Elizabeth of Austria

“ The next morning the good news was carried by telegraph to every corner of the world, a salute of a hundred and one guns was fired from all the fortresses in Austria and Hungary, and the signal was echoed from a million throats, while public enthusiasm was still further increased when the Crown Prince, at his christening, received the name of his great ancestor Rudolf of Hapsburg. The popularity of the Empress was at once restored. ”

“ A cavalry officer once expressed his surprise to the Emperor at his allowing the Empress of Austria to spend so much time in the stables and make companions of jockeys and circus riders. “Ah, my young friend,” replied the Emperor kindly, “it is evident you do not know women. They usually do as they please without waiting for our permission.”
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Elizabeth never appeared to better advantage than when on horseback. ”

“ On the evening of the eleventh of September a special train bearing her remains left Geneva and passed slowly through Switzerland and Austria amid the tolling of bells, and was met at every stop by sorrowing throngs eager to pay a last tribute to the dead Empress. ”

“ It was thought safest for Elizabeth and the little Crown Prince to retire to Budapest, where she was received with an enthusiasm little short of Maria Theresa’s memorable reception. There is no doubt that the devotion of the people to the Queen was largely instrumental in bringing about a better feeling between Austria and Hungary, while still another proof of this devotion was their special request that she might be crowned together with the King, an event that had never before occurred in the history of the country. ”

“ James sent assurances to Vienna of their readiness to support the queen with the whole power of the British empire. Large supplies of men and money were immediately voted. {437} Sixteen thousand men were landed in Flanders to cooperate with the Austrian troops. Holland, instigated by the example of England, granted Maria Theresa a subsidy of eight hundred and forty thousand florins. The new Queen of Russia, also, Elizabeth, daughter of Peter the Great, adopted measures highly favorable to Austria. ”

“ It was even rumored that she intended to bestow all her Austrian possessions upon the Magyars, but this was a rank injustice to Elizabeth, for throughout the Empire, Austria as well as Hungary, there was scarcely a charitable institution or cause that she did not aid or support, nor a case of suffering and need that she did not attempt to relieve. When Austria took possession of Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1878, the Empress found a fresh field for her energies in caring for the wounded soldiers and providing for the families of those who were killed ”

“ The reason for Elizabeth’s sudden and strong attachment to this hitherto unknown country could have been only a psychological one. When she first came to Vienna, she was impressed with the violent prejudice that existed at court against the Hungarians. Each attempt of that liberty-loving people to throw off their chains was regarded as a fresh crime by the Archduchess Sophie and her adherents, and the Empress heard much harsh criticism of her subjects beyond the Leytha. ”

“ Foremost among the company109 was the lovely Empress of Austria, famed for her love of sport and her marvellous skill, the graceful Elizabeth, Empress of Russia, Queen Caroline of Bavaria, her sister, and a number of ladies, several of whom wore the elegant costume of the sixteenth century. At the head of the sovereigns on horseback was Emperor Francis, unflaggingly hospitable. ”

“ Elizabeth can now dismiss her attendants, and retire to her private apartments to await her husband. He shall see how joyfully she will receive him, how happy he has made her. She will adorn herself, that he may be pleased; she will be beautiful, that he may smile upon her.
The queen, with the assistance of her astonished maids, attires herself for the first time in one of the charming negligees recently sent by the Empress of Austria ”

“ She accompanied her eccentric father on his hunting expeditions, becoming an expert rider and climber, visiting the peasants in their huts and sharing in rustic pleasures. The emperor of Austria, Francis Joseph, met the Bavarian ducal family at Ischl in August 1853, and immediately fell in love with Elizabeth, then a girl of sixteen, and reported to be the most beautiful princess in Europe. ”

“ Over the great square writing-table hung a striking portrait of her cousin King Ludwig Second of Bavaria. A fire was always burning on the wide hearth, and the Emperor and Empress used often to sit there together in the evenings watching the glowing logs and talking over the events of the day. The guest chambers and apartments of the Archduchess Marie Valerie were on the floor below, as was the Empress’ gymnasium. Physical exercise was so necessary to her that she always had a room fitted up in this way wherever she happened to be staying. ”

“ This hostility and opposition that met the young Empress at every turn only made her retire the more within herself, and really inflicted an irreparable wrong, for it developed in her an inherited love of solitude that, once acquired, soon became too fixed ever to be renounced.
Meanwhile the outlying portions of the Empire—Bohemia, Moravia, Galicia, and Hungary—were waiting anxiously to welcome the imperial pair, and soon after the wedding they began a series of short journeys. ”

“ All through the festivities that preceded the great event Elizabeth played her part perfectly as mother of the bridegroom, though her cold and distant manner toward her future daughter-in-law as well as the King and Queen of Belgium was only too evident. Part of the ceremonies consisted of a state procession through the streets of the capital, and during the whole progress she hardly spoke once to Queen Henriette, who rode beside her, but sat erect, bowing continuously in acknowledgment of the cheers of the populace, with a look almost of absentmindedness on her lovely face. ”

“ So cold-blooded and unprovoked an assault in broad daylight and in the public street of a large city was one of the most shocking crimes of modern times and aroused the horror and indignation of the whole civilized world. Elizabeth of Austro-Hungary had no enemies. She had exerted no influence in politics, directly or indirectly, nor was she interested in state affairs. As her grief-stricken husband said of her, “she had done much good and never harmed a human being.”
The Empress’ salon in the hotel was quickly transformed into a mortuary chapel. ”

“ Elizabeth worshipped God in nature, but avoided all religious ceremonies and hated priests. The older woman expected to find it easy to govern this child who had so unexpectedly received the imperial crown, through her vanity and inexperience, but finding herself mistaken, she resorted to other means. Elizabeth, as we have seen, had come to Vienna full of hopes and dreams, expecting naturally to occupy the first place in her husband’s life and court ”

“ At sixteen she married the Elector Palatine, who was made king of Bohemia by the Protestant party in Germany, and thereby found herself in direct opposition to the Roman Catholic party, who, backed by Spain, supported the claim of Austria to the Bohemian throne. Poor Elizabeth, in spite of trouble and sorrow, poverty and the horrors of war, retained, though a fugitive and an exile, much of her gayety to the very end of her life; and some of her letters, [Pg 187] even in her days of sorest need, are most amusing reading. ”

“ The Russian empress’s reply was delivered to the two ambassadors on the 12th of February. It was inspired by the most uncompromising hostility towards the king of Prussia. Elizabeth would not consent to any pacific overtures until the original object of the league had been accomplished. Simultaneously, Elizabeth caused to be conveyed to Louis XV. a confidential letter in which she proposed the signature of a new treaty of alliance of a more comprehensive and explicit nature than the preceding treaties between the two powers, without the knowledge of Austria. ”

“ You know that to-day is the birthday of the Empress of Russia? Now, it has been written that all the birthdays and all the holidays of the calendar should be converted into opportunities for pleasure; and pleasure seems to take good care that none shall be overlooked. Yesterday morning the Empress of Austria, the Grandes-Duchesses d’Oldenbourg and Saxe-Weimar, dressed out in the strangest manner, requested an audience, under assumed names, of the Empress Elizabeth. ”

“ She never wished to see the Crown Princess Stephanie again, nor could she endure the presence of the little Archduchess Elizabeth, the grandchild who had inherited her father’s nature with the features of a mother to whose behavior the Empress attributed the changes in Rudolf’s way of life and his tragic fate. She shrank from contact with people more and more and often wounded her husband and children by her craving for solitude. ”

“ I made careful studies at the chapel, and restored the fresh tints which he told me they had on that far-away day, when I came to put them into the picture. I was in South Africa when the Academy opened in the following spring.
On September 11th, 1898, we received the terrible news of the assassination of the Empress of Austria. I had seen her every Sunday and feast day at our little Ventnor church, at Mass, during her residence at Steep Hill Castle. She had the tiniest waist I ever saw—indeed, no woman could have lived with a tinier one. She was beautiful, but so frigid in her manner ”

“ The old Emperor William and his clever wife Augusta visited at the Hofburg and Schönbrunn; Czar Alexander Second of Russia and King Victor Emmanuel of Italy also came, as did the Shah of Persia and many others.
Elizabeth, however, cared little for people of her own rank. “Titles mean nothing,” she declared; “they are only the trappings with which we try to hide our nakedness; they do not change our real selves.” Little to her taste as court ceremonies were, she bore her part in them with ease and dignity and was always the centre of interest and admiration wherever she went. ”

“ Absorbed in cares of state and caring for little but his shooting trips in later years, the Emperor led almost as solitary a life as his wife. When they were together with their children, the Empress always strove to make these reunions as happy and cheerful as possible, as if to make up in some degree for the family life her long absences deprived him of. They would spend long cosey evenings on the terraces or by the fireside, and Rudolf would often join the party, or, if the Emperor were busy, Elizabeth would entertain herself with Marie Valerie and some of her ladies-in-waiting. ”

“ Rudolf was installed as soon as possible in a remote part of the palace, the Archduchess insisting that it was not suitable for the heir to a great empire to be brought up by a young mother who as yet did not even know how to conduct herself. When Elizabeth begged to be allowed the care of her own child and dwelt on the comfort it would be to her, her mother-in-law declared indignantly that it was absurd to talk of the need for comfort when she had everything in the world to make her happy. ”

“ Nine of these children survived her. Joseph, already emperor, succeeded her upon the throne of Austria, and dying childless, surrendered the crown to his next brother Leopold. Ferdinand, the third son, became governor of Austrian Lombardy. Upon Maximilian was conferred the electorate of Cologne. Mary Anne became abbess of a nunnery. Christina married the Duke of Saxony. Elizabeth entered a convent and became abbess. Caroline married the King of Naples, and was an infamous woman. Her sister Joanna, was first betrothed to the king, but she died of small-pox ”

“ The town was crowded with Magyars from all parts of the kingdom, and sixty thousand troops lined the streets from the railway station to the royal castle, a distance of six kilometres. It was a most brilliant sight as the procession wound slowly down from the castle and crossed the bridge. Franz Joseph made a stately and imposing figure in his crown and coronation robes, but Elizabeth was the centre of all eyes. ”

“ Elizabeth had sent announcement to all foreign courts of her accession "by hereditary right and the consent of her nation." She assured the Emperor Ferdinand and Philip of Spain that she was desirous to maintain the alliance betwixt the house of Austria and England; to the German princes, and the King of Denmark she owned her attachment to the Reformed faith, and her earnest wish to form a league of union with all Protestant powers. At Rome, her ambassador, Carne, informed the Pope that his new sovereign was resolved to allow liberty of conscience to all her subjects, of whatever creed. ”

“ Every day she had herself weighed, and if her usual weight increased at all she would live on oranges till it was reduced to the proper amount, in spite of her physicians’ warnings of the danger of so slender a diet. But although Elizabeth cared so little for eating, when at home she gave much attention to the menus presented to her each morning by the chef, which she often altered to suit herself. No table could be served more daintily and artistically than that of the Austrian court when the Empress was present. ”

“ The evening before the ceremony was to take place Franz Joseph and his wife made a visit to the cathedral, which had been magnificently decorated for the occasion, and were greeted everywhere with the wildest enthusiasm. As they were about to leave the church an old man fell from a ladder on which he had perched himself in order to obtain a view of “the good Queen of Hungary.” Elizabeth, who saw him fall, hastened at once to his assistance,—an act that called forth renewed cheers when it reached the ears of those outside. ”