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Nor were the two mothers, Ludovika and Sophie, delighted at the young Empress’s interest in politics. Ludovika to Sophie: “I believe the presence of the child will fill many hours of the day, will calm her, will occupy her, animate her domestic senses, give a new direction to her habits and tastes. I would like to fan every little spark, nurture every good impulse.”
⁷¹

Only a few days after the Emperor had turned down Sisi’s suggestion that he make peace quickly, he himself admitted the futility of the war. Nevertheless, the initiative for an armistice came, not from him, but from Napoleon III, the arch-scoundrel, as Franz Joseph called him.
⁷²

The Treaty of Villefranche obligated Austria to relinquish Lombardy, at one time her richest province, an Austrian possession since the Congress of Vienna. Though Venetia was to remain in Austrian hands, no one seriously believed that this last Italian possession could be held for long.

The Swiss envoy reported that in Vienna the peace

In Hungary, a new revolution loomed on the horizon. Concerning conditions in Vienna, Dr. Seeburger felt that “the mood had never been worse than now, but Archduchess Sophie, to whom he [Seeburger] had told this, refused to believe him. In taverns and coffeehouses no one is afraid to slander the Emperor, but he is going hunting tomorrow in
Reichenau, and the Empress is going to the same place, to go horseback riding.”
⁷⁴

Sophie’s husband, Archduke Franz Karl, also labored under some
misconceptions.
He spoke “openly about the prevailing discontent, but at the same time he denied that it had any greater significance, because he was still being saluted. What flimsy reassurance!” Minister of Police Kempen remarked in his diary.
⁷⁵
Assassination plots were uncovered, one even in the Hofburg itself; a footman had planned to murder the Emperor and Archduchess Sophie. Ludovika found the people’s rage against the
Emperor
“as painful as it is outrageous … because it is directed specifically against the person of the Emperor, who is being unbelievably reviled; lies about him are spread that are so unutterably unfounded and unjust
precisely
against him of all people—Unfortunately, the rancor emanates largely from the military, which even abroad … expresses itself so bitterly about him.” The sentence that follows this passage is typical for Franz Joseph’s character; variations on it can be found in several contemporary sources, even in Archduchess Sophie’s diary itself: “in all this,” Franz Joseph “himself is, I would say, so innocent, for he is cheerful, actually that surprised me.”
⁷⁶

Monstrous corruption in the military and financial systems came to light. Finance Minister Baron Karl von Bruck, devastated by the Emperor’s lack of trust, slit his throat. Ministers and generals were dismissed; besides Foreign Minister Buol, they were Minister of the Interior Bach, Minister of Police Kempen, General Gyulai, General Hess. It was very difficult for the Emperor “to allay the enormous mania for reorganizing and casting aside,” as he complained to his mother.
⁷⁷

At the center of the criticism stood the Emperor’s adjutant general, his closest personal and political intimate and friend, Count Karl Grünne. He considered himself his sovereign’s whipping boy and accepted the blame that was by rights the Emperor’s. Even Ludovika knew: “The main hatred is directed at Grün[ne], because it is said that he deliberately kept him in ignorance of all the sad things that happened, about the terrible negligence, blunders, and fraud.”
⁷⁸

Some years later, the liberal
Neues
Wiener
Tagblatt
wrote, “The name Grünne enjoyed an unpopularity that almost bordered on popularity.” He had been, the newspaper claimed, a “nonsystematic dictator,” a “head of government
extra
statum,
” with the “halo of a vice emperor.” In the Council of Ministers, he had represented “often also the voice of the monarch.”
⁷⁹

Under the pressure of popular opinion, the Emperor was forced to
dismiss Grünne from his posts of adjutant general and head of the military chancellery—though he did so with great proofs of favor. Grünne did retain the office of chief equerry.

Sisi’s friendship with Grünne remained unaffected by politics. After his dismissal, she wished him “especially a better happier time than the last has been. I still cannot accept that now everything is so very different from before, and especially to see a different person in your place, but my only consolation is that we have not lost you altogether, and you know how grateful I am to you for this.”
⁸⁰

Emperor Franz Joseph exerted himself to the fullest to avert a
curtailment
of his absolute rule. Archduchess Sophie supported him. She abhorred the “popular will,” considering it an offense against the imperial majesty. In her letters, she complained of treason and refused to admit any fault in the “system.” She complained that “my poor son, hard pressed by the victory of injustice over justice, by treachery and disloyalty, nevertheless was unappreciated by many.”
⁸¹

A fair evaluation of the Empress’s political attitude, which was soon made plain to a larger group, must take into account the fact that her liberalism, which was considered (at court) so taboo, her anticlericalism, her enthusiasm for the constitutional state came to the fore during Austria’s darkest hour, politically speaking. In the most personal terms, it was the antithesis of the demands for divine right, absolutism, and aristocratic thinking espoused by Archduchess Sophie.