Empress Elisabeth Of Austria

She played none of the roles assigned to her by traditions and her surroundings: not the role of loving and devoted wife, not the role of mother, not the role of principal figurehead in a gigantic empire. She insisted on her rights as an individual —and she prevailed. That her self-realization did not make her happy is the tragedy of her life— aside from the tragedies that befell her most immediate family, set in motion by her refusal to be co-opted. Elisabeth, Empress of Austria, Queen of Hungary and Bohemia (to list only her most important titles), was at heart a republican, calling the venerable monarchy the ¨skeleton of former splendor¨ and an oak tree that was bound to fall, since it had ¨outlived its usefulness¨. She excoriated the excesses of the aristocratic system, and she flouted kings and princes, as she had learned to do from her revered model and ¨master¨, Heinrich Heine. - Brigitte Hamman. 

Three aromatic blue fir trees, branches alight with wax candles and bedecked with gilded ornaments, stood over tables crowded with gifts when the imperial family gathered at the Hofburg to celebrate Christmas. Rudolf had bought toys for his young daughter at Vienna’s traditional Christkindlmarkt, or Christmas market; for his mother he had purchased some original letters written by her favorite poet, Heinrich Heine—a thoughtful gift that the empress all but ignored. Indeed, Elisabeth seemed most taken with showing off her latest, unlikely acquisition: Much to her husband’s horror, she’d had her shoulder tattooed with an anchor.

Smiles and gifts couldn’t conceal the undercurrent of tension. Something was so obviously wrong with Rudolf that Elisabeth pulled Marie Valerie aside and again warned her of her brother’s malicious behavior. Then she turned to her son. After making him promise that he would be kind to Marie Valerie, Elisabeth embraced Rudolf and said that she loved him. Hearing this, Rudolf collapsed into agonized sobs; his mother, he cried, hadn’t said those words “for a long time.”

Literally Elisabeth during her engagement/first years as empress:

In Geneva, which she knew very well, the Empress visited her favourite pastry shop, bought toys for her grandchildren, and, as always, retired very early. 

The following morning, a Geneva newspaper carried a news items to the effect that Empress Elisabeth of Austria was staying at the hotel Beau Rivage. It was never established who had informed the newspaper. This report sealed Elisabeth’s fate.

On September 10, the empress intended to return to Montreux by lake steamer scheduled to leave at one forty in the afternoon. Her servant had already gone ahead with the luggage, watched by the Italian anarchist Luigi Lucheni. Accompanied by Irma Sztaray, as always dressed in black, her fan in one hand and the parasol in the other, Elisabeth walked to the landing stage, only a few hundered meters from the hotel. And it was on this path that Luccheni was lying in wait. When the two ladies came abreast him, he threw himself on them and stabbed the Empress. His aim was accurate. Elisabeth fell on her back. But the force of the fall was broken by the weight of her hair. She got to her feet immediately after the fall and thanked all those who helped, speaking in German, French, and English. The hotel porter who witnessed the deed, begged the two ladies to return to the hotel, but Elisabeth refused. 

Sisi asked Countess Sztaray what did the man want, and if perhaps he wanted to take her watch. It was not until they were on board, that the Empress colapsed. It was thought that she had fainted as a result of fright she had endured. It was only when Countess Sztáray noticed a small brown stain above the Empress’s left breast, that the extent of the tragedy became evident. 

The boat turned around and sped back to Geneva. The Empress was bedded on an improvised litter and returned to the hotel as quickly as possible. There the doctor could do nothing but pronounce her dead. 

Sissi (2009) ↬  Episode 2

Sissi on her wedding day, from Sissi (1955)

After Rudolf’s death, Elisabeth’s spiritualist tendencies hardened. Only a few days after his interment, she tried to establish a contact with him. One evening, she secretly went to the Kapuzinergruft. 

Marie Valerie:

“She dislikes the crypt, and she was not at all eager to descend to it, but she had a sense that inner voice was calling her, and she did it in hope that Rudolf would appear to her. For this same reason she sent away the friar who had unlocked it for her, shut the iron door to the crypt, which was lit only by some torches around Rudolfs coffin, and knelt down by it. The wind groaned, and the flowers that had fallen off the wreaths rustled like footsteps, so that she kept glancing around, but nothing appeard to her.”

Make Me Choose: Queen Victoria or Empress Sissi

“At the sight of so many strangers, the young Empress panicked and fled to an adjoining room, where she broke out in tears. We can easily imagine the whispering among the ladies in full regalia waiting for the bride in the audience chamber. When Sisi finally joined the reception exhausted and unsteady, her face tear-stained, she provided new food for gossip. For she was too timid to make conversation with each of the ladies presented to her. According to protocol, however, no one was allowed to speak to the Empress except to reply to questions.”

“The Empress is sweet and good, but she makes everything a burden for herself, and what to others is a source of happiness becomes for her a source of discontent. She seems to me like a child in a fairytale. The good fairies came, and each of them laid a splendid gift in her cradle, beauty, sweetness, grace… dignity, intelligence and wit. But then came the bad fairy and said ‘I see that everything has been given you, but I will turn these qualities against you and they shall bring you no happiness. I will deprive you of something which a man bears within him unconsciously—moderation in your actions, occupations, thoughts and sensibilities. Nothing will bring you happiness, everything will turn against you. Even your beauty will bring you nothing but sorrow and you will never find peace.”