According to Marie Festetics, the King of Italy was “desperate at not seeing her. Andrássy also. It gives rise to talk and articles that might better have been avoided, now that a reconciliation is being arranged.”89
The story had made the rounds that the Empress was refusing to receive Victor Emmanuel because in 1860, he had driven her sister Marie from Naples. Foreign Minister Andrássy had no use for resentments of this sort in 1873, when he was resolutely aiming at an alliance between Austria and her former antagonist. Sisi’s stomach upset lasted so long that she was also unable to lend her presence to the visit of the German Emperor Wilhelm I in October. This time she remained in Gödöllö. Since late July, Emperor Franz Joseph had single-handedly dispatched all the social duties attendant on the World Exhibition—with the exception of the farewell for the Shah.
After the Vienna World Exhibition closed, December 1873 brought still further festive events, this time in celebration of the twenty-five-year jubilee of Franz Joseph’s reign. Once again there were fireworks and illuminations, solemn church services, ceremonial speeches, and an amnesty for all those in prison for lèse majesté. In Trieste and Prague, there were “a few fanatical or childish demonstrations” against the Imperial House, as the Swiss envoy reported. His overall impression of the mood in the monarchy, however, was favorable: The jubilee had “given conclusive evidence that the peoples of Austria harbor strong and warm sympathies for their monarch, who, though unfortunate in most of his wars, nevertheless in times of calm and peace is always zealous and upright in his concern for the welfare of his lands.”90
The newspapers listed the achievements of Franz Joseph’s reign—that is, since 1848. Especially the capital, Vienna, had changed during this period, and to an extent surpassing all previous centuries. The number of inhabitants had grown from 500,000 (including the suburbs, 600,000) to over a million. The expansion of the city—the demolition of the old city walls and the creation of the Ringstrasse—had brought about a modern Vienna. The regulation of the Danube was about to be completed, the time of the frequent floods was over. The Fremdenblatt: “In the near future, the proud merchant vessels of every nation will sail in on the broad surface of the Danube.”91 The formerly poor hygienic conditions in Vienna had been abruptly improved by the construction of the new aqueduct bringing in spring water. A great many schools, churches, and hospitals had been opened. The new university at the Schottentor was being built; the Künstlerhaus, the Musikvereingebäude, the new opera house, the Stadttheater (municipal theater), and the Volksoper had already been completed. Since 1848, Vienna had been given eleven new bridges alone.
There are no indications that the Empress took an interest in this progress within the empire, that she felt any pride. She made herself unpleasantly conspicuous by interrupting her stay in Hungary for a mere two days for the jubilee. But even during these two days, she was as inaccessible as she could manage. For her arrival at the Vienna railroad station, she wore a hat “with an impenetrable silver-gray gauze veil,” the newspapers noted. At the solemn drive through Vienna of Their Majesties during the nightly “illumination,” the Emperor and the Crown Prince rode in an open carriage, the Empress followed in a closed coach so that she could not be recognized.
Elisabeth’s demeanor during a walk along the Ringstrasse created a great stir. Marie Festetics, who was among her companions, recalled:
She was recognized, cheered, and surrounded. At first all went well; she smiled, thanked everyone. But people kept streaming toward her from all sides!—There was no going forward, no going back; the space around us grew narrower and narrower—the circle grew smaller and smaller, we were in mortal danger;—I begged, entreated, she and I could not breathe. Beads of perspiration born of fear stood on our foreheads. My voice could not be heard at all, and I literally shouted: “You are crushing the Empress—for God’s sake, Help!—Help!—Air—air.” … After an hour or more, we managed to make our way to the carriage—Quickly she was inside, and finally we drew a deep breath, but she was utterly exhausted and quite ill!92
Of course, these people were friendly and not in the least malicious. Countess Festetics’s terror was surely hysterical. But during the entire occurrence, Elisabeth uttered not a word, was totally passive, helpless, intimidated. There was no possibility here of an understanding between the Empress and the people. The daily papers painted a picture of the scene that differed sharply from Marie Festetics’s account. No mention of the fact that the ovation had taken on a threatening dimension: “The noble lady was recognized by the public and greeted with the most enthusiastic cheers. Her Majesty was visibly touched and very gladdened by this ovation.”93
Elisabeth’s behavior on the occasion of the jubilee was strongly criticized. There was even a critical newspaper article (“The Strange Woman”) that mentioned her infrequent presence in the capital. The Emperor made this article the occasion to rebuke sharply the delegation of Concordia, a journalists’ association, which came to deliver its congratulations. He had, he said, “agreed to the removal of the regulations that placed barriers in the way of the free expression of opinion.” But he hoped that now the press “would discuss the national situation with reasonable objectivity and in the patriotic spirit, far from intrusions in the sphere of private and family life.”94
The louder the criticism grew, the stronger was Elisabeth’s anger at Vienna and the more she talked herself into a literal persecution mania, finally seeing nothing but enemies on all sides. Marie Festetics listed these antagonists as follows:
There is the Bohemian Party, which thinks it is her fault that the Emperor will not be crowned, for she hates Bohemia because she loves Hungary!
There are the Ultramontanes, who say she is not pious enough. She holds the Emperor back, they claim, otherwise he would long ago have subordinated the state to the Church.
There are the Centralists, they say, in turn, that she is against absolutism. If her influence could be broken, it would be easy to return to the old form of government!
Dualism is said to be her work! That is the only thing in which she has a hand. I will admit that. But it was surely not to Austria’s disadvantage; once everything begins to totter—He will remain King of Hungary!”95
Most of this is probably true. But the Empress did make enemies. She justified her stand by ascribing mistakes to others—her mother-in-law; her first chatelaine, Countess Esterházy; the Viennese court altogether. Marie Festetics (and in reading her statements, we must always bear in mind that she was an ardent admirer of Elisabeth) wrote about this quality, which intensified in subsequent years: “Even if she is wrong, she finds something to serve as a reason not to do this or that.”96 Elisabeth refused to fulfill the traditional duties, both of a wife and mother and of an empress, but lacked anything more meaningful to fill her time. Countess Festetics was worried for good reason. “She is an enthusiast, and her principal occupation is brooding. How dangerous that is. She wants to get to the bottom of everything and searches around too much, it seems to me that the healthiest mind would have to suffer from this kind of life. She needs an occupation, a position, and since the only one Sisi could have is one that is repugnant to her nature, everything in her lies fallow.” The lady-in-waiting saw that Elisabeth “never [did] anything by halves”: “how, with what energy, she learned Hungarian—it was a mortification. Now Archduchess Valerie fills her soul completely. But for a being with her endowments, the relationship with her child does not furnish enough intellectual nourishment, and she has little other occupation. It is clear to see how unfulfilled she is.”97
Notes
1. Fürstenberg, July 3, 1867.
2. BStB, manuscript collection, Sophie to Oskar von Redwitz, from Vienna, February 15, [18]69.
3. Corti, Elisabeth, p. 184.
4. Fürstenberg, from Bad Ischl, August 19, 1867.
5. Hans Wilczek erzählt seinen Enkeln Erinnerungen aus seinem Leben (Vienna, 1933), p. 76.
6. Ibid., p. 74.
7. Prince Kraft zu Hohenlohe-Ingelfingen, Aus meinem Leben, Vol. I (Berlin, 1906), p. 369.
8. Rudolf, box 18, March 31, 1865.
9. Ibid.
10. Festetics, March 13, 1872.
11. Ibid., September 19, 1872.
12. Fürstenberg, from Bad Ischl, August 23, 1867.
13. Ibid., from Vienna, March 9, 1868.
14. Ibid., from Bad Ischl, August 1, 1869.
15. Festetics, February 14, 1872 (in French).
16. Ibid., September 17 and 19, 1872.
17. Crenneville, March 25, 1869.
18. Hans Christoph Hoffmann, Walter Krause, and Werner Kitlitschka, Das Wiener Opernhaus (Wiesbaden, 1972) pp. 410ff. The Empress’s parlor was burned out in 1945 and could not be restored.
19. Scharding, p. 106.
20. Festetics, February 2, 1883.
21. Ibid., January 13, 1874.
22. Corti Papers, from Merano, November 18, 1871.
23. William Unger, Aus meinem Leben (Vienna, 1929), p. 152.
24. Corti Papers, from Bad Ischl, July 16, 1870.
25. Ibid., from Neuberg, August 10, 1870.
26. Sophie, September 25, 1870.
27. Ibid., October 5, 1870.
28. Festetics, July 4, 1871.
29. Ibid., February 2, 1872.
30. Meraner Zeitung, April 12, 1903.
31. Festetics, February 23, 1872 (in Hungarian).
32. Ibid., March 17, 1872.
33. Ibid., April 2, 1873.
34. Ibid., September 27, 1878.
35. Elisabeth, manuscript.
36. Most recently, Heinrich Lutz, Österreich-Ungarn und die Gründung des Deutschen Reiches (Frankfurt, 1979).
37. Sophie, December 31, 1871.
38. Corti Papers, from Vienna, March 12, 1874.
39. Ibid., from Vienna, April 24, 1872.
40. GHA, Papers of Leopold of Bavaria from Merano, February 17 [1872].
41. Festetics, April 8, 1872.
42. Schnürer, p. 385, from Budapest, April 8, 1872.
43. Sophie, April 7, 1872.
44. Leopold Papers, from Budapest, April 7, 1872.
45. Sophie, April 23, 1872.
46. Festetics, May 25, 1875.
47. Richard Sexau, Fürst und Arzt (Graz, 1963), p. 242.
48. Festetics, April 17, 1872.
49. Ibid., May 28, 1872.
50. Bern, May 29, 1872.
51. Hübner, May 28, 1872.
52. Festetics, June 2, 1872.
53. Sexau, March 19, 1862.
54. Festetics, June 2, 1872.
55. Ibid., October 15, 1872.
56. Ibid., December 9, 1872.
57. Ibid., December 28, 1873.
58. Valerie, December 24, 1890.
59. Fürstenberg, May 3, 1882.
60. Festetics, April 21, 1873.
61. Ibid.
62. Ibid., April 23, 1873.
63. NWT, April 21, 1873.
64. Corti Papers, from Munich, January 12, 1874.
65. Rudolf, box 18, Bad Ischl, 24.
66. GHA, Papers of Leopold of Bavaria, from Budapest, January 9, 1874.
67. Festetics, May 21, 1873.
68. Ibid., May 4, 1873.
69. Ibid., May 21, 1873.
70. Ibid., May 29, 1873.
71. Ibid., June 4, 1873.
72. Crenneville, June 3, 1873.
73. Ibid., to his wife, June 5, 4, and 7, 1873.
74. Ibid., May 9, 1873.
75. Ibid., June 25, 1873.
76. Ibid., June 26, 1873.
77. Ibid., July 6, 1873.
78. Festetics, July 14, 1873.
79. Ibid., June 8, 1873.
80. Corti, Elisabeth, p. 245.
81. Crenneville, July 28, 1873.
82. NWT, August 3 and 2, 1873.
83. Ibid., July 31, 1873.
84. Ibid., August 8, 1873.
85. Ibid., August 9, 1873.
86. Festetics, August 9, 1873.
87. NWT, August 9, 1876.
88. Crenneville, September 21, 1873.
89. Festetics, September 23, 1873.
90. Bern, December 7, 1873.
91. Fremdenblatt, November 30, 1873.
92. Festetics, December 3, 1873.
93. Fremdenblatt, December 2, 1873.
94. NWT, December 3, 1873.
95. Festetics, March 3, 1874.
96. Ibid., March 4, 1875.
97. Ibid., August 14, 1873.
CHAPTER EIGHT
THE QUEEN
RIDES TO HOUNDS
In 1873, the year of the World Exhibition, Elisabeth met more social obligations than in any year before or after—though more under duress than of her own free will, and with many of her familiar caprices. Now she was in need of rest—far from Vienna, of course. Elisabeth wrote to her mother from Gödöllö, “here one lives so quietly without relatives and vexations, and there [in Vienna] the whole imperial family! Here, too, I am at ease as in the country, can walk alone, go for drives alone”—but especially go horseback riding.1
The Puszta sands seemed made for the hours of daily rides. There were still wild horses in the region. The landscape was romantic and rugged, just what Elisabeth loved. She also took part in the most difficult hunts. The wife of the Belgian envoy, Countess de Jonghe, wrote, “It is supposedly wonderful to see her at the head of all the riders and always in the most dangerous spots. The enthusiasm of the Magyars knows no bounds, they break their necks to follow more closely. Young Elemer Batthyány almost lost his life, fortunately only his horse died. Near their beautiful queen, the Hungarians become royalist to a degree that, it is said, if these hunts had begun before the elections, the government could have incurred great savings.”2
Gödöllö was Elisabeth’s empire. Here her laws prevailed, and they had little to do with questions of rank and protocol. Visitors were selected, not according to their standing among the nobility, but by their riding skills. Elisabeth collected around herself the elite of the Austro-Hungarian horsemen—young, rich aristocrats who spent their lives almost exclusively at race courses and on hunting and had no obligations or work of any kind.
For years, her favorite was Count Nikolaus Esterházy, the famous “Sports Niki.” His huge estate adjoined Gödöllö. He was famous for the thoroughbreds he raised, and he supplied Elisabeth’s stables with horses. During the 1860s and 1870s, Niki Esterházy was the ranking horseman of Austria-Hungary, for many years the undisputed master of the hunt, one of the founders of the Jockey Club in Vienna—besides being a dashing, good-looking bachelor and social lion, two years younger than the Empress.
“The handsome prince” Rudolf Liechtenstein, could also be found at Elisabeth’s side. He was (and remained all his life) a bachelor, a little younger than the Empress, a well-known horseman and ladies’ man. During the 1870s, he also distinguished himself as a composer of art songs. He was devoted to the Empress in perpetual adoration.
Count Elemer Batthyány’s frequent presence at Gödöllö caused a particular sensation. For he was a son of the Hungarian prime minister whom the young Emperor Franz Joseph had executed in 1849 under humiliating circumstances. Batthyány’s widow as well as Elemer refused to meet the Emperor; they went so far as to snub him openly by refusing to greet him when they met by accident.
Elisabeth never left the slightest doubt that she condemned most harshly the methods of Austrian policy and justice during the Revolution of 1848. She brought considerable understanding to young Batthyány’s intransigent stance and obliged him in any way she could.
Of course, she invited Elemer to Gödöllö even when the Emperor was in residence—and, of course, Batthyány turned away whenever Franz Joseph came near him. And no matter how rigidly Franz Joseph insisted on court etiquette—here in his wife’s company, he allowed Batthyány to snub him without protesting; he made desperate efforts to ignore awkward situations, and in this way he, too, showed some understanding.
Of course, Gyula András
sy was also a frequent visitor at Gödöllö. He was still an outstanding horseman. But he could not easily keep up with the competition offered by Esterházy, Liechtenstein, and Batthyány; after all, he was the imperial and royal foreign minister, had his hands full with work, and could not spend his days on fancy riding tricks. Furthermore, by now he was past fifty. His interest in racing had waned.
Sisi also invited her niece Baroness Marie Wallersee to Gödöllö. The daughter of her brother Ludwig and the actress Henriette Mendel of Munich, Marie was not only a strikingly pretty girl (a fact which, as was well known, Sisi valued highly), but also an outstanding horsewoman. Elisabeth enjoyed provoking the nobility with the girl’s presence. For in spite of her close kinship with the Empress, “little Wallersee” was not socially acceptable, because her mother was a bourgeoise and she was a “bastard.” Elisabeth turned Marie into her creature, fitting her out in the latest fashions, teaching her the necessary social polish and the required haughtiness toward men. She clearly relished the sensation the beautiful young woman at her side created. Marie: “Three times a week there was a hunt. Oh, it was marvelous! On horseback, Elisabeth looked enchanting. Her hair lay in heavy braids around her head, over it she wore a top hat. Her dress fitted like a glove; she wore high laced boots with tiny spurs and she pulled three pairs of gloves over each other; the unavoidable fan was always stuck in the saddle.” (The Empress used the fan swiftly whenever curious onlookers appeared, to hide her face.)
Elisabeth also made the young girl the confidante of her secrets. Marie Wallersee: “I thoroughly enjoyed the long rides with the Empress, who occasionally found pleasure in disguising herself as a boy. Of course, I had to follow her example; but I still recall the shame that tortured me when I saw myself for the first time in trousers. Elisabeth imagined that this crazy whim was not generally known in Gödöllö; in reality, everyone was talking about it. Only Franz Joseph, I believe, had no idea of what was everyone’s secret.”
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