B008AITH44 EBOK

by Hamann, Brigitte

  Other habits Elisabeth cultivated in Gödöllö also soon became matters of general knowledge, at least at the Viennese court. For example, the Empress had an arena built like the one her father had had in Munich at one time. There she put her mounts through their paces and worked with circus horses. Marie: “It was a charming sight when Aunt in her black velvet riding costume led her small Arab horse around the ring in dancing step. True, for an empress, it was a somewhat uncommon occupation.”3

  Even the Bavarian family, inured to odd behavior by Max, was not a little astonished when Valerie proudly told Prince Regent Luitpold, “Uncle Luitpold, Mama on her horse can already jump through two hoops.”4

  Her instructors in these circus tricks were the most famous equestriennes from the Circus Renz, Emilie Loiset and Elise Petzold. Elise especially was a frequent guest at Gödöllö and was considered a personal confidante of the Empress. Elisabeth showed her affection for Elise (who was also known as Elise Renz in court circles) by making a gift to her of one of her favorite horses, Lord Byron, and inviting the circus equestrienne along at the most elegant hunts. When twenty-five-year-old Emilie Loiset had a fatal accident in the ring, few newspapers omitted mentioning that she had been close to the Empress of Austria.

  The head of the Circus Renz, Ernst Renz, occasionally advised Elisabeth when she was buying a horse. He, too, became a celebrity in the more exalted circles because of the Empress’s favors.

  At Gödöllö, a former circus director named Gustav Hüttemann gave the Empress lessons in dressage. Emperor Franz Joseph put up with all these activities resignedly, even preserving his sense of humor, telling Herr Hüttemann, “Well, the roles are reversed. Tonight, the Empress takes the stage as the equestrienne. You put the horse through its paces. And I function as your equerry.”

  Besides the circus riders, Elisabeth also invited gypsies. Because she loved gypsy music, she ignored all the unpleasantness these visits brought with them, glossing it over generously with laughter. The men servants, including the Emperor’s personal valet, were outraged: “In Gödöllö, all sorts of shady folk roamed about—filthy men, women, and children muffled in rags. Often the Empress brought a whole community to the castle, had them entertained and lavishly provided with food.”5

  All curiosities and abnormalities attracted Elisabeth’s interest. Once she ordered the latest circus attraction to be sent from Budapest to Gödöllö—two black girls joined together. “But the mere thought horrified the Emperor so much that he absolutely refused to look at them,” the Empress wrote to Duchess Ludovika, who was, after all, used to such things on a large scale from her Max.6

  The more intensively and exclusively Elisabeth occupied herself with horseback riding, the more time she spent in the company of horsemen, the more dissatisfied she became with Gödöllö: The hunting season was too short, since it did not begin until after the harvest (in early September) and traditionally ended on November 3, St. Hubert’s Day. The dense forests were an obstacle to the hunt. Most of all, there were too few fences and too few chances to jump; the countryside offered merely small open ditches instead of the high fences typical of the English hunts. And riding to hounds on the English model was the ne plus ultra even for Austrian gentleman riders. Whoever could not boast of successes or at least participation in English hunts—as Niki Esterházy, for example, could—was not taken seriously among the horseback elite.

  Ex-Queen Marie of Naples, Sisi’s beautiful sister, had already followed the fashion and (with the help of the House of Rothschild) had bought a hunting lodge in England. Now she gushed to Elisabeth about the English hunts and invited her sister to England in 1874. The official reason for this, the Empress’s first trip to England, was that little Marie Valerie absolutely required ocean bathing, for which the Isle of Wight was eminently suited.

  In order to forestall any political complications, Elisabeth traveled under the alias of Countess von Hohenembs. Nevertheless, she could not avoid paying a courtesy call on Queen Victoria, who was spending the summer at Osborne, also on the Isle of Wight. Elisabeth’s surprise visit, on very short notice, was not convenient for the Queen. Somewhat annoyed, Victoria wrote to her daughter, “The Empress insisted on seeing me today. All of us are disappointed. I cannot call her a great beauty. She has beautiful skin, a magnificent figure, and pretty little eyes and a not very pretty nose. I must say that she looks much better in grande tenue [dressed in state], when she can be seen with her beautiful hair, which is to her advantage. I think Alix [the Princess of Wales] much prettier than the Empress.”

  The Prussian Crown Princess Victoria, the British Queen’s oldest daughter, was also on the Isle of Wight, at Sandown. She, too, was disappointed by Elisabeth’s visit and wrote to her mother, “The Empress of Austria also came here yesterday—she would not accept any of the refreshments she was offered. But afterwards we heard that she had gone to the hotel in Sandown and dined there, which we did find fairly strange. She did not look her best, and I believe her beauty has faded a great deal since last year, though she is still pretty! Nor was she dressed very becomingly.” Victoria agreed with her mother that the English Princess Alix was prettier; “but the Empress is more striking than any lady I have ever seen. The beautiful Empress is a very strange person, as far as her daily schedule is concerned. The greatest part of the morning she spends sleeping on the sofa. She dines around 4 and rides all evening quite alone and never less than three hours and gets furious when anything else is planned. She wants to see no one or be seen anywhere.”7

  Sisi, for her part, wrote to her husband about her (only) official visiting day on Wight—“the most fatiguing day of the whole trip,” she noted. “The Queen was very friendly, said nothing unpleasant, but I do not care for her…. I was altogether very polite, and everyone seemed astonished. But now I have done everything. Everyone understands completely that I want quiet, and they do not want to embarrass me.”8 To Duchess Ludovika she wrote that “such things bore” her. Sisi’s letters in general often mentioned boredom. It was probably also the reason for her dream of faraway places. “What I would most like to do is go to America for a little while, the ocean draws me so much whenever I look at it. Valerie would like to go along, too, for she found the sea voyage charming. All the others with few exceptions were sick.”9

  Instead of paying another call on the Queen, Elisabeth sought out celebrated stud farms to look at English hunting horses, but she made no purchases. Elisabeth to her husband: “I also saw some very beautiful horses, but all of them very expensive. The one I would most have liked to have cost 25,000 fl. so naturally unaffordable.”10

  A bare two weeks later, however, she had what she wanted. A rich English lady absolutely insisted (as Sisi wrote the Emperor) on making her a present of a large English hunter. Though she had assured Lady Dudley “that it was not customary for me to accept gifts,”11 she finally did accept. To the Emperor of Austria, this incident was an embarrassment; for Sisi it was a triumph: As had happened in 1867, when Gödöllö Castle was at stake, she was given by strangers what Franz Joseph refused her.

  During her stay in London, Elisabeth went riding in Hyde Park, causing quite a stir. She visited the Wax Museum and an insane asylum. She also paid a call on another member of the British Royal Family, the Duke of Teck, but made fun of the Duchess: “She is enormously fat, I’ve never seen anything like it. All the time I wondered what she looked like in bed.”

  She went swimming in the ocean but wrote to Vienna reassuringly, “While I bathe, Marie Festetics and one of the women are always in the water, so that the onlookers at the shore and on the heights do not know which one I am. And here, too, I bathe, contrary to my custom, in a light flannel.” Furthermore, she tried to persuade her very busy husband to visit her. “How unfortunate that you cannot come. After the many maneuvers, I have gratefully received the list, you could really come for two weeks, visit London, skip up to Scotland, visit the Queen, and do a little hunting near London. We have horses and everything
here, so it would be a pity not to use them. Think about it for a few days before immediately saying no with your usual obstinacy.”

  Franz Joseph could not work a trip to England into his program. As usual, he relaxed by hunting, for which Elisabeth had full understanding: “I beg you, don’t let anyone interfere with your plans,” she wrote from England before her departure. “The hunts are such an essential recreation for you that I would be desolate if my return were to deprive you of one. I know that you love me, even without any demonstrations, and the reason we are happy together is that we never make things awkward for one another.”12

  These letters make hardly any mention of politics. On one occasion, Sisi wrote to the Emperor that she had allowed Prince Edward, the British heir, to explain the Spanish question to her. Bloody battles between Republicans and Carlists had followed the abdication of Amadeo I in 1873, and they were ended only by Alfonso XII’s accession. Elisabeth found the British successor’s discourse practical, “for I have not looked at a newspaper, but neither has the Crown Princess [Alexandra], which reassured me.”13

  Ex-Queen Marie of Naples introduced her older sister to members of the international hunting and racing set. At this time, the group included the Baltazzi brothers from Vienna. Because of their very real triumphs on the English racecourses, they were accepted by the highest-ranking English society, a feat they had not managed in Vienna. “One must be very careful,” Marie Festetics’s diary noted. “The brothers live entirely for the sport, they ride marvelously, make their way everywhere, are dangerous for us because they are entirely English and because of the horses.”14

  The lady-in-waiting knew precisely how much bad blood any accord between the Empress and such social climbers would cause. But after all, the Baltazzis—along with their equally ambitious sister, Helene Vetsera—had infiltrated the society around ex-Queen Marie of Naples. Half a step more would take them to the Empress.

  The Habsburg and Baltazzi Vetsera families met for the first time in England, at the most famous racecourses of the day. Elisabeth presented a cup to Hector Baltazzi, the winner of a race on the Isle of Wight. Champagne flowed like water. It was a lively company of rich, idle, elegant people basking in the presence of a beautiful ex-queen and a still more beautiful empress. The influence of Marie of Naples on Elisabeth was especially strong during this period. Marie Festetics ascribed it to “the whole England agitation.”15

  Marie, whose only legitimate child had died soon after its birth in 1870 and who continued to feel unhappy in her marriage, had no duties of any kind. A beautiful queen in exile, financed by the House of Rothschild, she lived cheerfully for her horses and aristocratic society. Her husband was deeply devoted to his beautiful and highly intelligent wife. Marie Festetics: “Her king is for her what the baggage porter at the railroad station is for me!”16

  According to Marie Festetics, Elisabeth was “easily influenced if it coincided with a certain convenience.” Her sister Marie merely fanned her discontent. “For she finds her existence, compared with that of the Empress, so enviable—for she was so free—could do as she pleased,” Countess Festetics observed, who thought no good would come of this influence. She described the beautiful ex-Queen “as a disturbing element,” even as “a little evil demon,”17 and tried to appeal to Elisabeth’s sense of duty. But the lady-in-waiting failed.

  This first trip to England roused Elisabeth’s ambition. She became determined to shine at the great hunts like her sister. From this time on, she spent many hours a day, even in Vienna and at Gödöllö, practicing her riding and jumping.

  She trained on her tall English hunter, using English hurdles, which were higher than was common on the Continent. Her equerry Allen—who was, of course, English—worked with her.

  In Vienna, only the racecourse in the Freudenau was suitable to this activity. The Viennese were determined not to miss such a spectacle, and they streamed there in great crowds to watch their Empress jump hurdles. Elisabeth’s popularity was not exactly enhanced by these frequent semipublic appearances. Soon she longed for a more discreet practice arena. Her stays at Gödöllö grew longer than ever—and her popularity in Vienna lower.

  Then, in the summer of 1875, an event occurred that had a crucial effect on the rest of Elisabeth’s life: ex-Emperor Ferdinand died without issue in Prague and named his nephew and successor, Franz Joseph, as his sole heir.

  The Emperor, “totally naively,” to his adjutant general, Crenneville: “All of a sudden I am a rich man!”18 The estates in Ferdinand’s holdings brought in over a million guldens a year. The cash fortune amounted to several times that.

  The first outlay Franz Joseph made from his new wealth was a generous raise in Elisabeth’s yearly grant and widow’s pension, from 100,000 to 300,000 guldens. He made an additional gift to his wife of 2 million guldens outright.

  This sum represented the beginning of the Empress’s considerable personal fortune. Until that time, she had had to live on her allowance and had required her husband’s consent for any additional expenses. And during the past twenty years, Emperor Franz Joseph had always had a compelling reason for thrift: wars, the reparations to be paid to Prussia after 1866, finally the crash of 1873, among others. Time and again, he had begged his wife to spend less.

  These times were now over. With the income from Emperor Ferdinand’s legacy, the imperial family could finally draw on unlimited resources. Franz Joseph never again refused anything his wife wanted if it could be bought. For her part, she was clever at wheedling money out of him on all conceivable occasions. From 1875 on, she increased her private fortune steadily (in spite of huge expenditures), held stocks and bonds in the state railways and the Danube Shipping Company, and acquired a number of savings accounts under aliases; one, in the First Austrian Savings Bank, for example, was held in the name of Hermengilde Haraszti.19

  Finally, she invested some of her money with the House of Rothschild in Switzerland, thus providing for possible emergencies (such as emigration). There are no indications that the Emperor knew about these transactions.

  The immediate consequence of the inheritance was that Elisabeth no longer held her desires in check. She wished to go to England for fox hunting, this time not as a spectator but as a participant. The adventure required new horses, the best to be found in Austria-Hungary.

  But she still did not feel proficient enough to cut a brilliant figure on the English jumping courses—and here, too, she wanted to be the best, the most handsome, the most daring. In 1875, therefore, almost as a compromise, she added to her schedule a stay of several weeks for riding and bathing in Normandy. She stayed at the old castle of Sassetôt, the grounds of which had room for many English-style hurdles.

  The official reason given by the Viennese court for this additional stay abroad was, once again, that little Marie Valerie needed ocean air to build up her strength. The Empress, it was announced, would be going with her. The fact that the entourage of sixty included the English equerry and numerous stablehands no longer aroused much surprise. Many horses were also taken along on little Valerie’s vacation.

  The mornings in Sassetôt were reserved for swimming. Sisi to Franz Joseph: “One bathes together with all the other bathers, men and women, however each is preoccupied with himself and it is less embarrassing. … Only on the first day everyone watched from the shore, that was very unpleasant.”20 In the afternoons, the Empress went riding and followed the pleasure ride with steeplechase practice.

  Excursions into the surrounding countryside were only rarely undertaken. “Now, in spite of the Republic, the people here are as pushy and inquisitive as in no other country, so that it is very awkward for me wherever I go.”21 And on another occasion: “Also, while riding, I have had frequent difficulties, on the roads and in the villages, children and coachmen are all eager to frighten the horses, if one rides in the fields, of course where no damage can be done, the peasants are terribly rude.” These unpleasantnesses almost turned into an affair of state. In a
ny case, the Austrian embassy in Paris had to disclaim that the Empress of Austria had been insulted by French farmers.22

  Countess Festetics, who was in attendance on the trip to France, was outraged to see the English riding master, Allen, encourage the Empress to ever more reckless tricks. He himself showed off by riding his horse into the high, foaming breakers—almost drowning in the process.23

  Here in Sassetôt, the Empress had a serious riding accident, with intermittent loss of consciousness and a concussion. The Emperor, extremely worried, wanted to visit his ailing wife. But France was a republic, the political relations between the two different governments were rather cool and stiff. An imperial trip through Europe to the northern edge of France, no matter how privately conducted, would have caused unpleasantness. So Franz Joseph waited; and after a few days, the accident proved not to be life-threatening. Elisabeth to her husband from Sassetôt: “I am so sorry to have frightened you. But surely both of us are always prepared for such accidents…. I am already looking forward to having more horses again. Here I have too few for the work…. I am taking pride in showing that I have not lost heart merely because of a spill.”24 That is, Elisabeth had no intention of curbing her passion for riding—quite the reverse.

  Little Marie Valerie, however, had to promise her mother that she would never get on a horse. And the Hungarian bishop Hyazinth Rónay, Valerie’s tutor, copied out on a piece of tissue-thin paper the words to the Latin ninetieth psalm; from then on, the Empress always carried this paper with her in a blessed medallion. It read, “He that dwelleth in the secret place of the most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty. I will say of the Lord, He is my refuge and my fortress: my God; in him will I trust…. There shall no evil befall thee, neither shall any plague come nigh thy dwelling. For he shall give his angels charge over thee, to keep thee in all thy ways.”25