soul alike - sissi of austria
The eldest daughter, Helene, a dark, slender beauty, was engaged to the most eligible bachelor of his time, the young emperor Franz Joseph of Austria. Although the mothers of the bride and the groom were sisters, the two young people themselves hardly knew each other. The family reunion in Ischl upset all these plans. Franz Joseph, usually an obedient son to his domineering mother, Archduchess Sophie, took hardly any notice of Helene. He fell madly in love at first sight with her little sister, and insisted that he would marry no one but Sisi.
So Sisi became the Empress of Austria.
As empress of a great realm, Sisi failed miserably. She felt exposed to the ridicule of what seemed to her a cold, foreign court, and was desperately homesick for Bavaria. Archduchess Sophie saw nothing for it but to discipline the freedom-loving, coltish child, for fear that so inexperienced empress might damage the Austrian state and the monarchy itself. She tried to form Sisi after her imagination, this caused considerable ill feeling within the imperial family. For some years Sisi really did her best to fulfil her duties. Although her courtly conversation was still considered hopelessly inadequate and her conduct insufficiently" imperial", meaning quite indiscipline.
During her first years in Vienna, Elisabeth bottled up a great deal of aggression towards the Viennese court, and her domineering mother- in-law in particular. Then, in the summer of 1860, rumours of Franz Joseph's first extra-marital love affairs sparked off a dramatic domestic crisis which came to a head with the empress's panic-stricken flight to Possenhofen. Attempts at mediation and a brief return to Vienna solved nothing, and finally, there was an outright scandal: the 22-year-old Empress of Austria left Vienna and the imperial territories with a small retinue of courtiers and went to island of Madeira as far as she could go.
The official reason was that she was mortally ill.
Princesses over the centuries had shouldered their duties to the dynasty more or willingly, well aware that they were pawns on the chessboard of history, and suffered in silence. For an empress actually to leave her husband on account of his infidelity was simply inconceivable.
During her voluntary exile of almost two years- for she moved on from Madeira to Venice and Corfu- she became more self-confident, and even somewhat demanding. She could leave him again. And her chief demands were indeed met: the gruelling military training which had overtaxed the young crown-prince was substituted for a more liberal education, i.e., academic subjects now took precedence over physical education.
When Prussia threatened Vienna in the war of 1866, the young empress and her children went to Hungary for safety. From there she wrote letters to her husband, urging him to meet Hungary's demands, namely, to regard Budapest as equal as Vienna. After a long period of indecision, Franz Joseph finally bowed to his wife's will, despite his own political misgivings. This settlement with Hungary divided the Hapsburg domains into two parts. The coronation of Franz Joseph as King of Hungary in Budapest in 1867 was the high point of Sisi's political life.
In Hungary, Sisi could finally indulge her passion for riding in the grounds of the the little castle of Godöllö without being disturbed, which was given from the Hungarian nation as a coronation present.
Equipped with her fair share of intelligence, egotism and self-confindence, Elisabeth did as she pleased. She was concerned almost exclusively with her beauty and her own interests, scarcely heeding the traditional duties of an empress.
Shows of royal grandeur had always been a burden to her, for she was naturally shy and withdrawn. Now she refused to take part in them almost entirely, and was particularly unwilling to carry out her royal duties in Vienna, where she never really felt at home or accepted. She only made exceptions for Hungary.
Sisi was also very interested in social problems, but she preferred to do her charitable work privately rather than officially. After the death of her son, the Crown-prince, Rudely ( 1889), who committed suicide, she felt guilty for taking so little notice of her son. She never recovered from Rudolf's death.
Sisi still had nine years to live: years of loneliness and misanthropy. By now she had long abandoned all her passion, for riding and fencing. She had given up any hope of being an inspired poet herself. Her only son was dead and the succession would pass to another line. She became a recluse, hiding from public view.
The infirmities of old age came to her early, as a result of excessive exercise, starvation diets, and chill caught on long daily walks in all winds and weathers. Sisi now had severe rheumatism, a withered, wrinkled skin, strained nerves and edema due to malnutrition.
She travelled to Europe incognito always dressed in black and accompanied by exhausted ladies in waiting , who never stayed very long. She toyed with ideas of suicide, seeing nothing but misfortune in the world, and no further point in her life.
Her sudden but painless death at the hands of the Italian anarchist Lucheni in 1898 was perhaps no more than a blessed release for a woman who had lost all hope and was now tired of life.
Elisabeth or Sisi was born on Christmas Eve 1873 as the second daughter of Duke Max of Bavaria and Duchess Ludovica. As Sisi's father did not belong to the royal branch of the house of Wittelsbach he had no official functions at the Bavarian court. Consequently, the family was spared most of the demands of etiquette and protocol and could devote itself entirely to private life. Those eight children, all equally boisterous, grew up in an atmosphere of freedom. They were good at hiking, riding and fishing, and they loved animals and the idyllic landscape around the Starnberger See. To the despair of their tutors, they were not prepared to settle down to systematic study.
The eldest daughter, Helene, a dark, slender beauty, was engaged to the most eligible bachelor of his time, the young emperor Franz Joseph of Austria. Although the mothers of the bride and the groom were sisters, the two young people themselves hardly knew each other. The family reunion in Ischl upset all these plans. Franz Joseph, usually an obedient son to his domineering mother, Archduchess Sophie, took hardly any notice of Helene. He fell madly in love at first sight with her little sister, and insisted that he would marry no one but Sisi.
So Sisi became the Empress of Austria.
As empress of a great realm, Sisi failed miserably. She felt exposed to the ridicule of what seemed to her a cold, foreign court, and was desperately homesick for Bavaria. Archduchess Sophie saw nothing for it but to discipline the freedom-loving, coltish child, for fear that so inexperienced empress might damage the Austrian state and the monarchy itself. She tried to form Sisi after her imagination, this caused considerable ill feeling within the imperial family. For some years Sisi really did her best to fulfil her duties. Although her courtly conversation was still considered hopelessly inadequate and her conduct insufficiently" imperial", meaning quite indiscipline.
During her first years in Vienna, Elisabeth bottled up a great deal of aggression towards the Viennese court, and her domineering mother- in-law in particular. Then, in the summer of 1860, rumours of Franz Joseph's first extra-marital love affairs sparked off a dramatic domestic crisis which came to a head with the empress's panic-stricken flight to Possenhofen. Attempts at mediation and a brief return to Vienna solved nothing, and finally, there was an outright scandal: the 22-year-old Empress of Austria left Vienna and the imperial territories with a small retinue of courtiers and went to island of Madeira as far as she could go.
The official reason was that she was mortally ill.
Princesses over the centuries had shouldered their duties to the dynasty more or willingly, well aware that they were pawns on the chessboard of history, and suffered in silence. For an empress actually to leave her husband on account of his infidelity was simply inconceivable.
During her voluntary exile of almost two years- for she moved on from Madeira to Venice and Corfu- she became more self-confident, and even somewhat demanding. She could leave him again. And her chief demands were indeed met: the gruelling military training which had overtaxed the young crown-prince was substituted for a more liberal education, i.e., academic subjects now took precedence over physical education.
When Prussia threatened Vienna in the war of 1866, the young empress and her children went to Hungary for safety. From there she wrote letters to her husband, urging him to meet Hungary's demands, namely, to regard Budapest as equal as Vienna. After a long period of indecision, Franz Joseph finally bowed to his wife's will, despite his own political misgivings. This settlement with Hungary divided the Hapsburg domains into two parts. The coronation of Franz Joseph as King of Hungary in Budapest in 1867 was the high point of Sisi's political life.
In Hungary, Sisi could finally indulge her passion for riding in the grounds of the the little castle of Godöllö without being disturbed, which was given from the Hungarian nation as a coronation present.
Equipped with her fair share of intelligence, egotism and self-confindence, Elisabeth did as she pleased. She was concerned almost exclusively with her beauty and her own interests, scarcely heeding the traditional duties of an empress.
Shows of royal grandeur had always been a burden to her, for she was naturally shy and withdrawn. Now she refused to take part in them almost entirely, and was particularly unwilling to carry out her royal duties in Vienna, where she never really felt at home or accepted. She only made exceptions for Hungary.
Sisi was also very interested in social problems, but she preferred to do her charitable work privately rather than officially. After the death of her son, the Crown-prince, Rudely ( 1889), who committed suicide, she felt guilty for taking so little notice of her son. She never recovered from Rudolf's death.
Sisi still had nine years to live: years of loneliness and misanthropy. By now she had long abandoned all her passion, for riding and fencing. She had given up any hope of being an inspired poet herself. Her only son was dead and the succession would pass to another line. She became a recluse, hiding from public view.
The infirmities of old age came to her early, as a result of excessive exercise, starvation diets, and chill caught on long daily walks in all winds and weathers. Sisi now had severe rheumatism, a withered, wrinkled skin, strained nerves and edema due to malnutrition.
She travelled to Europe incognito always dressed in black and accompanied by exhausted ladies in waiting , who never stayed very long. She toyed with ideas of suicide, seeing nothing but misfortune in the world, and no further point in her life.
Her sudden but painless death at the hands of the Italian anarchist Lucheni in 1898 was perhaps no more than a blessed release for a woman who had lost all hope and was now tired of life.
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