lucky enough to catch her without her noticing.
The moments Elisabeth would show up in Vienna and see her husband were rare. Interestingly, their correspondence increased during those last years and the relationship between the Empress and the Emperor of Austria had become platonic and warm.
On her imperial steamer, Miramar, Empress Elisabeth traveled restlessly through the Mediterranean. Her favorite places were Cap Martin at the French Riviera, where tourism had only started in the second half of the 19th century, Lake Geneva in Switzerland, Bad Ischl in Austria, where she would spend her summers, and Corfu in the winter.
More than that, the Empress had visited countries no other sovereign had seen at the time: Portugal, Spain, Morocco, Algeria, Malta, Greece, Turkey and Egypt. Traveling had become the sense of her life but also an escape from herself.

Assassination
On September 10, 1898, in Geneva, Switzerland, Elisabeth, aged 60, was stabbed in the heart with a needle file by a young anarchist named Luigi Lucheni, in an act of propaganda of the deed. She had been walking along the promenade of Lake Geneva about to board a steamship for Montreux with her lady-of-courtesy, Countess Sztaray.
Unaware of the severity of her condition she still boarded the ship. Bleeding to death from a puncture wound to the heart, Elisabeth's last words were "What happened to me?".
The strong pressure from her corset kept the bleeding back until the corset was removed. Only then did her staff and surrounding onlookers understand the severity of the situation. Reportedly, her assassin had hoped to kill a prince from the House of Orléans and, failing to find him, turned on Elisabeth instead. As Lucheni afterward said, "I wanted to kill a royal. It did not matter which one."

MURDERER.jpg

The Empress Elizabeth's assassin being led away.
The empress was buried in the Imperial Crypt in Vienna's city centre which for centuries served as the Imperial burial place.
 
respect,you did a good job!
i didn't expect such a well-informed thread as most of the other threads are only gossip (especially the british family and the al maktoum threads are only colportations of overheard rumours and speculations.)
Also I liked the selection of pictures you have chosen.
 
Thanks to everybody for this wonderful pics!!
I love Empress Elisabeth...:flowers:
 
I thank my 'obsession' to royals because of this fascinating lady.









 













What I find great about the Austrian royals that at they seemed to be totally outclass the other reigning houses.
 
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