B008AITH44 EBOK

by Hamann, Brigitte

  Franz Joseph’s rage at such articles is completely understandable—quite aside from the fact that the site where the exercises were said to take place was one of the most impressive rooms in the Hofburg, the very one where, for a time, Emperor Franz Joseph delivered his official addresses. “Whether the matter is not too silly to be retracted as a lie, I leave to you to decide,” the Emperor wrote to Crenneville. In any case, one must “find some method to make the editors of the Fremdenblatt feel the impropriety of their actions through selective harassment.”28

  Elisabeth rose above the gossip and held rigorously to her daily hours of exercising. For a woman of her day, this was really scandalous behavior. At times, she took pleasure in shocking unsuspecting people with her gymnastic exercises; on New Year’s Day of 1892 (when Elisabeth was fifty-four years old), for example, Christomanos wrote in his diary, “This morning before her drive she had me called back to the salon. At the open door between the salon and her boudoir, ropes, bars, and rings were installed. When I saw her, she was just raising herself on the handrings. She wore a black silk dress with a long train, hemmed with magnificent black ostrich feathers. I had never before seen her so imposing. Hanging on the ropes, she made a fantastic impression, like a creature somewhere between snake and bird.” In order to let herself back down, she had to jump over a rope stretched above the ground. “‘This rope,’ she said, ‘is there to make sure that I don’t forget how to leap. My father was a mighty hunter before the Lord, and he wanted us to learn to leap like the mountain goats.’” Then she begged the astonished student to continue his reading of the Odyssey and explained to him that she was so formally dressed because she was about to receive some archduchesses. “If the archduchesses knew that I did my exercises in this dress, they would turn to stone.”

  Proudly, Elisabeth always spoke of her father’s teachings (though she did not get along at all well with the man himself). He had taught his daughters the right way to walk, she told Christomanos. “We were to keep only one model in mind: the butterflies. My sisters Alençon and the Queen of Naples are famous in Paris for the way they walk. But we do not walk as queens are supposed to walk. The Bourbons, who hardly ever went out on foot, acquired an odd way of walking—like proud geese. They walk like true kings.”29 Here, as in all things, naturalness was Elisabeth’s ideal. And she used even this occasion to polemicize against the unnaturalness of the “true kings.”

  The success both of rigorous dieting and of exercising could not, however, be ignored. To the nineteenth century, which stamped even thirty-year-old women as matrons, especially when they had borne several children, Empress Elisabeth was an extraordinary phenomenon. For roughly thirty years—an unheard-of length of time—the reputation of her beauty persisted.

  Even the appearances of the forty-year-old Empress at the major balls were of almost fabulous splendor: Diamond stars in her hair, her tall, slender figure clothed in the most splendid gowns that European dressmakers could contrive, she stood at the center of the court bustle and brilliance, “not as if she were in a ballroom among all the people, but as if she were standing alone on a rock at the ocean, so lost is her glance into the distance”—so unapproachable and so unreal. To the admiring remark of her niece Marie Larisch that she was like Titania, Queen of the Fairies, Elisabeth, however, replied with her usual irony, “Not Titania but a seagull that has been caught and cowers in its cage.”30

  Wherever Elisabeth appeared, she stole the show from the other women. When the Italian King and Queen visited Vienna in 1881, Alexander Hübner, writing about the meeting of the two queens, noted, “poor Queen Margherita seemed a soubrette next to a demigoddess.”31

  And Elisabeth’s youngest daughter, Marie Valerie, often could hardly contain her pride in her beautiful mother; for example, in 1882, she wrote in her diary, “Dinner. Mama black pearl bodice, black feather in her hair and a gold chain around her throat. Oh! she was so beautiful. Nor did Mama look much older than me.”32 (This last was surely an exaggeration—since at the time Elisabeth was not quite forty-five years old, while Valerie was fourteen.)

  That always and everywhere Sisi’s beauty expressed sovereignty was mentioned by many contemporaries, including the German Emperor Wilhelm II: “she did not sit down, she lowered her body; she did not stand up, she rose….”33

  Sisi’s confidante, Marie Festetics, was another admirer.

  One never grows tired when one goes out with her. At her side it is delightful, and so it is behind her. Looking alone is enough. She is the embodiment of the idea of loveliness. At one time I will think that she is like a lily, then again like a swan, then I see a fairy—oh, no, a sprite—and finally—no! an empress! From the top of her head to the soles of her feet a royal woman!! In everything excellent and noble. And then I remember all the gossip, and I think there may be much envy in it. She is so enchantingly beautiful and charming.

  But Festetics noticed something else about the Empress, who was only thirty-four at the time. “What I miss in her is joy in life. A serenity overlies her that is quite striking in a young person!”34

  Sisi’s esoteric, overly sensitive nature was coupled with a considerable arrogance. She showed this aspect of her personality in a hurtful way whenever and wherever it suited her, especially to her critics at court.

  In the course of time, her ill humor increasingly turned into contempt for any public appearances. During the 1880s, Sisi spoke with her close friend and fellow poet Queen Elisabeth of Romania (Carmen Sylva) about the value of her position. She described it as exceedingly low; she held appearing in public to be no more than playacting. Queen Elisabeth remarked, astonished, “Your great beauty does not help you and does not relieve you of any of your shyness!”

  To which Sisi replied, “I am not shy, it merely bores me! So they hang beautiful clothes on me and much jewelry, and then I step outside and say a few words to the people, and then I rush to my room, tear it all off, and write.”35

  The clever Countess Festetics, who knew and loved her Empress more than most, wrote in her diary in the late 1860s that Elisabeth had all the virtues but that a wicked fairy had transformed each one into its opposite: “Beauty!—Loveliness!—Grace!—Elegance!—Simplicity!—Goodness!—Magnanimity!—Spirit!—Wit!—Humor!—Astuteness!—Cleverness!” And now the curse: “for everything turns against you—even your beauty will bring you nothing but sorrow, and your high spirit will penetrate so deep—so deep that it will lead you astray.”36

  *

  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-1860s—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.

  Notes

  1. Private communication from Princess Ghislaine Windisch-Graetz, based on the Empress’s notebook of weight and measurements, meticulously kept over a number of years.

  2. Sophie, May 1, 1855 (in French).

  3. Ibid., April 6, 1860 (in French).

  4. Joseph Karl Mayr, ed., Das Tagebuch des Polizeiministers Kempen von 1848 bis 1859 (Vienna, 1931).

  5. Crenneville, October 17, 1861.

  6. Rudolf, box 18
, from Zurich, September 1, 1867 (in Hungarian).

  7. Die Presse, June 11, 1868.

  8. Corti, Elisabeth, p. 111.

  9. Brigitte Hamann, Sisis Schönheitsalbum (Dortmund, 1980), Foreword, p. 7.

  10. Ibid., p. 8.

  11. Sophie, from Dresden, February 10 and 11, 1864.

  12. SStA, Marie of Saxony to Fanny von Ow, February 18, 1864.

  13. The Correspondence of John Lothrop Motley.

  14. Ibid., p. 199.

  15. Roger Fulford, ed., Dearest Mama (London, 1968), p. 266, from Berlin, September 8, 1863.

  16. Scharding, p. 93.

  17. Festetics, March 5 and 25, 1874.

  18. Wiener Tageblatt, September 14 and 17, 1898.

  19. Morgen-Post, April 27, 1863.

  20. Sophie, April 28, 1863.

  21. Konstantin Christomanos, Tagebuchblätter (Vienna, 1899), p. 84.

  22. Corti, Elisabeth, pp. 356f.

  23. Irma Countess Sztaray, Aus den letzten Jahren der Kaiserin Elisabeth (Vienna, 1909), pp. 40f.

  24. Christomanos, pp. 58–62.

  25. Maria Freiin von Wallersee, Meine Vergangenheit (Berlin, 1913), p. 27.

  26. Ibid., p. 53.

  27. Fremdenblatt, December 8, 1864.

  28. Crenneville, Franz Joseph to Crenneville, December 8, 1864.

  29. Christomanos, pp. 90f. and 108.

  30. Marie Louise von Wallersee, Kaiserin Elisabeth und ich (Leipzig, 1935), p. 204.

  31. Hübner, October 31, 1881.

  32. Valerie, October 15, 1882.

  33. Emperor Wilhelm II, Aus meinem Leben 1859–1888 (Berlin, 1929), p. 87.

  34. Festetics, from Bad Ischl, June 21, 1872.

  35. Carmen Sylva, “Die Kaiserin Elisabeth in Sinaia,” Neue Freie Presse, December 25, 1908.

  36. Festetics, September 14, 1879.

  CHAPTER SIX

  HUNGARY

  Elisabeth’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

  *

  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 pr
esented 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.

  Because of her lowly origins, Ida could not become a lady-in-waiting. Someone thought up the subterfuge of first naming Ida to be a canoness, which entitled her at least to the title of Frau, and then to appoint her officially “reader to Her Majesty,” beginning with a monthly salary of 150 guldens in addition to board and lodging. Of course, Ida never read to the Empress.

  Sisi’s letters to Ida, filled with tenderness, are usually headed by the address (in Hungarian), “My sweet Ida!” The letters are exceedingly long (to her husband, for example, Sisi wrote much shorter and usually more sober notes) and contain such remarkable sentences as “I think of you so much, during the long hairdressing, during my walks, and a thousand times a day.”5 (Only fragments of Elisabeth’s letters to Ida Ferenczy survive. Ida burned most of them, presumably the most significant ones; the few that were preserved were destroyed during the Second World War except for a few scraps.)