Elisabeth, the suffering empress

Empress Elisabeth and Emperor Franz-Josef at Cap Martin in 1894.

In June 1885, Empress Elisabeth (Sissi) goes to visit her cousin Louis II of Bavaria.  The King is absent.  Sissi, accompanied by her two daughters, Gisela and Maria-Valeria, leaves an envelope on a desk.  It is a poem dedicated to this very poetic king.  A few lines which contain the code of their exchanges:

To you, eagle of the mountain

Host of eternal snows

A thought from the seagull

Queen of the frothy waves.

***

She is the seagull, he is the eagle.  Two solitary birds.  The seagull will soon be forty-eight-years-old, the eagle is forty.  And the craziest rumours are circulating about the King.  Sissi learns, stunned, that her cousin talks to himself, that he addresses the busts of Louis XIV and the portraits of Marie-Antoinette, his “guests”, in careful French.  It is said that he lives only at night, dresses as an Oriental Satrape and, lost in the smoke from a nargile, makes stable-boys dance naked before him…  Inside his castles, which have emptied the Kingdom’s finances, Louis II rules over machines which make garnished tables surge from the floor.  In the Linderhof park, a fake grotto evokes that of Venusberg, in Tannhauser.  The King sits in a wherry in the form of a swan, while a valet rows and the boat twirls in the middle of a floral decor of plaster roses and changing lights.  Louis II, insatiable, has obliged his Minister of Finances to subscribe a loan of seven million-and-a-half marks, and Bavaria is rushing to ruin.

On 24 August, Sissi, Franz-Josef, Rudolf and Archduke Louis-Viktor, the Emperor’s younger brother, board the imperial train which will take them to Olmutz, the second Moravian city.  An interview has been organized with the Tsar to try to relieve the tension in the Balkans.  Nothing has been neglected to make the Tsar feel safe.  His father’s assassination haunts him.

The Emperor of Austria and Crown Prince Rudolf welcome the Tsar’s family at the station.  Rudolf caustically describes the scene, which takes place late in the morning, to his wife Stephanie:

“The Tsar has become colossally fat.  Grand-Duke Wladimir and his wife, as well as the Tsarina, seem old and dull.  Their suites and in particular their domestics are frightful.  They wear new uniforms of a completely Asian cut.  At least, at the time of the defunct Tsar, the Russians were elegant (…).”

Elisabeth is superb in a peach-coloured satin gown with a high collar.  To honour Alexander III, Franz-Josef has had the troup brought from Berg Theater.  The evening is warm, propitious to the performance outside of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, by Shakespeare, in the sumptuous gardens of the Summer residence of the Prince-Archbishop of Olmutz.  Katharina Schratt is brilliant in the role of Hermia.  Alexander III, subjugated, asks Franz-Josef whether the actress can participate in the supper planned on the terrace, while fireworks light up the statues and the baroque fountains.  Franz-Josef is embarrassed.  The Tsar is asking for an exception to protocol, but it is difficult to refuse.  Elisabeth is delighted at such a surprise…  But the next morning, when Franz-Josef comes to complain to Sissi that the Tsar has had one hundred roses and an emerald brooch delivered to Katharina Schratt, Sissi legitimately concludes that her husband is interested in the actress.  And this does not worry her…  Frau Schratt is a gentle woman, of unruffled humour.  She is twenty-eight-years-old and lives separated from her husband.

Sissi is perfectly aware that her instability prevents her from making the Emperor perfectly happy, he who is always so attentive and of admirable indulgence.  The Empress is impatient, but she is not egoistic with her husband.  She is conscious of her affective and physical limits.  Their complicity – which has been greatly criticised because people have not tried to understand it – is going to rule the couple’s relations from Spring 1886.  Sissi, always between two voyages, is thinking more and more of having herself “replaced”.  The Emperor needs a discrete, dignified companion, who is simple, without being familiar, who conserves the appropriate distance toward a high-ranking person but knows how to be frank.  An aristocrat being excluded, who is better suited for playing a role than an actress?  Katharina Schratt, whom Franz-Josef admires more and more, is the ideal woman to play the unrewarding role of a sort of double, whose friendship would not be shocking.  Sissi orders a portrait of the actress from the painter Heinrich von Angeli and announces to Franz-Josef that she is going to give it to him.  He is extremely happy.

The Emperor writes his first letter to Frau Schratt to thank her for having taken the trouble to pose for the painting.  In thanks, he joins a magnificent emerald ring to his missive.  And he signs “Your devoted admirer”.

Sissi’s reward arrives on 5 October with her departure for Greece.  The Miramar travels towards Troy.  Sissi lingers before Achilles’ tomb, but doesn’t walk much among the archaeological digs, for her feet refuse extenuating walks now.  After Rhodes, Cyprus and Port Said, where she spends time fleeing Consuls who have come to wait for her, the Empress returns to Trieste on 1st November.  Unfortunately, this return to cold and dampness awakens her sciatica and increases her nostalgia.  Sissi regrets living and announces to Franz-Josef that if, because of her health, her life has to be an immobile Calvary, she would be ready to kill herself.  Franz-Josef replies:

“Then you will go to Hell.”

He is unhappy, so is she, but their unhappiness is not the same one.  Elisabeth sighs:

“We already have Hell on Earth.”

Her depression increases with the realization that Maria-Valeria, who is now eighteen-years-old, is being courted.

Very direct with her favourite daughter, she says to her, after a ball:

“If you absolutely wanted to marry a chimney-sweep, I wouldn’t stop you…  In the end, I love only you.”

The two other children are not as close to her.  Gisela lives in Bavaria and Rudolf, whose marriage is, according to Elisabeth’s predictions, a catastrophe, is more and more attracted to liberal ideas, taverns where there is singing among the smells of garlic and tobacco, and the discrete houses where friendly women attempt to relax the Prince out of his sombre humour.  In a sense, his ill is the same one as his mother’s.  It is uselessness.  He says:

“I am condemned to be a good-for-nothing.”

***

To be continued.

Elisabeth, the amazon queen – part 10

The imperial family at Godollo.

The death of a lady equerry of French origin, Emilie Loisset, following a fall from a horse, greatly saddens Empress Elisabeth (Sissi), but her equestrian passion is replaced more and more by forced marches which resemble races;  she is tiring her entourage to the brink of exhaustion.

“Suddenly, for no reason, I lost my courage, and I who, just the day before, suspected no danger, saw a threat in each bush and could not liberate my mind from its anguish”,

she would later say to a lady-in-waiting, while trying to analyze the disappearance of her passion for riding.  It must be noted that Sissi detests wasting her time, she does everything quickly.  She liked galloping on horseback, she now gallops on foot.  The police officers affected to her security are unable to explain how she is able to really gallop on foot, for six hours non-stop, without collapsing.  The ladies-in-waiting, exhausted by Sissi’s forced marches, declare forfait.

“Soon, no-one will be able to follow her”,

states her daughter Maria-Valeria, who is fifteen.  And a young, robust Hungarian girl becomes the Empress’ walking companion.  When Wilhelm I visits Bad Ischl, on 9 August 1882, he invokes his great age – eighty – as an excuse not to participate in these outings worthy of a chamois.  The Emperor of Germany is, however, delighted to accompany Sissi and Maria-Valeria to the theatre.  He will regret it:  the play, entitled The Promise Behind the Stove, ridicules a Prussian.  It takes all Sissi’s grace to repair this diplomatic error and bring laughter back to his shocked entourage.

An official voyage to Trieste and Dalmatia is planned in September.  It looks as if it is going to be delicate.  Extremists continue to agitate, and police reports are of the opinion that an attempt against the Emperor’s life cannot be excluded.  Franz-Josef wants to leave alone, but Sissi, informed of the dangers, refuses to remain behind.

She demands to share the peril.  She flees the Court, but faces the risks connected with being Head of State.  Sissi senses drama.  In fact, the programme must be changed at the last minute, for some conspirators are arrested and assassination inscriptions appear at the foot of an effigy of Franz-Josef.  Sissi does not leave her spouse, even exposing herself in an open carriage to better protect him.  On the steamship Berenice, a ball is supposed to take place.  A storm is raging, and it is discovered that the ship is leaking everywhere.  As always when she is really worried, Sissi is very calm.  They must reach the gunboat Lucifer, which has great difficulty in accosting.  The four days of tense voyage end on a comical note:  at the last grand dinner, one of the guests, perhaps moved by Sissi’s beauty, confuses his finger-bowl with one of his glasses and empties it completely.  Elisabeth has the greatest trouble not to burst out laughing.

On 2 September, Stephanie, Rudolf’s spouse, gives birth to a little girl, at Laxenburg.  The child is named Elisabeth, a homage that Rudolf had wanted to give his mother, but everyone will call her Erszi, the Hungarian diminutive for Elisabeth.

Stephanie, who wanted a boy, cries.  But Rudolf is happy.  He assures:

“It doesn’t matter;  a girl is much nicer!”

One remarkable fact, noted by Maria-Valeria:  Sissi, leaning over the cradle, does not find, this time, that the baby is ugly.

Franz-Josef offers an emerald and forty thousand florins to the new-born girl and, twenty days later, Rudolf is named Commander of the 25th Division, which is in garnison in Vienna.  This measure seems to compensate the advanced ideas held by the Crown Prince, which he doesn’t try to hide.  In fact, for the last year, he has become friendly with a liberal journalist, Moriz Szeps, the Director of a big Viennese daily.  Rudolf writes anonymous articles in it criticising the Government and the Empire’s foreign policy.

Maria-Valeria notes in her diary, at the date of 27 November, that a new actress has come to Burg Theater.  Her name is Katharina Schratt.

“She is magnificent…”

Little by little, it is noticed that, when Frau Schratt is onstage, Franz-Josef is in his box.

In April 1884, Elisabeth leaves again, this time for health reasons:  sciatica is making her suffer and the best way of treating it is to discontinue walking and horse-riding.

A great specialist of muscular troubles, Doctor Metzger, installed in Amsterdam, receives the Empress.  He does not hide his pessimism:  Elisabeth risks an infirmity if she continues her “outings”.  He notes that his patient mounts four horses a day, practises with a fleuret, and is surprised at having a swollen knee.  His greatest victory over the stubborn Empress is to obtain that she eat normally.  Astutely, the doctor does not speak of malnutrition, anaemia or nervous fatigue provoked by a stomach which is nearly always empty.  He speaks only of beauty, judging that if the Empress continues absorbing only milk, she will be “old and wrinkled” within two years.  The argument is decisive.  Sissi cannot bear for an instant the thought that her strange ways of caring for herself to remain slim is arriving at the same age phenomenon as that of women whose only exercice is opening their parasols…

While Stephanie and Rudolf undertake a voyage in the Balkans, Sissi makes a pilgrimage to Mariazell, on 11 September.  She had made a vow to give precious objects to the Virgin, Austria’s protectress, if she was cured of her sciatica.  Elisabeth is terrified at the idea of being confined to a wheelchair.  This would mean that she could no longer flee.  Worried, she again goes to Holland, in March 1885, to consult Doctor Metzger.  Massages having helped her, in May, she returns to Austria via Heidelberg, where she meets Maria-Valeria.  Mother and daughter are enchanted by the old university city, steeped in German romantism.

At the end of May, the Empress feels the need to know what has happened to the young man she had met at the Mardi-Gras ball in Vienna, eleven years before…  She again uses her pseudonym of Gabrielle.  The addressee, Frederic Pacher of Theinburg, who is still living in Vienna, replies on 9 June:

“Dear Yellow Domino,

“Nothing could have astonished me more than the sign of life that you give me.  It is not enough to say that I was stunned.  What has been happening over these eleven years?  Doubtless you still shine with your proud beauty like before;  as for me, I have become a respectable, bald spouse, I have a wife as tall as you and a delicious little girl.  You can, if you judge it convenable, leave aside your domino without fear after the passage of eleven years and shed light on this enigmatic adventure, the most troubling of those that I have ever lived (…).”

Sissi is enchanted.  Eleven years after his brief encounter, Frederic is still there.

In a lyrical frame of mind, the Empress decides to visit Louis II of Bavaria.

Elisabeth, the amazon queen – part 9

The imperial family at Godollo.

On 18 August 1880, the Austro-Hungarian Empire celebrates its master’s birthday:  Emperor Franz-Josef is fifty-years-old.  The multinational character of this State is particularly illustrated when the different peoples who compose it are heard singing the national anthem, each in his own language.  On this day, quarrels are forgotten and, from Vienna to Budapest, from Budapest to Prague, a long life is wished on the Emperor with Masses and parades.

***

Prince Rudolf of Austria’s wedding is fixed for 10 May 1881.  Elisabeth is inhabited by an implacable premonition…  Sadness mixed with resignation emanates from the Crown Prince;  his engagement has curiously darkened his personality.

Prince Rudolf, Archduke of Austria.

In Belgium, the women who, for months, have been working on Princess Stephanie’s trousseau, have given her the nickname Rose of Brabant.  A rose?  When the fiancee, met in Saltzburg by Rudolf, arrives on the morning of 6 May at Schonbrunn, the comments which circulate at Court on the King of the Belgians’ daughter are not very amiable.

“Her dull, blonde hair is done as badly as possible.”

Stephanie is very tall (one metre seventy-six) and her silhouette, at this epoch, is deplorable.  Other family remarks assure:

“Poor Rudolf!  His wife is as delicate as a dragon…”

However, Franz-Josef and Sissi greet Stephanie in the Small Gallery at Schonbrunn.  The forty-eight branch chandeliers and the candelabra in sculpted, fine gold-plated wood, light the scene.  Franz-Josef advances towards his daughter-in-law and hugs her.  The Emperor is happy about this marriage, which is dictated only for reasons of State.  Elisabeth, wholly concerned with unions where there are feelings, tries to hide her opposition by detachment.

The next day, a lady-in-waiting, Countess Festetics, notes her impressions:

“The Princess is not at all shy, is very banal, and has a strange comportment.”

Her bad taste in clothes and the fact that she is not pretty make the comparison with the Empress tip once more in favour of Elisabeth.  And the lady-in-waiting asks herself whether Rudolf would not be tempted to make this same comparison.  On the morning of 10 May, a difficult scene is reported by the Countess.  On the point of gathering the train of her gown, she hears Rudolf calling her:

“Countess Maria, don’t leave, stay for a while…”

The Archduke is morose and nervous.  He speaks of a bouquet that he is going to give to the bride, then he holds out his hand to the Countess, begging her:

“In Heaven’s name, say something nice to me.”

The lady-in-waiting dissolves into tears.

“May God bless Your Imperial Highness and his happiness!”

Despite many efforts, the wedding in the Church of the Augustines is not joyful.  Sissi, very grave, hears her daughter-in-law answer a loud “Yes” to the Cardinal while that of her son is barely audible.

Stephanie of Belgium, having become Archduchess and future Empress of Austria, will conserve a nightmarish impression of her honeymoon.  She writes:

“My illusions were destroyed by the terrible experience of my wedding night.”

The honeymoon unfolds at Laxenburg, and Sissi does not appear to have bothered about installing an agreeable decor there for the young people.  It is cold, it is snowing.  A smell of mildew reigns throughout all of the Castle’s badly-lit rooms.

“Not one plant, not one flower to celebrate our arrival.  (…)  Nothing seemed to have been prepared.  There were neither carpets nor a dressing-table.  Near my bedchamber, a basin on an iron tripod.  (…)  I could not help noticing that no-one had felt any interest for me, the child-woman.  I was not even accorded a residence worthy of the future Empress of Austria.”

It is revealing that Elisabeth did not seek to surround the young couple with delicate attentions.  This marriage is not to her liking, for it is not a marriage of love.  As for Rudolf, he has gone to the altar with appalling resignation.  He has obeyed his father, he has sacrificed himself.  But who has noticed?  His mother’s instinct does not permit her to see the whole importance of the unfolding drama.

***

In July, Sissi is in Bavaria at the home of her brother Louis-Wilhelm.  News about Louis II is more and more worrying.  He doesn’t want to be seen by anyone but his cousin.  What is going to become of Bavaria?

Elisabeth meets Franz-Josef at Godollo.  The Emperor is satisfied.  He has just concluded an alliance with the new Tsar, Alexander III.  (On 13 March 1881, Tsar Alexander II had not escaped the fifth attempt to assassinate him.  He had died, torn apart by a bomb.)  The accord – kept secret – disposes that Austria, Russia and Prussia each agree to remain neutral if one of them is attacked by a fourth power.  The most interesting element of this accord is to allow Austria-Hungary to transform the occupation of Bosnia-Herzegovina into annexation.

Drama is never faraway.  On 8 December, while Franz-Josef is finishing dinner at the Hofburg, His Chamberlain brings him a message.  In a broken voice, he reads:

“The Ringtheater is in flames…”

The fire is a catastrophe:  it had started onstage.  The theatre was full.  The Viennese had come in great numbers to see the second performance of The Tales of Hoffmann, the posthumous chef-d’oeuvre by Offenbach.  While the fire was spreading with incredible speed, the audience had rushed to the exit doors which opened inward.  The first collective panic of the theatrical world made four hundred victims, either burnt or crushed against the blocked exits.  Emotion is high and the deceased are considered national martyrs.  At his own expense, Franz-Josef will have an expiatory chapel raised at the emplacement of the destroyed theatre.

Vienna and the Empire are in mourning.  The Press accuses the Government of incompetence.  It is more than time to reform the absurd system of doors that do not open outward.  For Franz-Josef, this ordeal is difficult.  Sissi is worried.  To her lady-in-waiting, she admits, disillusioned:

“Popularity is so fleeting…”

To be continued.

Elisabeth, the amazon queen – part 8

The imperial family at Godollo.

On 25 April 1879, a storm breaks and the Silver Wedding Jubilee ceremonies have to be delayed until 28 April because of bad weather.  The crowd’s impatience has made it even more enthusiastic.  In bright sunshine, the Emperor and Empress take place under a dais at eleven o’clock precisely.  Franz-Josef is standing, wearing a helmet with a long green plume, saluting his standards and colours.  Elisabeth (Sissi) and her daughter Maria-Valeria are seated, sheltered by a parasol, between the Emperor and Prince Rudolf, Archduke of Austria, who is also standing.  All of the trade corporations advance in an incredible procession before the imperial tent.  A baker carries a giant bretzel, a piece of which is snatched as it passes, by some people in the second storey of a house on the Ring.  On the pastry-cooks’ float, a wedding-cake one metre in diameter is resisting the heat.  The Master Printer Manz, disguised as Gutenberg, raises a composition on which can be read “Fifteen Days on the Danube”.  This is the title of a memoir written by Rudolf which has just been published.  The prettiest Viennese women, seated on a float, recall one of Durer’s works.  Then there are the hunters with their noisy packs of hounds.  Two hundred and thirty thousand people vibrate with these rejoicings, which are unparalleled in Europe.  A total success.  Franz-Josef, very moved, thanks his Government:

“Throughout my thirty years of reign, I have shared with my peoples many difficult hours and a lot of joys;  one could not procure me a purer nor deeper one than that of these last days.”

And the homage received by the Empress can be interpreted as a reconciliation between the city and the amazon sovereign.  A joke is circulating, in French, which makes Sissi laugh:

“The Empress is not celebrating twenty-five years of marriage but rather twenty-five years of manege!”

Vienna manifests a deep attachment to the couple.  It is the irrefutable proof that the peoples of Austria nourish a lively and warm sympathy for their monarchs.  The couple will receive a charming gift in the form of a great screen.  On five panels, their Jubilee is painted in a delicate and naive manner like Epinal images.  Sissi and Franz-Josef will place this screen in the Red Salon of the Imperial Villa, in Bad Ischl.

Prince Rudolf, Archduke of Austria.

At Godollo, the equestrian festivities begin again, between hunting and dressage.  The Empress is seeking to correct her faults by mounting all available horses.  This is no longer sport, it is a vocation.  The hunting season for the Crown Prince is also open.  Rudolf, who has several feminine successes to his credit, is literally pursued by a half-Greek widow, Baroness Helena Vetsera.  Viennese aristocracy watches, with a mixture of amusement and curiosity, the way in which the Baroness, who has two daughters, tries to marry them “well”.  Beseiged, Rudolf chooses to laugh about it.  Sissi and Franz-Josef are a lot less indulgent.  At the family dinner of 3 December, the day after the thirty-first anniversary of his rise to the throne, the Emperor remarks:

“This woman’s activity around Rudolf is incredible.  She follows him step by step.  Today, she even gave him a gift.”

Rudolf’s real thoughts are elsewhere.  He is living the happiest time of his life.  His travels have rendered him famous in Europe.  At twenty-two-years-old, he is the most observed Crown Prince and the most sought after.  His personal life, very agitated, doesn’t really bother his father, but the Emperor thinks that he should find a wife for his son.  It’s about time…  And Franz-Josef already has an idea.  Having made a precise examination of all the possible young ladies, he has shown interest in Stephanie of Belgium, the daughter of King Leopold II.  Her mother, Queen Marie-Henriette, was born Archduchess of Austria.  The King of the Belgians is favourable to the union.  So, when Elisabeth manifests her intention of leaving for Ireland at the end of January 1880, Franz-Josef asks her to pass through Brussels on her way back.

***

The new stay in Ireland is marked by a succession of falls from horseback and spectacular accidents.  The Empress gives the impression of wanting to stretch her efforts – and her luck? –  to their limit, by looking for more speed, wider ditches, higher banks.  Her habitual admirers follow her, when they can.  Around her, the best cavaliers fall, including Middleton.  She recounts to Franz-Josef, frightened by this recital of stunts and accidents:

“He remained attached to his stirrup and it was almost more terrifying than the other day…”

The Empress is more in danger of killing herself on horseback than of having a love-affair with Captain Middleton…

However, Elisabeth is recalled to reality by a message from Franz-Josef.  He asks her to see Queen Victoria to compensate for the effect of the Empress of Austria’s presence, for more than a month, in Irish territory.  Sissi is not happy but she doesn’t argue.  On 10 March, she lunches at Windsor Castle.  Returning to the Claridge Hotel, in London, Elisabeth receives a telegramme.  She blanches.  Her lady-in-waiting trembles as she opens the message.  She reads:

“The Crown Prince is engaged to Princess Stephanie of Belgium.”

She exclaims:

“God be praised!  It’s not a misfortune!”

Sissi replies:

“May God make that true.”

This fear, unfortunately founded, shows the premonitory instinct of the Empress.  Although, her anxiety is mostly about the ages of the fiances;  Stephanie is only fifteen.  Since her own marriage, Sissi is afraid of premature unions.

On the way home to Austria, she stops in Brussels.  All the royal family is there.  Splendid in a blue gown with a mink border, Sissi captivates all gazes.  The comparison with Princess Stephanie is not to the young girl’s advantage.  She is fresh, a little plump.  Elisabeth questions Queen Henriette:  Stephanie is not yet pubescent…  Sissi is convinced:  this marriage is madness.  It must be delayed…  And Rudolf?  Is he in love or is he submitting to his father, who is negotiating a marriage for State reasons?  A brutal change has occurred in the Heir to the Throne’s behaviour.  A few weeks ago, he declared to his former preceptor:

“I am not ready to be a husband and I have no intention of becoming one as long as I can prevent it.”

But, on Sunday 7 March, after his last interview with Stephanie, he writes to this same Count Latour:

“I have found what I was looking for.  Stephanie is pretty, good, astute, very distinguished and will become for the Emperor a daughter worthy of trust, a faithful subject and a good Austrian.”

Having known many pretty, easy girls, Stephanie’s absence of maturity has perhaps moved him.

Franz-Josef is happy and reassured.  But the Empress is worried.  The discussion turns nasty.  Sissi obtains only one thing:  that the date of the wedding be not fixed immediately.  Rudolf complains that his mother is very reserved about his fiancee, but he returns to his garnison’s Command, in Prague.

Back in Bavaria, and thinking that Louis II is at Berg Castle, Sissi crosses the lake.  The sovereign is absent, and the Empress, disappointed, wants to leave her cousin a mark of her passage which is more affectionate than a visiting card.  In the park, she picks a branch of jasmin and adds it to her card.

***

To be continued.

Elisabeth, the amazon queen – part 7

The imperial family at Godollo.

Rumours about the continual presence of Bay Middleton at his mother’s side finally come to the ears of the Heir to the Throne.  And at a dinner given by the Prince of Wales, Prince Rudolf, Archduke of Austria, turns his back on Middleton.  The incident, reported to Empress Elisabeth (Sissi), affects her greatly.  That there are always eyes and ears which see and hear the worst insinuations, Sissi already knows.  But that she is calumnied to her son, she cannot bear.  Between Sissi and Rudolf, the climate is tense.  And on 23 February 1878, she returns alone to Vienna, for Rudolf has to meet Bismarck in Berlin.

Russia has just beaten Turkey and is preparing its dismemberment by creating a “great Bulgaria” protected by the Tsar.  This ruling, imposed by the Treaty of San Stefano on 3 March 1878, cannot be accepted by either England, who had sent a fleet to protect Constantinople from the Russians, or Austria-Hungary, who sees its route to the East barred by it.

Sissi joins her very worried husband.  And, on 8 March, Franz-Josef’s father, Archduke Franz-Karl, dies.  The Emperor is very affected, the Empress doesn’t leave him.  Although she has renounced all direct political influence, she is plunged into the divisions among the Court, which is protesting the San Stefano Treaty, a new step in the weakening of Austria;  Bismarck proposes what he calls his help as “an honest courtier”.  And on 13 July, a Congress meets in Berlin.  Franz-Josef is aiming for the annexation of Bosnia-Herzegovina and he knows that England will support him, for she can only support anything which will slow Russia’s territorial expansion.  The Congress stipulates therefore that Bosnia-Herzegovina will be administered and militarily occupied by Austria-Hungary.  The advantage is that Franz-Josef does not risk seeing a great Slavic State created on his southern borders.  The inconvenience being that the Sultan conserves a European presence.

On 9 September, Sissi joins her parents for a grand family reunion, for Ludovika and Max are celebrating their golden wedding anniversary.  The celebration takes place South of Munich, at Tegernsee, beside a ravishing lake nestled between the forest mountains and pastures.  All the children, grandchildren, cousins and relatives meet in a former Benedictine Abbey.  In the North wing, transformed into a brasserie, litres of an excellent beer are poured.  In the South wing, transformed into a castle, Karl-Theodore, Sissi’s favourite brother, receives the family.  Elisabeth and Rudolf reconcile, and the atmosphere is joyous.  The only big problem is what is happening to Louis II.  He lives only at night, dressing as an Oriental prince while Schiller’s play William Tell is recited to him.  His cousin is asking herself if he is not going to fall into total dementia.

Prince Rudolf, Archduke of Austria.

On 11 December, the Court is seized with emotion.  Rudolf wounds himself with a carabine.  The wound, on the left hand, is the result of the Prince’s sinister habit of ceaselessly playing with firearms and firing on any game passing within reach.  It is rather curious that Rudolf manifests such passion for animals on the one hand and a wish to kill them on the other.

Between Sissi and her son, relations are difficult.  Rudolf is becoming independent which leads him to escape his mother’s influence.  Affected as Colonel of the 36th Regiment of Infantry in Prague, he leads an active life, from seven in the morning to six at night, discovering with interest the rigours of military life.

***

1879.  Elisabeth decides to travel back across the English Channel.  It is not England that attracts her, but Ireland.  The English hunts, she has been told, are nothing beside those of Ireland.  Franz-Josef objects that, vis-a-vis Queen Victoria, Ireland’s anti-English atmosphere does not allow the Empress of Austria this stay, without her presence being badly interpreted.  She answers that these political tensions have been greatly exaggerated by the London Press.

At the end of January, the Empress arrives at Meath Castle, to the West of Dublin.  Her lady-in-waiting panics:  there are more little walls and ditches than in England.  Elisabeth risks falling from horseback even more.  And, in fact, her manner of mounting at full gallop for hours at a time astounds the inhabitants.  Refusing to wear gloves so as to better hold the reins, her hands are bleeding.  The amazon Empress gives herself daily challenges.  She writes to her mother:

“Here, at last, I feel free and at ease.  The great advantage of Ireland is that one doesn’t meet any Royal Highnesses here.”

Total peace will be refused her even at the end of the world.  Unhappiness joins her in the heart of magical Ireland.  In the night of 11 to 12 March, a catastrophic inundation destroys the Hungarian commercial city of Szegedin, around ninety kilometres to the East of Budapest.  Tens of thousands of people find themselves without a home and two thousand deaths are deplored.  Very quickly at the city, Franz-Josef circulates on a barge in the middle of the muddy lake.  The Queen’s absence shocks the Hungarians.  It is only four days later that Elisabeth is completely informed of the size of the disaster.  She writes to the Emperor:

“The sad news decides me to leave immediately…  It is the greatest sacrifice that I can make, but in such a case, it is necessary”.

It is even indispensable, but the word “sacrifice” used by the Empress is not too strong:  when a passion is anchored in her head, only a drama can turn her from it.

Eleven days later, Franz-Josef is radiant, Sissi returns in excellent condition.  He is dazzled.  Like the day of his marriage.  She is “the prettiest grandmother in the world”, as the newspapers say, and that rather annoys Sissi.  However, twenty-five years have gone by since their union.  On 24 April 1879, Vienna celebrates the imperial couple’s Silver Jubilee.

From all of the Empire’s provinces, delegations are announced in a mixture of languages and costumes.  The day before the Jubilee, three thousand five hundred guests press into the Palace.  The imperial couple makes its entry, acclaimed by a fantastic ovation.  Elisabeth is wearing a gown of light green satin.  Her hair flowing down her back sparkles with diamonds and rubies.  The delegations are stunned:  the lady sovereign appears to be barely twenty-five…  On the other hand, Franz-Josef is aged by his balding head and his pepper-and-salt side-whiskers.

To be continued.

Elisabeth, the amazon queen – part 6

The imperial family at Godollo.

During the Summer of 1876, the situation in the Balkans flares up.  Counting on Russia’s aid, Serbia and Montenegro declare war on Turkey.  Andrassy, whose anti-Russian feelings are exacerbated, makes it difficult for Emperor Franz-Josef of Austria to meet the Tsar.  The Emperor negotiates in the greatest secret with Alexander II, who wants to drag Austria-Hungary into a war of conquest.  He would like to occupy Bulgaria while Franz-Josef would annex Bosnia-Herzegovina.  However, Franz-Josef does not formally agree.

Disappointed that Franz-Josef is unable to join her, Sissi goes to Bavaria, accompanied, among others, by her new companion Plato, a shepherd dog who has replaced Shadow whom she will never be able to forget, however:  a marble statue of the big dog holding out his left paw has found a place in the smoking-room of the Imperial Villa in Bad Ischl.

Then she decides to return to Corfu, which had enchanted her fifteen years earlier.  Franz-Josef buys her a personal yacht, the Miramar.  It can be seen how much the Emperor shows almost unending material generosity to his spouse.  This time, Corfu retains her for only a short time, but Athens attracts her.  Her visit is of course concentrated on the ancient city.  She has read over and over again the Odyssey, seeking perhaps a comparison between Ulysses, the lost navigator, and herself, the wandering empress.

September unites the whole family at Godollo.  And a surprise guest arrives at Budapest Station:  Bay Middleton.  The Empress had invited him to come to hunt in Hungary when she had left England.  The presence of this officer, whose only merit is the fact that he is an excellent “gentleman rider”, surprises a few courtiers.  Sissi appreciates his simplicity, his frankness, and is amused by the permanent misunderstandings between Franz-Josef and Bay, without mocking him, however.  In fact, following a fall from horseback, the Englishman is almost completely deaf.  In approximative German and choppy English, the conversation between the two men is often funny.

Bay Middleton is an elegant man of around forty.  Fairly corpulent, he has flaming red hair and a tiny, matching moustache.  His face is literally covered in freckles and his nose seems a bit too big.  To compensate these faults, his teeth sparkle with whiteness and his blue eyes bubble with gaiety, making him attractive.  That Bay Middleton had begun by admiring the amazon, then the woman, is not original, since all men who approach the Empress fall in love with her.  That this dazzlement transforms into love, and that it is shared, is not proven.

In the Empress’ legend, nothing definitely proves that she accorded her favours to the officer, to the seductive Andrassy, or to other men overwhelmed by her beauty.  And they were very numerous.  On the other hand, the shared passions for horses, a political idea, dreaming, and other communities of views, either literary or poetic, are certain on Elisabeth’s side.  She has a vital need to use her energy, her enthusiasm, her gifts, even if, in the end, this whirlwind does not calm her anguish.  Her essential need is to communicate.

***

Franz-Josef and the Tsar have had laborious and long negotiations, but, on 15 January 1877, they sign an ultrasecret treaty in which Austria-Hungary will remain neutral in the case of a Russian war in Bulgaria or in Turkey.  Alexander II confides to the Emperor, in April, that a pacific solution must be excluded, since the new Sultan, Abdul Hamid, refuses the reforms wanted by the powerful countries.

“The moment for action has arrived.  My armies are receiving the order to enter Turkey.”

The 1877 conflict greatly recalls the Crimean War.

A young man is following the progression of the Russian troops with great interest.  It is Prince Rudolf, Archduke of Austria.  At seventeen, he had manifested his wish to not remain submitted to Prussia.  And, turning toward the Slavic peoples of the South, he had written:

“Austria must found a strong Danube empire”.

On 27 July, he is nineteen and is declared major.  He no longer has a preceptor, he now has a Household.  His Intendant is Count Charles of Bombelles who had been in the service of his uncle, the unfortunate Maximilien.  This choice suscitates diverse comments, for Bombelles is known for his immorality and Rudolf displays a great appetite for the joys of life.  One of his educators gives him a last piece of advice:

“Do not rush to empty life’s goblet in one swallow.  Enjoy the pleasures of existence in a measured way.”

On the other hand, Franz-Josef shows great open-mindedness about the Prince’s too-liberal lifestyle.

“My son’s youth must not be stolen from him like mine was,”

he says, remembering the heavy burden that he had received at the age of eighteen.

Prince Rudolf, Archduke of Austria.

Having spent Christmas at Schonbrunn, Elisabeth decides to go back to England, but she will be accompanied by Rudolf.  It is their first voyage together to a foreign land.  Elisabeth is happy that her son accompanies her but their intimacy remains glacial.  It is a new paradox:  she greatly appreciates his generous ideas, but remains awed by his intelligence.  Both very sensitive, they are unable to become completely close.  It is curious that Elisabeth, who is so instinctive, does not feel that her son is sometimes paralysed, even hurt by this fantasque mother, who is so seductive, and has so often left his father alone.  And when they make this voyage together, they see each other in London almost as little as in Vienna.  However, it must be noted that when the Empress dines with her son, she is particularly careful of her appearance.  Rudolf’s blue eyes contemplate, admirative, this mother who, at over forty, conserves a young girl’s silhouette.

Elisabeth remains only a short time in London, where she finds her sister, Maria of Naples, and goes to Cottesbrook Park, a Georgian home in Northamptonshire that she has rented for six weeks.  She is the queen of the hunt while numerous horsemen make spectacular falls.  Bay Middleton prevents the Empress from performing too many equestrian acrobatics.

Meanwhile, Rudolf is getting to know the political and business milieux of England.  His stay is very instructive.  Between a debate in the House of Commons and a technical visit to a spinning factory, he is discovering the workings of a country that is the workshop of the world.  His visit to Queen Victoria is a particular highlight.  The sovereign, who has been reigning for forty years and has been Empress of India for the last two, is charmed by Rudolf.  She invites him to spend a few days in the Isle of Wight, at Osborne House, to rest from the joys of London organized by the Prince of Wales, who is an expert in the matter – his reputation in this domain is well-established.

To be continued.

Elisabeth, the amazon queen – part 5

The imperial family at Godollo.

Empress Elisabeth (Sissi) considers Godollo to be her true home.  Godollo is her refuge;  a meeting-place for hunts, for games with Maria-Valeria, for celebrations in which everyone participates.  Emperor Franz-Josef is so happy to find her in excellent humour that he is transformed.  He had been deprived of her for three months, he had feared for her health and now, at last, family life is back, with its simple joys, his days of hunting and the hope of a serene existence.  But melancholy waits, tenacious.  One day in October, Sissi loses her faithful companion, Shadow.  The big dog, who followed his mistress like a shadow, is buried in the park.  Sissi loses a friend who had never disappointed her, and locks herself up in her bedroom, in tears.

She notices that Rudolf has changed a lot.  The Heir to the Throne is seventeen, and his relations with his mother are distant.  His intelligence is superior.  His open mind and his loving qualities have already made him very popular, in both Vienna and Budapest.  [The towns of Buda and Pest were united in 1873.]  He speaks very well in public, fluently speaks several languages, and both his historical and economic knowledge are very advanced, with a marked interest for social preoccupations.  Rudolf, well-informed about European politics, has just drawn up a memorandum destined for his preceptor in which he reveals very liberal ideas and sympathy for the republican system.  Franz-Josef is satisfied with his son’s intellectual value and hopes that his political ideas will be modified with age and experience.

Sissi regrets that her son is so little interested in the Arts and, in particular, in poetry.  It is not however through lack of imposing a great number of verses on him to learn by heart.  From her, he has a free spirit and a passionate nature which asks questions.  He says:

“My mind is always occupied with one thing or another.  Everything interests me.  Each thing speaks a different language to me.  Sometimes, I have cheerful, happy thoughts, sometimes they are sombre and bitter…  I realise that I shall never know all that I wish to know…”

It is understandable that Franz-Josef is worried about these tendencies.  In definitive, Rudolf’s lively temperament, which is nervous and a bit exalted, makes him more Sissi’s son than Franz-Josef’s.

After a few months of harmonious life, Sissi leaves for England, at the end of February, with the intention of participating in the last hunts of the season.  Franz-Josef has given in.  How can he retain this beautiful bird who still suffocates as if life is only a cage?  His love, revived by four months of life in common, has just tripled the annual pension that the Empress would receive if he died.

In London, Queen Victoria, remembering that Sissi had twice declined her dinner invitation, makes it known to the Empess that her timetable does not allow her to receive her.  Elisabeth protests to her husband, on 5 March.

An intrepid horsewoman, she worries the English who receive her for a hunt.  The Sassetot accident is in everyone’s mind.  Captain George Middleton, nicknamed Bay, is chosen to escort the Empress.  This mission does not really enchant him.  He says to Lord Spencer, the organizer of the hunt:

“What do I care if she’s an empress?  How am I supposed to watch over her?  Of course, I’ll do it, but I would prefer to follow the hunt how I want.”

Lord Spencer’s choice surprises his friends.  Bay Middleton is one of the best horsemen in the Kingdom, but he takes risks.  Lord Spencer knows Sissi too well to ignore that she would not put up with a timorous companion.  Around one hundred cavaliers take part in this hunt which unfolds in Northamptonshire.

In an excellent mood, Sissi, who has finally been received by Queen Victoria and fulfilled the role assigned to her by Franz-Josef, is truly untiring.  She donates a trophy, it is Bay who wins it.  She observes this horseman with a critical eye.  He is not very tall, but he is racy, sure of himself, cultivating humour which is sometime ferocious.  At thirty-years-old, he has the privilege of both interesting men and seducing women.

At the end of the first day of hunting, the officer recognizes that the Empress is an exceptional amazon.  On 26 March, Elisabeth writes to Franz-Josef:

“Everyone is asking me if you will not decide to come over here one day.”

But Franz-Josef, faithful to his principles, is absorbed in the examination of international politics.  Tsar Alexander II dreams of taking revenge for the Crimean War, and it is vital that the great European powers have a common vision of the situation.  The Emperor is counting a lot on the support of Queen Victoria, and is relieved that she had received Sissi to luncheon.  Sissi doesn’t want to hear anything about politics.

On 4 April, the Empress returns to Vienna.  Franz-Josef is happy:  Sissi has not had an accident.

A letter arrives for Elisabeth, written by Louis II of Bavaria, at two o’clock in the morning.  Between a migraine headache and a toothache, the King, who has just financed the construction of Wagner’s theatre, in Bayreuth, delivers his anguish to his only ally:

“Perhaps a day will come when I, in turn, will make peace with this heavy Earth!”

And the tormented King concludes by strikingly resuming  his life:

“I want to remain for myself and for others an eternal enigma.  Dear and precious, you are and will remain, for I know that never have you doubted me.”

An eternal enigma…  Louis II’s wish will come true.  The Earth appears heavy to him because he is unable to efface from his memory the vision of his brother Othon, who has completely descended into madness.  And the fear of sinking, himself, into dementia leaves him prostrate.  If the Wittelsbach heredity is considered responsible for these neuroses, it must however be recalled that on his mother’s side, a Prussian princess, Louis could also have gained a few genetic faults:  one of his aunts believed that she had swallowed a piano, which is not a sign of absolute equilibrium.

To be continued.

Elisabeth, the amazon queen – part 4

The imperial family at Godollo.

At the end of May 1875, when Empress Elisabeth (Sissi) manifests her intention of making a stay in France, Emperor Franz-Josef replies that this trip worries him:

“Something bad will happen to you.”

And Elisabeth, doubtless struck by her husband’s anxiety, draws up her Will.  On 31 July, her train stops at Fecamp Station.  Her arrival could not be a banal event at the Sassetot-le-Mauconduit Chateau, an elegant manor built during the reign of Louis XV, offering twenty-five windows on each facade, in the heart of an agreeable park where immense stables are installed.  It is situated right near Petites Dalles Beach.  The Chateau belongs to Monsieur Albert Perquer, who is from a Le Havre family.  Work has been completed in record time;  a salon has been transformed into a dining-room and boudoir, the room above Elisabeth’s bedchamber becomes a wardrobe, the billiard-room becomes a salon.  How could Sissi pass unseen in this part of the Caux where she arrives with seventy people?  Curiosity pushes the population to come to see the sovereign.  Albert Perquer says:

“Just think!  At no time has either a crowned head, nor even a President of the Republic, ever shown themselves in the region.”

The Archbishop of Rouen appears every five years, at the moment of his pastoral tour, and the Prefet of the Seine-Inferieure presides, once a year, the Revision Council.  In these conditions, the presence of an empress and queen is a revolution…

Although she had chosen to travel under her pseudonym, the size of her suite, her luggage – she has brought her little, narrow, hard, iron bed - her enormous dog Shadow, everything, in fact, draws attention to Sissi, who alights from her carriage in a dark suit of blue cheviotte.  Maria-Valeria is accompanied by her two governesses, one English, one French.  Two Court chefs are assisted by a French chef, engaged in Paris.  According to Elisabeth’s Intendant,

“his presence will allow the experimental study of the culinary art of a country which prides itself on knowing all of its secrets.”

To close this food chapter, we must also signal two Austrian confiseurs, experts in mounted presentations and in sweet dishes.

Sissi’s first visit is for her three horses, who have arrived by the same train as she.  She brings them carrots.  The Empress’ presence at the Sassetot church, for Sunday Mass, causes a sensation.  Her walks from the beach to the Chateau, with her dog “as big as a mule” and her little black boy, are not very discrete.  To avoid being seen, Sissi has a canvas corridor installed from the Chateau to the sea, where she bathes every morning.  Today still, near the Sassetot-le-Mauconduit Chateau, there is a vicinal track which bears the name Allee Elisabeth-d’Autriche.

She has a professor of equitation, whom she had met the year before, a Mr Allen, come over from England.  He is a cavalier who has a tendency to ask the impossible of both horses and people.  He persuades the Empress to seriously attempt an obstacle course and sets one up in the park.  On the morning of 11 September, Elisabeth is trying a new horse, Zouave.  But when the Empress arrives in front of a little hedge, the horse hesitates, leaps with a formidable jump and, landing badly on its front legs, falls to its knees.  Elisabeth is thrown against a shoot from an oak tree and remains unconscious, while her mount takes off limping.

A cry shakes Countess Festetics, one of the Hungarian ladies-in-waiting, absorbed in her book while the rest of the Empress’ suite indulges in the joys of the beach.  An out-of-breath equerry is calling:

“A doctor!  Quickly, a doctor!  There has been an accident in the park!  Her Majesty is half-dead!”

With precaution, Sissi is transported to a garden seat about two hundred metres away.  Doctor Widerhofer, who has at last been found on the beach, examines her in silence, very worried.  Elisabeth opens her eyes, but her gaze is glazed and a bruise is appearing on her forehead.  Her lips are trembling.  She wants to speak:

“What has happened?”

“Your Majesty has fallen off her horse.”

“But I didn’t mount.  What time is it?”

“Half-past-ten, Your Majesty.”

“In the morning?  But I have never mounted on horseback at this time of day.”

Countess Festetics is crying and cannot forgive herself for not having been able to restrain the imprudent Empress.

Sissi wants to see the horse.  He is bleeding and it is noted that, with the violence of the shock, Elisabeth’s saddle is detached.

Sissi continues to speak mechanically, recovering her spirits little by little but with anguishing questions:

“Where are we?”

“In Normandy, Your Majesty.”

“But, what are we doing in Normandy?  If it is true that I fell, I beg you, do not frighten the Emperor.”

The doctor diagnoses concussion.  The night is bad.  Sissi suffers a lot from her head and vomits.

Despite her plea, Franz-Josef has to be told.  The Emperor panics and wants to leave immediately for France.  Andrassy begs him to wait for another message, for the hasty arrival of Franz-Josef on French territory would not escape the Republic’s police.  And if the Empress sees the Emperor alarmed, his presence could risk harming the absolute rest that the hurt Empress needs.

After a sleepless night in his Schonbrunn study, the Emperor receives another message:  his wife is feeling better.

Pathetic letters arrive in Normandy, in which the sovereign thanks Heaven:

“I do not dare to imagine what could have happened.  What would become of me without you, the good angel of my life?”

Franz-Josef makes her promise not to mount again immediately.  Elisabeth is shattered.  Her remarks are those of a resigned woman, who knows that all is written and that one cannot modify the march of fatality:

“They don’t want me to mount on horseback any more.  Whether I do or not, I shall die according to my destiny.”

And she caracoles in defiance, accompanied by one of the Emperor’s aides-de-camp, sent by him with the mission of preventing the Empress from performing any equestrian acrobatics.  But suddenly tired, she wants to see her family again.  She announces to her spouse:

“Now, I am quite ready to come home.”

To be continued.

Elisabeth, the amazon queen – part 3

The imperial family at Godollo.

Emperor Franz-Josef returns from Russia at the end of February.  Elisabeth is dreamy, withdrawn inside herself, certain that people are looking at her as if she were a strange animal.  She declares to her lady-in-waiting:

“As soon as there is something to see, everyone rushes to see it;  whether it be a monkey dancing on a Barbary organ or me, it’s the same thing.”

She refuses to go to an evening attended by both Liszt and Wagner in Vienna, and soon, Franz-Josef begins an exhausting voyage in Dalmatia, pronouncing around one hundred speeches in one month.

At the same time, the young civil servant, Frederic Pacher of Theinburg, who is becoming desperate at Gabrielle’s silence, receives another letter.  The lady in yellow is surprised that he doesn’t believe her stay in England and thinks that her name is not Gabrielle.  She even tells him that she detests dogs…  but Fritz is more and more persuaded that Gabrielle is none other than Elisabeth, the Empress.  He writes this to her and obtains only silence.  For good.  In light of this audacity, Gabrielle has vanished.  The Carnaval games will go no further than these letters.

The truth about her identity will only be definitely established nearly sixty years later when, by cross-referencing several documents, Count Corti, the author of the Empress’ first complete biography, finds Mr Fritz Pacher of Theinburg.  Before his death in 1934, at eighty-six-years-old, he remembered the details of the ball very well and had conserved these precious letters.

***

In July, the Emperor is relaxing at Bad Ischl.  Elisabeth is with him, but soon her travelling frenzy incites her to leave.  On 27 July, she boards her train, accompanied by her daughter Maria-Valeria and her Hungarian confidantes.  Her final destination is the Isle of Wight, off the English coast, which she reaches on 2 August.

Another island, another refuge.  The Isle of Wight benefits from a gentle climate, and the vegetation is rich in magnolias and lauriers.  The Ambassador of Austria-Hungary has rented a castle for Elisabeth in the island’s South, overlooking the English Channel.  It is surprising that the Empress had chosen to stay there at such a time, knowing full well that Queen Victoria is residing nearby, at Osborne House, her vast Summer residence.  When one knows Sissi’s phobia for anything that imposes an official life, why did she place herself in the way of inevitable obligations?  It is another paradox.  Sissi’s relative incognito, she is travelling under the name of Countess Hohenembs – one of the many titles carried by Franz-Josef – is quickly pierced.  Her suite – domestics and Hungarian pastrycook, governesses, nurses, masseurs and lady companion – are not invisible.  A French chef is among them.  We could ask why:  the Empress eats almost exclusively meat juices and chicken soup.

The day of her installation, Queen Victoria visits her.  She wants to make the Empress’ acquaintance.  Between the slim Sissi and the plump Victoria, there is a world of difference.  Maria-Valeria writes to her father:

“I had never seen such a fat woman before.”

Accompanied by the Prince of Wales, future Edward VII, Victoria amiably enquires if her guest is satisfied with her installation.  Bathrooms have been put in, the billard-room has been transformed into a gymnasium, and a Jersey cow, visited each week by a veterinary surgeon, gives rich milk for Maria-Valeria.  Sissi reassures Franz-Josef:

“I was very polite and everyone seemed surprised about it…  They know perfectly well that I want to be left in peace and don’t want to disturb me…”

But Victoria comes back ten days later, invites Elisabeth to Osborne House, insists, but Sissi refuses.  Queen Victoria is not used to having her invitations refused, particularly when she gives them herself.  The Empress is beautiful but really has no sense of duty.  Everything that is said of her is therefore true.

To flee this neighbour, Sissi decides to visit London.  A London curiosity attracts her, the famous Madame Tussaud’s Wax Museum.  A surprise is awaiting her there:  an image of Franz-Josef, in uniform, with his fluffy side-whiskers.

Her visit to this magical place lasts more than one-and-a-half hours.

Another visit is more worrying.  It has become a habit:  she wants to see mental asylums.  Bedlam is the biggest one in the world, it shelters thousands of mentally ill people.  Elisabeth, fascinated, questions the doctors.  She speaks gently to the deranged, and when one of them tells her he is Saint Peter, she answers in a natural tone:

“Then, you will soon be liberated.”

The Empress is unable to forget that her cousin, Othon of Bavaria, Louis II’s young brother, is now locked away.  And how can she not think of her sister-in-law Charlotte, Maximilien’s widow, closely watched in Belgium, in prey to attacks of dementia which are stronger and stronger?

At the end of August, she accepts one of the numerous invitations which have arrived on the Ambassador of Austria-Hungary’s desk, that of the Duke of Rutland who is organizing the season’s first hunt on his splendid lands at Belvoir Castle, near Nottingham.  Two days on horseback…  Elisabeth is happy.  Returning to the Isle of Wight – Victoria has left for Balmoral, in Scotland – Sissi tries to make Franz-Josef come over, but guesses that the answer will be negative:

“Think about it for a few days before immediately saying no with your usual obstination…”

But Franz-Josef’s grandeur is to always place his mission before his pleasures.

Sissi decides to return home, for she is missing him, and she wants to see her son Rudolf after the Galicia manoeuvres where he had accompanied his father.

“I know how much you love me, with or without demonstrations, and we are only happy precisely because we know not to disturb each other.”

A good example of conjugal lucidity and tolerance…

To be continued.

Elisabeth, the amazon queen – part 2

The imperial family at Godollo.

It is the time of year when Carnaval balls unleash the Viennese.  With Johann Strauss’ waltzes, Vienna is Europe’s ballroom.  The most popular evening is that of Mardi-Gras which unfolds in the grand ballroom of the Society of the Friends of Music, which Schubert had directed.  The redoubt is, of course, masked, but only the women hide their faces.  Sissi, who has just presided an official, boring ball, decides to go to the ball which has the whole town talking.  Such a ball, where she can protect her incognito, is a perfect example of what the Empress is always seeking:  to see and hear without being recognized.  Sissi is completely at ease with this plan, set up in Franz-Josef’s absence.

The Empress, like a disobedient young girl, pretends to retire to her apartments, dons a yellow brocade domino, hides her hair under a blonde wig and her face behind a black, lacy mask.  As a precaution, Ida Ferenczy, who is in a red domino, decides to call the Empress “Gabrielle”, to steer any eventual suspicions onto Gabrielle Schmidt, Sissi’s chambermaid.

Eleven o’clock at night.  Having arrived at the ballroom where it is difficult to resist the enticing violins, the two women remain on the gallery which dominates the frenetic farandoles.  The Carnaval encourages all sorts of audacities;  women can address gentlemen.  Ida Ferenczy notices a man on his own, who is young, very elegant, and whose face is unknown to her.  The Empress’ companion goes up to him, passes her arm under his, and asks him all sorts of questions to try to situate him.  Does he belong to the aristocracy?  Is he familiar with the Court?  The answers are clear:  the young man is a civil servant and his name is Frederic Pacher of Theinburg.  Very excitedly, Ida asks him:

“A pretty woman is with me.  She is getting bored all alone up there on the gallery.  Would you like to distract her for a little while?”

He agrees.  The civil servant is intrigued by the lady in the yellow domino, who speaks with a gentle voice but asks questions which are too precise to be innocent:

“I am a stranger here…  What do people think of the Emperor?  Are they happy with the Government’s politics?”

He is prudent, but answers sincerely.  Then the face behind the lacy mask asks more troubling questions:

“Do you know the Empress?  Do you like her?  What do people say about her?”

The young man hesitates.  No, the lady in yellow cannot be the Empress.  The Empress would never come to a redoubt, and it is this reasoning which prods Elisabeth to be so imprudent.  The civil servant replies frankly:

“The Empress is a very beautiful woman.  I saw her on horseback at the Prater.  She is reproached with fleeing the crowd and being present so little, while she spends so much time with her dogs and her horses.”

This answer amuses Sissi.  The following question burns her lips:

“How old do you think I am?”

“Thirty-six…”

Sissi shudders.  He has exactly guessed her age, she whose youthful appearance is praised by thousands of admirers.  It is true that she is a grandmother…  Suddenly, this flirtation is no longer amusing Gabrielle.  She wants to leave.  But the Carnaval has its customs, and it is not acceptable for a lady in a domino to disappear after having asked so many questions, without a gesture of thanks.  The young man wants to kiss her hand, on condition that Gabrielle remove her glove.  She refuses;  the young man’s frankness seduces her, his audacity pleases her and, finally, reassures her.  The charm returns.  Joyfully she says to him:

“Stay and take me down to the ballroom.”

Then, the young man will live two surprising hours.  His companion is assuredly someone of high rank, doubtless a princess.  It is enough to see the way that she walks, her luxurious domino, and how ill-at-ease she is to be bumped in the joyous crowd.  And the lady in yellow talks to him continuously, passing in revue the political situation, sliding to higher subjects, unusual in a Mardi-Gras ball.  The young man who, before talking with Gabrielle, was wandering slowly in search of a one-night stand, is enthusiastic and perplexed.  The lady in yellow admits:

“Men are usually only flatterers.  One can only treat them with disdain.  As for you, you seem different.”

Gabrielle wants to know if he suspects her identity.  A vague feeling…  which he doesn’t dare mention.  She refuses to unveil her hand, but announces to him:

“We shall see each other again.  For example, would you come to Munich or Stuttgart, if I fixed an appointment there with you?”

Frederic Pacher of Theinburg is ready for any rendez-vous, at the end of the world if necessary.  What a strange woman, what an unusual, grave conversation amidst the laughing of Columbines…

The lady in yellow demands an ultimate promise:

“Take me to a fiacre, then leave the ballroom…”

The young man keeps his promise, but, while the ordered fiacre is driving up, he can no longer resist and tries to raise the bottom of the black mask hiding her face.  Ida Ferenczy rushes over and throws the lady in yellow into the fiacre, which leaves at a trot.

Mr Frederic Pacher of Theinburg remains alone.  And what if it was the Empress?  His head is inflamed, his thoughts are confused.  Is it possible?  Is it a dream?  On the following days, he tries to see her at the Prater.  By keeping watch, he finally sees her carriage drive by.  Their eyes meet.  It seems to him that the Empress displays emotion before closing the carriage’s curtain.

A week goes by.  The civil servant, who had given his address to the unknown lady from the ball, receives a letter posted in Munich.  With a mixture of emotion and curiosity, he reads:

“Dear friend, you will be surprised to receive my first lines from Munich.  I am passing through here for a few hours and I take this occasion to give you a sign of life as I promised you.”

Miracle:  she has not forgotten…  The young man rushes to his pen.  Gabrielle has indicated that he could write to her poste restante in Munich.  A second letter arrives, written from London.  Gabrielle complains about the fog, finds the city odious and is living amongst elderly aunts who have a cranky bulldog.

Frederic Pacher of Theinburg, whom Gabrielle calls Fritz, is perplexed.  The letter has been sent from London, but the Empress is still in Vienna, he has made enquiries.  Gabrielle stops writing.  No letter arrives from London, Munich or Vienna.

To be continued.