B008AITH44 EBOK (2 page)

B
RIGITTE
H
AMANN

S
o as to be able to develop the most important themes, I have occasionally abandoned strict chronological order, preferring to summarize the ample available material by subject. The most significant dates are therefore placed at the beginning to make it easier for readers to get their bearings.

The principal sources are cited with the following abbreviations:

 

O
n Thursday, August 18, 1853—the twenty-third birthday of Emperor Franz Joseph I—a fifteen-year-old girl from
provincial
Possenhofen in Bavaria took her place in Austrian history. It was on that day that the Emperor asked for the hand of his cousin, Duchess Elisabeth of Bavaria. To no one’s surprise, he was accepted.

Until that moment nothing had occurred to call the bride to anyone’s notice. She was a shy young thing, only just past childhood, a long way from being fully developed. She was remarkably slender, with long
dark-blond
braids and light-brown eyes with a melancholy cast. She had grown up a child of nature, among seven high-spirited brothers and sisters, far from all the pressures of court life. She excelled at horseback riding, swimming, fishing, mountain climbing. She loved her home, especially the
Bavarian hills and Lake Starnberg, on whose shores stood the small castle of Possenhofen, the family summer residence. Elisabeth spoke Bavarian dialect, and her playmates were the children of the local peasantry. Her upbringing and manners left a good deal to be desired. Like her father and her brothers and sisters, she set little store by ceremony and protocol—which did not matter much at the Munich court. Since the ducal branch of the Wittelsbachs had no official function at court in any case, the family could afford to indulge in a colorful private life.

Elisabeth’s mother, Duchess Ludovika, had for some time been searching for a suitable match for Elisabeth, her second daughter. She had already made cautious and not very confident inquiries in Saxony. “I would certainly consider it a great happiness to think of Sisi as one of you … but alas, it is not likely to happen—for the only one who could be hoped for [presumably Prince Georg, second son of Johann, King of Saxony] is unlikely to consider her; first, I seriously question whether he would find her attractive, and then, he is surely looking for a fortune … true, she’s pretty because she is very young and animated, but she has no single pretty feature.”
¹
When Sisi returned from Dresden in the spring of 1853, it was without a groom.

She stood completely in the shadow of her older sister, Helene, who was much more beautiful, better educated, more serious, and more widely admired; Helene was intended for a higher destiny—marriage to the Emperor of Austria. Compared to the older daughter, Sisi was the family ugly duckling. The fact that it was little Elisabeth who made the most brilliant match of the nineteenth century surprised no one more than herself.

*

The groom, Emperor Franz Joseph, was an exceptionally good-looking young man, with blond hair, soft features, and a very delicate, slender figure, flatteringly emphasized by the close-fitting general’s uniform he habitually wore. No wonder that he was the idol of all the Viennese countesses, all the more as he proved himself a passionate and spirited dancer at the balls of the high nobility.

This charming youngster with the exceptional good manners was one of the most powerful men of his day. His complete title was: Franz Joseph I, by the grace of God Emperor of Austria; King of Hungary and Bohemia; King of Lombardy and Venice, of Dalmatia, Croatia, Slavonia, Galicia, Lodomeria, and Illyria; King of Jerusalem, etc.; Archduke of Austria; Grand Duke of Tuscany and Cracow; Duke of Lorraine, of Salzburg, Styria, Carinthia, Carniola, and Bukovina; Grand Duke of Transylvania,
Margrave of Moravia; Duke of Upper and Lower Silesia, of Modena, Parma, Piacenza, and Guastalla, of Auschwitz and Zator, of Teschen, Friuli, Ragusa, and Zara; Count with Princely Rank of Habsburg and Tyrol, of Kyburg, Gorizia, and Gradiska; Prince of Trent and Bressanone; Margrave of Upper and Lower Lusatia and in Istria; Count of Hohenembs, Feldkirch, Bregenz, Sonnenberg, etc.; Lord of Trieste, of Cattaro, and in the Wendic Mark; Grand Voivode of the Voivodeship of Serbia, etc., etc.