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  During her pregnancy, the sixteen-year-old grew even more depressed, especially because Sophie forced her over and over to appear in public. Later, Elisabeth was to tell Marie Festetics, “Hardly had she arrived than she dragged me out into the garden and declared that it was my duty to show off my stomach, so that the people could see that I really was pregnant. It was awful. Instead, it seemed to me a blessing to be alone and able to weep.”51

  Archduchess Sophie firmly took all the necessary preparations for the forthcoming blessed event into her own hands. She decided where the nurseries were to be installed: not near the imperial couple, but next to her own apartments, which she ordered redecorated at the same time. Thus, even months before the birth, she decided that Elisabeth was to be separated from her child. For the “baby chamber” was accessible from the imperial apartments only by way of several steep staircases and drafty corridors, and at the same time was so closely connected to Sophie’s apartments that the young mother could not visit her child without Sophie’s being present.

  Nor did Elisabeth have a say in the selection of the “Aja.” Sophie chose Baroness Karoline von Welden, the widow of the artillery commander who had distinguished himself in the suppression of the uprising in Hungary in 1848–1849. Baroness von Welden had no children of her own and no experience of child rearing. Her choice was a purely political decision and a recognition of the Baroness’s late husband’s merits. The principal work in the nursery was left to Leopoldine Nischer, whom Sophie prepared for her task in repeated discussions.

  In all these decisions the young Empress was not only bypassed but even treated like a child. She was to do her duty: appear in public until she dropped, and have a baby as soon as possible—although she was only sixteen. That she had desires and needs, that she wanted to be acknowledged as a person in her own right, not even the enamored Emperor recognized.

  The crisis in the East was still acute. Reinforcements were sent to the Russian border. The Czar of Russia turned into an enemy once and for all. Franz Joseph wrote his mother, “It is hard to have to oppose former friends, however in politics it is not possible to do otherwise, and in the East, Russia is always our natural enemy.”52

  Austria lost her old ally, Russia, without gaining new friends in the West. The country would have to pay dearly for her political isolation during the subsequent wars waged by Franz Joseph—in 1859 in the cause of Lombardy, in 1866 in the cause of Venetia and predominance in Germany, and even, finally, in 1914. The fact that this infinitely complex political situation happened to coincide with the Emperor’s wedding and the early years of his marriage is surely not without its tragic aspects. The emotional and mental stress on the Emperor left him far too little time for his young wife. His constant absences allowed the differences between Sophie and Elisabeth to grow into irreconcilable antagonisms, which had their full effect on the imperial marriage.

  The bankrupt state was not able to raise the monies required for mobilization. A “national loan” of 500 million guldens was floated. Proud and self-confident, Franz Joseph wrote his mother, “We will deal with the feared revolution even without Russia, and a country that in one year manages without difficulty to enlist 200,000 recruits and brings about a loan of more than 500 million guldens within its borders is not yet so very wasted by revolution.”53 Nevertheless, such good judges of the situation as Baron Kübeck deeply regretted that the Emperor and his mother held completely erroneous ideas about the methods used to extort the money from the provinces, which were causing great bitterness throughout the realm. “The Emperor seemed to me very cheerful and wholly subject to the deceptions spread around him.” And: “The way every population group talks about the methods used to raise the levy seems to be unknown in these regions.”54

  In the spring of 1855, the new minister of finance, Baron Karl von Bruck, faced an unusual situation; for the upkeep of the army alone, every year 36 million guldens more were spent than the entire income raised by the state.55

  In order to raise funds for the mobilization for the Crimean War in addition to the moneys procured by taxes, the loan, and shady bank manipulations, in 1856 Austria sold her railroads and coal mines to a French banker—a highly dubious business, since only about half the sum the railroads had cost was realized. (The sale was soon to prove calamitous, especially in the Northern Italian provinces. For in the 1859 war with France—that is, three years later—Austria could not count on the reliability of the French railroad personnel for troop transports, while Napoleon III could be all the more confident. The railroads had subsequently to be bought back by Austria at a far higher price.56) Rising prices and famine were rampant in all the Austrian provinces. Epidemics of cholera broke out, first among the troops concentrated in Walachia. The imperial family had no idea what was happening among the ordinary people. Archduchess Sophie was just as persuaded by the ideas of an absolute monarchy as was her son who, though he dutifully read his files, had no knowledge of human nature nor felt any need of such knowledge.

  For the uninformed young Empress, the Crimean War was merely an occasion for jealousy. For the Emperor often spent hours with his mother discussing the political situation, while little Sisi felt neglected and discriminated against for being too immature. Later, Elisabeth repeatedly told her children, as if to justify herself, about these difficult early years of her marriage. Even Sisi’s younger daughter, Marie Valerie, knew “about Mama’s sad youth, how Grandmama Sophie stood between her and Papa, always claimed his confidence, and in a way forever made impossible their getting to know each other and an understanding between Papa and Mama.”57 But since the young woman, as all her letters as well as Sophie’s diaries for the early period show, was extremely shy and lacking in self-confidence, was even submissive to her imperial consort, these differences could not be aired. Sisi suffered in silence, wept, composed melancholy verses. Franz Joseph, for his part, believed fully in “my complete domestic happiness.”58

  That the young couple were different not only by temperament and upbringing but also in their tastes became increasingly clear as the days passed. As an example we need only mention A Midsummer Night’s Dream; this was Sisi’s favorite play, and eventually she committed great sections of it to memory. Franz Joseph to Sophie: “Yesterday I went with Sisi to the Midsummer Night’s Dream by Shakespeare in the Burgtheater…. It was quite boring and very stupid. Only Beckmann wearing a donkey’s head was amusing.”59

  Even as a child, Sisi had read a great deal. And though she was uneducated about court conditions (at least as far as ceremonial and French conversation went), she nevertheless, unlike Franz Joseph, took a lively interest in literature and history. Writing about the early period, Weckbecker related that during one railway journey he had told the young Empress “what I knew about the history of the places, especially of Wiener Neustadt. She listened with interest, and clearly it captured her more than the gossip of Countess Esterházy.”60

  Only a few months after the resplendent wedding, the intoxication of novelty had worn off. The young Empress had to prove herself and withstand criticism, in spite of her tender years, both as “mother of the country”—although she knew next to nothing about “her” country—and most especially as first lady among the Austrian nobility. And here Elisabeth failed. The Viennese nobility sharply criticized this Empress, so clearly not “well brought up.” Even family members, such as Prince Alexander of Hesse, considered Sisi beautiful but stupid. In November 1854, he wrote in his diary that, in spite of her advanced pregnancy, the Empress was very beautiful but “After her stereotypical questions, ‘Have you been here long?’ ‘How long will you be staying in Vienna?’ apparently a little bûche, a word the French are in the habit of using to designate people of low intelligence.”61

  There was constant talk about the Empress’s lack of accomplishments: that she had not mastered protocol, that she did not dance well enough, that she dressed with insufficient elegance. Not once did her critics deal with intellectual or social skills
; books and learning had no place in the world of the court. And as the American envoy John Motley wrote, the famous salon at court was in no way a criterion for intelligence. “But I think that no reasonable being ought to like a salon. There are three topics—the Opera, the Prater, the Burg Theatre; when these are exhausted, you are floored. Conversazioni where the one thing that does not exist is conversation, are not the most cheerful of institutions.”62 The American envoy failed to mention that the aristocrats’ principal occupation was gossip—for everyone knew everyone else and was, for all practical purposes, related to everyone else. As a diplomat, after all, he was no more a part of the inner circle at court than was the young Empress, who, because of her station, had to remain above this family tattle, and who, by virtue of her origins and upbringing, had no points of contact with such conversations. She stood outside, and whether she wanted to or not, she had to allow herself to be criticized and measured against the norms of the Viennese court.

  Notes

  1. Anton Langer, Dies Buch gehört der Kaiserin. Eine Volksstimme aus Österreich (Vienna, 1854), pp. 8 and 11.

  2. Ibid., p. 21.

  3. Tschudy von Glarus, Illustriertes Gedenkbuch (Vienna, 1854), p. 28. This volume also contains a detailed description of the festivities.

  4. HHStA, OMeA, 1854, 140/24.

  5. Weckbecker, p. 204.

  6. Tschudy, p. 43.

  7. Konstantin von Wurzbach, Biographisches Lexikon des Kaiserthums Österreich.

  8. Österreichs Jubeltage (Vienna, 1854), No. 3, p. 9.

  9. Scharding, pp. 52f., Report of April 25, 1854.

  10. Eugen d’Albon, Unsere Kaiserin (Vienna, 1890), pp. 36–39.

  11. Tschudy, p. 51.

  12. Jean de Bourgoing, Elisabeth, p. 6.

  13. Amélie M.

  14. Österreichs Jubeltage, p. 12.

  15. Friedrich Walter, ed., Aus dem Nachlass des Freiherrn Carl Friedrich Kübeck von Kübau (Graz, 1960), p. 141.

  16. Sophie, April 24, 1854 (in French).

  17. Hellmuth Kretzschmer, Lebenserinnerungen des Königs Johann von Sachsen (Göttingen, 1958), p. 71.

  18. Sophie, April 27, 1854.

  19. Festetics, from Bad Ischl, October 15, 1872.

  20. Sophie, April 27, 1854.

  21. Sexau Papers, Ludovika to Auguste of Bavaria, from Vienna, April 27, 1854.

  22. Hübner, April 27, 1854.

  23. Sexau Papers, from Possenhofen, June 18, [1854].

  24. Egon Caesar Conte Corti, Elisabeth: Die seltsame Frau (Vienna, 1934), p. 53.

  25. Ibid., pp. 54f.

  26. Festetics, October 15, 1872.

  27. Sophie, November 5, 1855, and others.

  28. Amélie M.

  29. Festetics, October 15, 1872.

  30. SStA, Marie of Saxony to Fanny von Ow, May 6, 1854.

  31. GHA, Papers of Max II, from Schönbrunn, May 22, 1854.

  32. Valerie, May 30, 1881.

  33. Festetics, June 14, 1873 (in Hungarian).

  34. Weckbecker, p. 204.

  35. Wiener Zeitung, June 19, 1854.

  36. Ibid., June 8, 1854.

  37. Ibid., June 11, 1854.

  38. Fürstenberg, Diary of Therese Fürstenberg.

  39. Wiener Zeitung, June 17, 1854.

  40. Recollections of the Court Chaplain Dr. Hasel, in Wiener Tageblatt, September 15, 1898.

  41. Sophie, June 15, 1854.

  42. Valerie, June 3, 1898.

  43. Corti, Elisabeth, p. 56.

  44. Schnürer, pp. 227f., from Laxenburg, July 17, 1854.

  45. Sexau Papers.

  46. Ibid., from Possenhofen, June 30, 1854.

  47. Richard Sexau, Fürst und Arzt. Dr. med. Herzog Carl Theodor in Bayern (Vienna, 1963), p. 63.

  48. Sexau Papers, to Marie of Saxony.

  49. Ibid., to Auguste of Bavaria, from Bad Ischl, September 8, 1854.

  50. Egon Caesar Conte Corti, Mensch und Herrscher (Vienna, 1952), p. 149.

  51. Festetics, June 14, 1873 (in Hungarian).

  52. Schnürer, p. 232, October 8, 1854.

  53. Ibid.

  54. Walter, Kübeck, pp. 155 and 153.

  55. Richard Charmatz, Minister Freiherr von Bruck (Leipzig, 1916), p. 113.

  56. The definitive source for these financial transactions is Harm-Hinrich Brandt, Der österreichische Neoabsolutismus, Staatsfinanzen und Politik (Göttingen, 1978).

  57. Valerie, December 26, 1887.

  58. Schnürer, p. 232, from Schönbrunn, October 8, 1854.

  59. Ibid., p. 233.

  60. Weckbecker, p. 204.

  61. Corti Papers.

  62. The Correspondence of John Lothrop Motley, vol. I.

  CHAPTER THREE

  THE NEWLYWEDS

  Problematic as Sisi’s position at the court of Vienna and her relations with her mother-in-law, Archduchess Sophie, might have been, the relationship between the Emperor and Empress was excellent. It was impossible to ignore the fact that Franz Joseph was deeply in love. And there can be scarcely any doubt that Sisi returned her husband’s feelings and was happy with him.

  The couple’s first child was a girl, little Sophie. We have Archduchess Sophie to thank for a detailed description of the birth; her diary records a veritable idyll.

  On the morning of March 5, 1855, the Emperor woke his mother at seven o’clock because Sisi’s pains had started. Taking along a piece of needlework, Sophie sat outside the imperial bedchamber and waited, “and the Emperor went back and forth between her and me,” she wrote.

  When, around eleven o’clock, the pains grew stronger, Sophie joined the Emperor at her daughter-in-law’s bedside, observing the couple’s every move.

  Sisi held my son’s hand between her own two and once kissed it with a lively and respectful tenderness; this was so touching and made him weep; he kissed her ceaselessly, comforted her and lamented with her, and looked at me at every pain to see if it satisfied me. When they grew stronger each time and the birth began, I told him so, to give Sisi and my son new courage. I held the dear child’s head, the chamberwoman Pilat held her knees, and the midwife held her from behind. Finally, after a few good long labor pains, the head appeared, and immediately after that, the child was born (after three o’clock) and cried like a six-week-old baby. The young mother, with an expression of such touching bliss, said to me, ‘oh, now everything is all right, now I don’t mind how much I suffered!’ The Emperor burst into tears, he and Sisi did not stop kissing each other, and they embraced me with the liveliest tenderness. Sisi looked at the child with delight, and she and the young father were full of care for the child, a big, strong girl.

  The Emperor accepted the congratulations of the family assembled in the anteroom. After the baby was washed and dressed, Sophie held it in her arms and sat next to Sisi’s bed, as did the Emperor. They waited until Sisi fell asleep, around six o’clock. “Very contented and cheerful,” the imperial family took tea. The Emperor joined his younger brother Max for a cigar and a chat. Services of thanksgiving were held in all the churches.

  Hardly anywhere else is Sophie’s paramount position in the imperial family as evident as in this special situation. The midwife followed her orders. The Emperor, unsure of himself like any young father, anxiously searched his mother’s expression for indications about the progress of the birth. Elisabeth, who had just turned seventeen, was without her mother’s support, wholly at her mother-in-law’s mercy. Nevertheless, even during the strongest labor pains, her demeanor was one of “reverent, respectful tenderness” for Franz Joseph, as Sophie wrote.1 It was such demeanor that Archduchess Sophie expected as a matter of course from the young Empress in every situation, even in this extraordinary one.

  Sisi’s later complaints that the child had been taken from her right after the birth must, however, be taken with certain reservations. At least during the first few weeks after the birth, matters cannot have been quite so bad. Three weeks after her confinement, the young Empress wrote to a relative in Bavaria, �
�My little one really is already very charming and gives the Emperor and me enormous joy. At first it seemed very strange to me to have a baby of my own; it is like an entirely new joy, and I have the little one with me all day long, except when she is carried for a walk, which happens often while the fine weather holds.”2

  But, of course, the young mother had to submit to her mother-in-law’s regime without remonstrating—just as the Emperor was used to doing from childhood. The child was given the name Sophie, her grandmother being the godmother. Sisi was not consulted on this decision, either.

  Until her death in 1857, little Sophie held a special place in her grandmother’s heart. Pages of the diary are covered with the details of infant care. Everything aroused the grandmotherly pride of the Archduchess, who was normally so cool: The slightest development, every new tooth became worthy of being recorded in the Archduchess’s diary. Of course, this grandmotherly ardor—her possessiveness—aggravated the problems within the imperial family. The seventeen-year-old, inexperienced Elisabeth, intimidated, gave ground; not even the birth of a child had been able to improve her standing at court.

  Little more than a year later, in July 1856, Sisi gave birth to another girl. She was named Gisela—after the Bavarian wife of the first Christian King of Hungary, Stephen I. This time Duchess Ludovika was the godmother, though she was not present at the christening and was represented by Archduchess Sophie—giving rise to further gossip. We do not know the reason why, in spite of Sisi’s pleas, Ludovika delayed for so long visiting her daughter and her first grandchildren in Vienna. We can only infer from some of Ludovika’s other statements that she was anxious to forestall any jealousy on Sophie’s part.