ОH, LOVE: the Empress and the Evil Mother-in-Law
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HAPPY CHILDHOOD
H
er name was Amalia Eugenia Elisabeth von Wittelsbach, in marriage von Habsburg. But in practice, it was hardly convenient to shout: «Amalia Eugenia Elisabeth, drop that nasty thing!» — by the time you’d finished, the child would already be cut or poisoned. So she was simply called Lisi, and since the girl at first couldn’t pronounce her own name properly and it came out as «Sisi», her family kept calling her by this nickname even as she grew older.
Since it’s not easy for us to remember that the Latin «S» at the beginning of German words is pronounced as a «Z», we call her Sissi — with two «s’s» so it doesn’t sound indecent. Empress Sissi — under this name she was known even in her native Vienna. Only in Hungary, where foreign names were mercilessly adapted to fit local patterns (even Karl Marx was known exclusively as Marx Károly, with the surname placed before the first name, like in Japanese), our Sissi became Erzsébet. However, her relationship with Hungary was always a special one. But more on that later.
In general, Sissi’s childhood was quite a happy one — and why not? Our children are overjoyed with a kitten or an aquarium with fish, but Sissi had her own zoo — she adored animals, especially horses, and quickly became an excellent rider, surpassing her elder sister Helen (known at home as Nene), who gave up learning altogether. Her Bavarian duchy was not exactly a superpower, and the lifestyle was quite patriarchal: if she wanted to run off to the neighboring village and play with peasant children, she didn’t even need to file a report with the head of palace security.
MARRIAGE FOR LOVE
When Sissi grew older, two princely brothers came to visit — suitable enough in terms of nobility, though still very close relatives. Sissi’s mother, Ludovika, and their mother, Sophia, were sisters, which meant the boys and girls were cousins. Without special instructions, the elder sister, Nene, entertained the elder guest, Franz Joseph, while Sissi was left with his younger brother, Karl Ludwig. We needn’t attach too much importance to this — after all, the elder of the boys had only just turned sixteen.
But that’s from our perspective: for us, it all looks like some kind of summer camp, and even if the children take a liking to one another, after the session ends, back in their own yard — not to mention at school — they’d find a hundred more like them. But our heroes don’t go to school, and if they do have a «yard», it is hardly an ordinary one. Even across the whole of Europe, if they could count on even a double-digit number of truly suitable marriage prospects, it would already be great luck and an extraordinary rarity.
And these boys were not just suitable for our girls — a more advantageous marriage was simply impossible! Just two years later, the elder of them, Franz Joseph, became Emperor of Austria — who in Europe could possibly make a better match? In Austria, the emperor is called Kaiser — from Caesar; in Lviv, they still recall «Tsisar Franz», and with fondness, by the way. The most prestigious groom in the world — who could refuse? Moreover, his mother, Princess Sophia, an intelligent, energetic, and strong-willed woman, nicknamed behind her back «the only man in the imperial family», would not have minded a daughter-in-law from her own Bavarian house.
By the time the emperor turned 23, his mother had finally decided it was time to marry him off — the throne needed an heir. The Austrian and Bavarian families gathered in the Habsburgs’ summer residence in Ischl for the engagement — and then the whole brilliant plan collapsed: Franz Joseph refused even to hear of his intended bride, he wanted only her younger sister! He told his mother, «Change everything, I will marry this one or I won’t marry at all!»
BEWARE THE EVIL MOTHER-IN-LAW!
Oh, he really shouldn’t have done that — one does not speak that way with domineering mothers; their true goal is not their son’s happiness, but his unquestioning obedience. She had to give in: emperors of that time feared scandal more than their medieval predecessors feared war, plague, and rebellion combined. Well then, let him marry the younger sister instead of the elder, so long as there is peace! Interestingly enough, the girl herself, headstrong and independent, was not at all opposed. She loved, she rejoiced, and didn’t even realize that she had already offended her future mother-in-law — simply by upsetting her plans.
As she stepped out of the wedding carriage, painted by the great Rubens, Sissi caught her dress on the door and nearly lost her diadem. To calm her, the groom whispered, «Be patient, soon we will forget this whole nightmare». If only those words had been heard by God, as they say in those lands — but forget they could not. The nervous strain led Sissi into a severe breakdown that lasted several days.
Naturally, the wedding night had to be postponed. And just imagine — against this backdrop, Archduchess Sophia, during the wedding banquet, began asking her barely-standing daughter-in-law whether her son had performed well in bed, and demanded details… This could hardly be taken as a joke, however poor — it was a declaration of war.
Archduchess Sophia unleashed upon her the deadliest weapon of the imperial court, one in which she was a master — court etiquette. Gloves too short? Replace them! Neckline too low? Cover it! Running out of the palace to shop without guards and an entourage? Absolutely forbidden, my child — sit still and wait, you’ll be brought whatever is proper! Such a life may be boring — but so what, it matters not, an empress must bear boredom with dignity!
NATURAL REACTION
It is hardly surprising that before long Sissi came to utterly hate her position, court etiquette, and her exalted in-laws. In her personal diary, she called them a herd of baboons, the whole empire — an old oak ready to crumble into pieces, and in her verses, she dreamed of turning into a flea that would bite the entire courtly beau monde until they were covered in bloody sores. For a tenth of such insolence, her own subjects would have been thrown into a dark cell and the key discarded!
Speaking of obligations — among all her other duties, the empress was required to provide the empire with an heir to the throne. And in this matter, Archduchess Sophia treated her daughter-in-law like a childbearing machine. An heir immediately, without him, the empire is in danger! The first child was a girl — oh, what a disaster! At once, try again — the duty to the empire has not been fulfilled! Again, a girl is born — why, she must be doing it on purpose to harm the empire, Kreuzdonnerwetterhimmelhochmal! !
Another pregnancy at once, before it’s too late — separatists are raising their heads, anarchists are rubbing their hands with glee, loyal subjects pray and weep! And so that no trivial distractions interfere with this most important process, we will take the children away from you and allow you to see them only during designated hours. No need to coddle them, they are not ordinary children but exalted personages! At last, she bore a son and heir — now produce a spare, for the enemy is cunning and treacherous, not every son outlives his father (which, alas, turned out to be true — but more on those dreadful events later).
In such situations, to keep from going mad, a person invents occupations and hobbies. Sissi had always cared about her health, but now it became an obsession. In the imperial palace, new, untypical furniture appeared — a Swedish wall bar. Her rides on horseback sometimes lasted for hours, her walking distances could reach double digits… Sissi paid enormous attention to diet; fortunately, she had an iron constitution, and anyone else on such a regimen would have collapsed! Among the kitchen utensils designed especially for her was such a curiosity as a press for extracting meat juice from half-raw veal — with a cup of this drink she could limit her lunch, content at breakfast with broth, a glass of port, and a couple of raw eggs.
Yet she preserved her wasp waist — 50 centimeters at a height of 172 — all her life, and her weight hardly ever exceeded 50 kilograms, something any modern fashion model would envy. Indeed, contemporaries all agreed that she retained much of her beauty and graceful figure throughout her life. Granted, she paid for it with gastritis, anemia, and constant bouts of weakness accompanied by fever, but modern models sometimes diet themselves to death, and it is considered almost normal, whereas Sissi remained active and energetic throughout her life.
A BREAK WITH DECORUM
And the poor emperor had it worst of all, because he loved both his wife and his mother, and this conflict tore him apart. He ought to have overcome himself and stood up for the one in the right, since you can’t please everyone, no matter how you try — but how could a son raised by such a domineering mother have any will of his own? In the end, the wife realized that her husband would not protect her from blatant bias, and how does that usually end — not only in imperial families? You understand. In 1860, Sissi told her husband that their marital relationship had lost all interest for her.
She understood perfectly well that her husband might face difficulties, and immediately suggested a solution herself — he should take a mistress. The actress Katharina Schratt, in her opinion, was the ideal candidate! The husband obediently followed her advice and never parted with Fräulein Schratt for the rest of his life — she must indeed have suited him, who would know that better than Sissi? She secured her victory by obtaining permission to travel — her husband loved her and felt guilty, so he allowed her almost everything. From then on, she spent only a few months a year in Vienna: horse races in England, sailing in Antwerp, ancient ruins in Greece (a country she especially adored).
Sissi did achieve something — she was allowed to raise her fourth child. Maria Valeria, born thanks to a brief improvement in the couple’s relations after Franz Joseph accepted this declaration, was not taken away from her. And Sissi also became deeply involved in Hungarian affairs: her role in softening Franz Joseph’s stance on Hungary was immense. Without doubt, it was under her influence that Hungary ceased to be a vassal of Austria and gained full equality with it.
Speculation still swirls around Sissi’s progressive stance, each version more absurd than the last. To me, it’s perfectly clear: the emperor’s mother took the hardest, most uncompromising position on the Hungarian question — so what other side could Sissi have taken, if not the opposite? Besides, the state only benefited from it, and the Austro-Hungarian tensions that had plunged the empire into civil war twenty years earlier ceased to have any noticeable impact on its life.
AND DEATH JUST THE SAME…
Soon after these events, Archduchess Sophia left this world, but the family happiness she had shattered could no longer be restored. Sissi continued her remarkable nomadic life as a wandering empress, spending more time in Hungary than in Austria, and more abroad than in the empire she nominally ruled, living this way until the age of 60, never losing the slenderness of her figure.
But all her wanderings ended in Geneva, when, on her way to board a steamship, a twenty-five-year-old anarchist, Luigi Lucheni, ran up to her and struck her in the chest with a sharpened file. She stood up, said she didn’t understand what was happening, that her chest hurt a little, and she had to hurry — the boat was leaving. Only half an hour later, already on board, she turned pale and collapsed. No one could have saved her anyway — the file had pierced her heart.
When asked why he killed her, Lucheni replied in court that she looked like an aristocrat, and aristocrats don’t work, so they all must be killed. Since the death penalty no longer existed in Switzerland, he was sentenced to life imprisonment, served twelve years, and hanged himself in his cell.
Is there anything more senseless in Sissi’s entire life story than this murder? Hardly — unless it was her mother-in-law’s unyielding desire for everything to be just the way she wanted, and no other way. But in truth, that was almost exactly what Lucheni wanted too.
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