Elisabeth may have been a happy child. She was born on Christmas Eve, 1837, the fourth child of a Duke Maximilian Joseph in Bavaria and Princess Ludovika of Bavaria. There was a difference, in those days, between being a Duke in Bavaria and being a Duke of Bavaria. Maximilian was a minor noble; his wife had married beneath her.
The family lived in the country, and the children grew up in an undisciplined household. Elisabeth, called Sisi by the family, took after her father in her interests: she loved riding and hiking, circuses and the lower classes. Her older sister Helene was a bit more of a lady.
When Sisi was fifteen, she accompanied her mother and Helene on a trip to Bad Ischi, a spa town in Austria. It was planned as an engagement trip for Helene. The girls’ aunt, the Archduchess Sophia, had decided that her son would marry Helene.
Sophia was the wife of Archduke Franz Karl Joseph of Austria. Archduke Franz Karl was still alive, but he had renounced his claim to the throne in favor of his son, Franz Joseph I. That had been Sophia’s decision, as well. It was said that she was the “only man in the Hofberg [Palace]”
When the young man met the two sisters, however, he got his own ideas, and he stood up to his mother for what might have been the first time in his life. He didn’t want Helene; he wanted Sissy. Both mothers reluctantly agreed to the marriage, and before she was 16, Sisi became the Empress of Austria.
Sisi’s life went rapidly downhill. She began having health problems immediately after the wedding; she developed a bad cough and became even more nervous and unsettled. She did her best to learn the elaborate etiquette and protocols of life at court, but no matter how hard she tried she never seemed to please. She was a shy and dreamy girl, and her new mother-in-law was domineering and efficient. Sisi didn’t stand a chance.
Before long Elisabeth was pregnant, and gave birth to her first child, a daughter, 10 months after the wedding. Grandma Sophia rapidly took charge. She named the child after herself — without consulting the mother — and took the baby completely out of Sisi’s care, to apartments where she was looked after by servants completely loyal to herself. A year later, another baby, Gisela, was born. She was taken away from Sisi, too.
In 1857, three years after the wedding, Elisabeth and Franz Joseph visited Hungary. The country made a deep impression on her, even inspiring her to learn the language. Throughout the rest of her life, she would support Hungarian interests whenever possible, and the people of Hungary returned her love.
The trip to Hungary had another, less fortunate, consequence. Elisabeth had insisted on taking both children with them, and for once she got her way. While traveling, both girls became ill, probably with typhus. Gisela pulled through, but the two-year-old Sophia died. Elisabeth may have blamed herself for the death. She had always been a little prone to melancholy, but now she sank into a deep depression.
Elisabeth may have had little say over her children, and little influence at court, but she still had her beauty and she was determined to keep it. She was unusually tall for those times — 5 feet 8 inches tall — and she kept her weight at about 110 pounds. She was probably anorexic: she fasted for days, and performed grueling exercises. Besides riding, fencing, and walking, she performed calisthenics in her specially-built gymnasium. She also had her corsets laced extremely tightly, and had to special order heavy leather ones from Paris. The corsets wore out after a few weeks, probably due to their extreme tightness. Through most of her life, she managed to keep a 16-inch waistline.
Another point of pride was her luxurious long hair. It reached her feet, and took between two and three hours every day to have dressed. Her hairdresser was required to remove all rings and wear white gloves. When she was finished, she presented whatever hairs had fallen out to the Empress on a silver platter for inspection. While her hair was dressed, Sisi used her time productively by learning foreign languages.
In 1858, Elisabeth had a third child, a son this time, Rudolf, the Crown Prince. He, too, was raised by his grandmother, but he shared some of Elisabeth’s interests and temperament. Like Sisi, was moody and withdrawn. He had liberal views, and championed the common man, detesting the protocols and pomposity of the Austrian court. Tragically, when he was a man of 31, Rudolf and his mistress died in the alleged murder-suicide that is commonly known as the Mayerling Incident.
Following the birth of her son, Elisabeth’s health gave out completely. She was anemic, she was physically exhausted, and she had a persistent cough. At about the same time, the court was filled with rumors that Franz Joseph was having an affair with an actress named Frau Roll. Sisi left her husband and children — on the pretext of her health — and spent the winter in seclusion.
Six months later, she returned to Vienna, only to immediately become severely ill again. She left again, and this time stayed away for two years.
This was the beginning of a life-long pattern for Sisi. She returned to court intermittently — once to be crowned Empress of dual monarchy of Austria-Hungary in 1867 — but left again to travel. She produced another child during one of her visits to her husband, and this one, a girl, she was successful in raising herself. Grandmother Sophia was aging and less powerful, and would die a few years later.
After her son Rudolf’s death, Elisabeth never fully recovered. She wore black for the rest of her life — although stylishly, it is true. She was often severely depressed. It is likely she may have blamed herself for her son’s death, at least in part. In order to bury the young man in hallowed ground, it had to be said that he had been insane. Elisabeth’s family on her mother’s side had had some problems with mental stability — in fact, the Mad King Ludwig of Bavaria was her cousin.
The rest of Elisabeth’s life was spent constantly traveling. She liked the Mediterranean resorts. She often went to Lake Geneva. She even visited places that were not on the typical itinerary for northern European royalty: Portugal, Egypt, Turkey, and Algeria.
In 1898, at the age of 61, the Empress Elisabeth visited Geneva, Switzerland. She traveled incognito, as she often did. At 1:30 in the afternoon on September 10th, she and her lady-in-waiting, the Countess Irma Sztaray, left their hotel to catch a steamship to Montreaux. They were on foot, and alone. The Empress had sent her servants on ahead by train.
As they were walking, a 25-year-old Italian man came toward them. He seemed to stumble, and put out his hand to steady himself. Elisabeth collapsed, but was helped to her feet. The two women continued walking and boarded the ship, a distance of about 100 yards. She then lost consciousness. The ship had already left port.
Elisabeth was carried to the upper deck and laid on a bench. Her lady-in-waiting cut her corset ties, and noticed a small brown stain on her black dress. She was carried back to her room on a makeshift stretcher, and took her last breath as she was carried into the room.
The man that had “stumbled” against her had been the anarchist Luigi Lucheni, who had determined to assassinate someone important as a political action. He hadn’t gone to Geneva to kill the Empress Elisabeth, however. His real target had been the Duc d’Orleans, who had left Geneva earlier than anticipated. When Lucheni discovered that the Duc was gone, he settled on Elisabeth as a viable alternative.
Lucheni’s weapon had been a four-inch sharpened needle file, an instrument that was used to sharpen industrial needles. He had wanted to purchase a stiletto, but he didn’t have the 12 francs that one cost, so he manufactured his own weapon. The file had sunk into Elisabeth’s chest to a depth of 3 Ã’Ò½ inches, fractured a rib, and pierced the lung and pericardium before penetrating her heart. Her tight corset had prolonged her life by temporarily preventing the pericardial sac from filling with blood and stopping her heart.
When the Emperor Franz Joseph was informed of his wife’s death, his first fear was that she had committed suicide. It was not until the third telegram was received that he was relieved of that notion.
Lucheni was apprehended almost immediately, and his discarded weapon was located the following day. He openly admitted his crime, and was sentenced to a life in prison. He was outraged, and demanded to be tried according to the laws of Lucerne, which still had the death penalty. He signed his letter, “Luigi Lucheni, anarchist, and one of the most dangerous.” He committed suicide by hanging himself in his prison cell in 1910.
The Empress Elisabeth was buried on September 17. 82 sovereigns and high-ranking nobles attended her funeral. Her body was interred at the Church of the Capuchins in Vienna. Her heart was sent to the Augustinian Church, where she had been married. Her internal organs were entombed at the Metropolitan Church of Saint Stephen. It was the protocol for the burial of a Hapsburg Empress.
Sources: Chase’s Calendar of Events, 2011 Edition: The Ultimate Go-To Guide for Special Days, Weeks, and Months, Editors of Chase’s Calendar of Events; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/September 10; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elisabeth_of_Bavaria; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luigi_Lucheni; http://www.ecodelledolomiti.net/Num_4/Num_4_Eng/Sissi_Eng4.htm; http://eljen.net/elisabeth/sisibio.html; http://www.aboutvienna.org/personalities/wittelsbach.php; http://royalwomen.tripod.com/id3.html; http://www.wien-vienna.com/sisi.php.