B008AITH44 EBOK (30 page)

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But this is to anticipate subsequent events. In the mid-1860s, Elisabeth was a beauty in her late twenties. She enjoyed the awareness of her power, triumphed over her Viennese adversaries, and took it as a natural tribute that her husband was her foremost and most ardent admirer. The relationship between the couple had changed since the years of flight; Elisabeth was now the stronger and could influence the Emperor with feminine wiles. The Viennese court observed this turn of events with deep concern. Archduchess Sophie still stood to one side. Her influence on the Emperor was barely noticeable.

Sisi had brought about these changes, not by achievement, courtesy, or intelligence, but solely by her beauty. The excessive significance she
ascribed
to her outward appearance is therefore understandable. In the
mid-1860
s—at the height of her perfection—she knew very clearly: This beauty was her power and could be employed as a tool for the fulfillment of her wishes. That she knew how to employ this tool successfully was to be demonstrated before long not only within the family circle, but also in Austrian politics.

 

E
lisabeth’s sympathies for Hungary must have had their roots in her opposition to the Viennese court. The Viennese aristocracy—those people, that is, in whom the Empress saw her principal enemies (probably correctly)—consisted to a large extent of Bohemian families. These families set the tone in Vienna, furnished the high
dignitaries
and functionaries at the court, controlled social life, and had a powerful champion and friend in Archduchess Sophie. The Emperor’s mother
continued
to express her gratitude for the loyalty of the Bohemian lands during the Revolution of 1848. She insisted that the young Empress also behave gratefully toward the Bohemians—especially by learning to speak Bohemian. But precisely because this request came from the
Archduchess
, Sisi did not get far in the language. She could barely recite the
numbers, much less manage to hold short memorized speeches in Czech.

The more Sisi’s relations with court society and her mother-in-law worsened, and the more critical she felt about their neo-absolutism, the greater became her interest in the Hungarians. During the 1850s it was they who persisted in strict opposition to the Viennese court—even including the Hungarian nobility. A relatively large section of the Hungarian
aristocracy
(in contrast to the Bohemian aristocracy) had taken part in the Revolution. Their estates were confiscated, and many were still living in exile. It was not until the late 1850s that the former revolutionaries returned to Budapest—after the Emperor had restored their property and remitted their prison sentences, even (as in the case of Gyula Andrássy) rescinded the death sentences. For the Viennese court, they were and remained revolutionaries. Archduchess Sophie in particular never
concealed
the fact that she considered the Magyars as a whole, and especially the Magyar aristocrats, a rebellious people because they expressed a
self-confidence
and pride that an absolute ruler by divine right, such as
Archduchess
Sophie imagined him, could hardly tolerate in his subjects.

After the Revolution had been quelled, Hungary was “forcibly brought into line.” The country’s ancient special rights and her old constitution were “forfeited.” She was administered and centrally ruled from Vienna, which proved a constant irritant. From 1848 to 1867—almost twenty years—Hungary was an insurgent, unquiet province. Though she was kept in line with strong military force, she nevertheless successfully refused such duties as paying taxes to Vienna. During these years, there were even wide-ranging agreements with foreign powers (including and especially with Prussia) to support Hungary in her resistance to the government in Vienna. Streams of money flowed into the land along subterranean routes to fan the insurrection. Every trip he took to Hungary was dangerous to the young Emperor.

That the Hungarians of all social classes and parties were undeterred in their demand that Franz Joseph be crowned King of Hungary made them especially unpopular in Vienna. A precondition to coronation was the guarantee of the old Hungarian constitution—and nothing was as suspect after the suppression of the 1848 Revolution as the demand for a
constitution
, which signified a qualification of the absolute powers of the ruler and concession to the detested popular will (or, in the case of the old Hungarian constitution, to the feudal power of the estates).

When, however, Austria lost Lombardy in 1859 (here, too, the
aristocrats
were the insurgents who turned the tide) and was unable to hold Venetia, Hungary moved closer to center stage. It became clear that in a
potential confrontation between Austria and Prussia on the German
question
, Hungary could become extremely dangerous. Therefore cautious discussions were begun in Vienna concerning the possibility of making some concessions without losing face.

At first Elisabeth knew very few Hungarians; besides her teacher in Bavaria, the historian Count Mailath, there were the magnates who had officially greeted her on the occasion of her 1857 trip to Hungary and who had cheered her (perhaps more as a beautiful woman than as the Empress of Austria) at that time. Rudolf had had a Hungarian wet nurse, to whom Sisi could barely make herself understood. Then, on Madeira, there was the romantic interlude with Imre Hunyady, who taught the Empress her first words of Hungarian. Finally, years of friendship linked her to Imre’s sister Lily. It is certain that this favorite lady-in-waiting talked to the Empress about her homeland during the many lonely hours on Madeira and Corfu.

After her return from Corfu—in February 1863, to be precise—Sisi insisted on having regular Hungarian lessons. In Possenhofen it was said that Archduchess Sophie, even Emperor Franz Joseph, did not want to allow it, claiming that Hungarian was too difficult, Sisi would never be able to learn it (since she had already had such great trouble with Czech). This interdiction only made her more determined.
¹
She would show her critics.

Until that time, the court had found fault with Elisabeth’s insufficient knowledge of languages. The Viennese aristocracy was especially amused by her rote phrases of French and Italian, which she trotted out at the court salons. Archduchess Ludovika, too, believed her daughter to have no talent for languages. The astonishment at Sisi’s rapid progress was therefore great. “Sisi is making unbelievable progress in Hungarian,” the Emperor wrote his mother only a few months later.
²

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This progress was by no means attributable only to her teacher of Hungarian, Professor Homoky, a clergyman. Rather, the prime cause was a delicate Hungarian country girl whom the Empress took into her most immediate circle in 1864: Ida Ferenczy. It is almost impossible to
overestimate
the importance of this woman in Sisi’s life. For thirty-four years—until Elisabeth’s death—Ida (who was four years younger than the Empress) remained Sisi’s closest confidante. Ida knew all her secrets, was the go-between for her most private correspondence, was altogether
indispensable
—not only as a servant, but also as a close friend.

It remains a mystery to this day how this twenty-three-year-old
daughter
of the landed gentry arrived at the Viennese court in the first place. Max Falk, a Hungarian journalist, related in his memoirs that the Viennese court had compiled a list of six young Hungarian noblewomen considered suitable for the position of companion to the Empress. The list resulted from several tests of strength among the various factions. When the final list—calligraphed—was presented to the Empress, a seventh name, entered in another hand, had allegedly been added. This was the name of Ida Ferenczy—a name, therefore, in no way chosen by the court.
³

This story of a mysterious stranger who placed the name of a simple country girl on a list of the high aristocracy seems exceedingly dramatic, but it serves to show the significance the Hungarians later attributed to Ida. A plainer version implies that Countess Almassy, who compiled the list, remembered the Ferenczy family from Kecskemét, and because they were friends of hers, she placed the name of one of the family’s five daughters on the list.
⁴
This, in turn, can have happened only behind the court’s back, since Ida did not fulfill one of the principal qualifications for the position—membership in the higher nobility.