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ELIZABETH EMPRESS OF AUSTRIA AND QUEEN OF HUNGARY
ELIZABETH EMPRESS OF AUSTRIA AND QUEEN OF HUNGARY
Translated from the German of Carl Küchler BY GEORGE P. UPTON Translator of “Memories,” “Immensee,” etc. WITH FOUR ILLUSTRATIONS CHICAGO A. C. McCLURG & CO. 1909 Copyright A. C. McClurg & Co. 1909 Published August 21, 1909 THE UNIVERSITY PRESS, CAMBRIDGE, U.S.A....
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Translator’s Preface
Translator’s Preface
The story of the life of Elizabeth of Bavaria, Empress of Austria and Queen of Hungary, is one of the saddest in the history of royalty, and in some respects recalls the story of the life of Marie Antoinette. Both their lives were sorrowful, both ended tragically, the one at the hands of an assassin, the other upon the guillotine. Elizabeth will not be remembered in history as a sovereign, for everything connected with the throne and with court life was distasteful to her, but rather as the beau
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Elizabeth Empress of Austria and Queen of Hungary Chapter I The Diamond Wedding
Elizabeth Empress of Austria and Queen of Hungary Chapter I The Diamond Wedding
On the ninth of September, 1888, an unusual event occurred in the princely house of Wittelsbach. Maximilian Joseph, the head of the ducal line of Vorpfalz-Zweibrücken-Birkenfeld, and his wife Ludovica (Louise), daughter of King Maximilian First of Bavaria and his second wife, Caroline of Baden, celebrated on that day their diamond wedding, both bride and groom having been barely twenty years old at the time of their marriage. Few princely couples have been closely connected with so many of the r
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Chapter II Birth and Childhood of Elizabeth of Bavaria
Chapter II Birth and Childhood of Elizabeth of Bavaria
It was the Christmas Eve of 1837. The bells of Munich were proclaiming the festival when Max Joseph, wandering about in one of the poorer quarters of the city, met a woman dragging herself painfully toward him with a bundle of firewood on her back. She addressed him with the usual Bavarian greeting, “Praised be Jesus Christ!” “For ever and ever, Amen!” replied the Duke, adding kindly, “Why are you carrying such a load upon your back this holy Christmas Eve?” “I will tell you why, gracious Duke,”
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Chapter III Betrothal of Princess Elizabeth
Chapter III Betrothal of Princess Elizabeth
One of the first journeys Elizabeth made with her parents and sisters was to Ischl. It was there that Franz Joseph’s parents were in the habit of spending the summer months, and the two sisters, the Archduchess Sophie and the Duchess Ludovica, had agreed to meet here in the Summer of 1853. The five years that had passed since the Emperor’s accession to the throne had been years of struggle and anxiety. Only a few months before, he had been wounded by the dagger of an assassin. The internal disor
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Chapter IV The Wedding Ceremonies
Chapter IV The Wedding Ceremonies
On the twentieth of April, 1854, Elizabeth, accompanied by her parents and her two oldest sisters, started on her bridal journey to Vienna. Peasants from all the surrounding country thronged the streets of her native city through which she passed, and, overcome with the grief of parting, she stood up in her carriage and waved a tearful farewell to the cheering crowds. The steamboat Stadt Regensburg conveyed the party from Straubing to Liutz. Work was everywhere suspended as on a holiday, and not
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Chapter V First Troubles
Chapter V First Troubles
At the time of her marriage Elizabeth was said to be not only the youngest but also the most beautiful Empress that had ever sat on the throne of the Hapsburgs. Her figure was tall and slender, her hands and feet small and well shaped, her features regular and delicate. She had a charming smile, wonderfully expressive dark blue eyes, a beautiful complexion, and a mass of waving chestnut hair that fell about her, when loosened, like a veil, and which she wore either hanging in eight heavy braids
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Chapter VI Travels and Sorrows
Chapter VI Travels and Sorrows
Nothing had been originally farther from the wishes of the young Empress than to fill her throne in solitary state, surrounded only by a few chosen families of noble birth. What she most wanted was to go about among the people and get acquainted with her new subjects, and during the early part of her married life she was often seen in the streets of Vienna. Wherever she went crowds gathered, struggling and pushing good-naturedly to get as near a view of her as possible. One day she went out to w
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Chapter VII Birth of Crown Prince Rudolf
Chapter VII Birth of Crown Prince Rudolf
Not only the Emperor and his family but the whole nation were anxious for an heir to the throne, and the disappointment was great when on May 5, 1855, the Empress gave birth to a daughter, who was called Sophie Dorothea, after the Emperor’s mother. Elizabeth was too young and inexperienced to understand this, though she could not fail to read the evidences of it in the faces of those about her. Still greater dissatisfaction greeted the birth of a second daughter, Gisela, in July, 1856. This daug
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Chapter VIII Elizabeth’s Illness and Sojourn in Madeira
Chapter VIII Elizabeth’s Illness and Sojourn in Madeira
The estrangement between the Emperor and Empress gradually increased. Affairs of state, the distractions of court life, together with Franz Joseph’s growing disposition to return to the habits and pleasures of his bachelor life, all tended to widen the breach between them. The Emperor was naturally kind and affectionate, but he also had weaknesses which on closer acquaintance proved him to be far from the ideal character his young wife had imagined. She was too proud to stoop to unworthy means t
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Chapter IX The Empress’ Flight from Vienna
Chapter IX The Empress’ Flight from Vienna
Elizabeth’s sojourn in Madeira did not bring the permanent improvement that was hoped for. A few weeks after her return to Austria the cough returned, and fearing that the nature of her illness had been mistaken, her parents’ physician who had had the care of her in her youth was sent for. He decided that she was suffering from acute indigestion and that a change was imperative. This time the place of resort chosen was the island of Corfu, where she arrived safely soon afterward, accompanied by
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Chapter X The Coronation in Hungary
Chapter X The Coronation in Hungary
Again the Archduchess Sophie’s schemes for the house of Hapsburg proved disastrous, and Franz Joseph’s eyes were opened at last to the fact that her sway had been as unfortunate for the country as it was fatal to his domestic happiness. In these bitter days of defeat and humiliation he learned to value the Empress at her true worth. She now became his real companion. In the latter years of her life he often consulted her in regard to affairs of state, and she might have exercised a much greater
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Chapter XI The Archduchess Marie Valerie
Chapter XI The Archduchess Marie Valerie
The years following the coronation in Hungary were without doubt among the happiest of the Empress Elizabeth’s life. She interested herself in the details of her children’s education, shared her husband’s occupations and anxieties, and resumed her place at court with a dignity and loftiness of purpose that completely silenced her enemies. Conditions too had changed. The Archduchess Sophie had not only ceased to be a ruling power, but was completely crushed by the death of her second son, Maximil
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Chapter XII The Castle of Gödöllö
Chapter XII The Castle of Gödöllö
Not long after their wedding the Emperor and Empress visited an exhibition of paintings in Vienna. Franz Joseph was anxious to purchase some of them, but left the choice entirely to his wife, who went back accordingly a few days later with one of her ladies and selected twenty-four, every one of which when sent to the palace proved to be of horses. Both at the Hofburg and at Schönbrunn her chief interest was in the imperial stables, where she spent most of her mornings trying different mounts. S
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Chapter XIII The Empress in Vienna
Chapter XIII The Empress in Vienna
The year 1873 was a memorable one to Franz Joseph and Elizabeth. Their eldest daughter, Gisela, was married, April 20, to Prince Leopold of Bavaria in the Church of the Augustins, where the imperial pair had celebrated their union nineteen years before. The bride was led to the altar by her mother and left that same afternoon with her husband for Munich. The Viennese overwhelmed the Archduchess with gifts and entertainments, and the streets were lined with crowds eager to witness the departure o
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Chapter XIV Marriage of Crown Prince Rudolf
Chapter XIV Marriage of Crown Prince Rudolf
Both Franz Joseph and Elizabeth were very proud of their only son, whose winning ways and kindness of heart had made him wonderfully popular with all classes. He had inherited his mother’s impatience of restraint as well as her literary and artistic tastes, and, like her, cared little for people of his own rank. His own intimate circle was composed of poets, artists, and journalists, and he had an enthusiastic friend and teacher in the celebrated naturalist, Brehm. According to the custom of Aus
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Chapter XV King Ludwig Second of Bavaria
Chapter XV King Ludwig Second of Bavaria
Through all her sorrows and troubles Elizabeth never lost her love for her Bavarian home or for her own family, with whom she corresponded regularly. For many years she was in the habit of spending part of every summer at Possenhoffen, revisiting the scenes of her childhood and going about among her peasant friends, who always spoke of her as “our Empress,” forgetful of the fact that this title properly belonged to the Queen of Prussia. The years had brought many sorrows and misfortunes to Duke
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Chapter XVI The Empress’ Travels
Chapter XVI The Empress’ Travels
Urged by her love of nature and of new scenes as well as by her inborn restlessness, Elizabeth, as is well known, spent a great part of her time travelling about incognito from place to place like any ordinary tourist. She never tired of studying strange lands and peoples, and the constant change and communion with nature calmed her tortured spirit as nothing else could. “One should never stay indoors except when absolutely necessary,” she declared, “and our homes should be so ordered as not to
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Chapter XVII The Empress’ Literary Tastes
Chapter XVII The Empress’ Literary Tastes
Elizabeth was passionately fond of both music and poetry. From her father she had acquired a perfect mastery of the zither, but she had also a beautiful voice and was a piano pupil of Liszt, and often sung and played at court charity concerts. Her favorite composers were Rubinstein, Chopin, and Wagner, to the latter of whom she proved a true friend by sending him a large sum of money at one of his times of greatest need, and after his death she made one of her incognito trips to Bayreuth to hear
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Chapter XVIII Daily Life of the Empress
Chapter XVIII Daily Life of the Empress
As time went on, the hereditary disease of the Wittelsbachs, now known as neurasthenia, which for generations had manifested itself in one form or another, became more and more pronounced in the Empress Elizabeth. Her passion for solitude, her aversion to mingling with people, and constant craving for change must certainly be regarded as inherited peculiarities, though she was more ill than was generally suspected. A complication of disorders together with neuritis made her later years a perpetu
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Chapter XIX Death of Crown Prince Rudolf
Chapter XIX Death of Crown Prince Rudolf
On the thirty-first of January, 1889, a terrible affliction befell the Emperor and Empress in the sudden and violent death of their only son. The tragedy of Mayerling is well known in its main points, and hundreds of different stories have been told concerning it, but the real circumstances of the affair are wrapped in impenetrable secrecy, and perhaps it is just as well if what the King of Belgium wrote to his brother, the Count of Flanders, is true. “Any report,” he said, “is better than that
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Chapter XX Death of the Empress
Chapter XX Death of the Empress
The Empress Elizabeth had no fear of death, though the thought of it was often in her mind. “I am ready to die,” she used to say; “all I ask is that I may not live to suffer.” She had a presentiment that she was to die an unnatural death and believed it would be by drowning. Sometimes when walking along the shore or on the deck of her yacht she would say: “The sea will have me some day; I know I belong to it.” Her forebodings were destined to be fulfilled, though in a manner that neither she nor
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Appendix
Appendix
The following is a chronological statement of important events connected with the life of Elizabeth, Empress of Austria: LIFE STORIES FOR YOUNG PEOPLE Translated from the German by GEORGE P. UPTON 24 Volumes Now Ready Historical and Biographical Musical Biography Legendary Illustrated. Each 60 cents net A. C. McCLURG & CO., Chicago Musical Biography Legendary Illustrated. Each 60 cents net A. C. McCLURG & CO., Chicago...
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