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The disappointment at the fact that once again the hoped-for heir to the throne had not been born was great. The populace was probably most unhappy because the people had reason to expect especially generous benefactions at the birth of an heir to the throne, and during these bad times, the country was in desperate need of succor from any quarter.
This child, too, was handed over to her grandmother’s supervision. Later, Elisabeth expressed deep regret that she did not have a close relationship with her elder children, and she always blamed her mother-in-law. Only with her fourth child, Marie Valerie, did she assert her maternal rights, and she confessed, “Only now do I understand what bliss a child means. Now I have finally had the courage to love the baby and keep it with me. My other children were taken away from me at once. I was permitted to see the children only when Archduchess Sophie gave permission. She was always present when I visited the children. Finally I gave up the struggle and went upstairs only rarely.”3
No matter how insignificant Sisi’s position at court was, her popularity among the populace kept growing. This popularity also had a political basis. For after the Emperor’s marriage, some cautious efforts at liberalization were undertaken. The state of siege in the larger cities was gradually raised, and these proclamations always occurred on the occasion of family events, such as the Emperor’s wedding and the births of his children. Political prisoners were released before they had served their full term or were granted amnesty.
The new military penal statute of January 1855—that is, only a few months after the Emperor’s wedding—also brought some easing of restrictions. This law abolished among others the punishment, still practiced in Austria, of running the gauntlet. Popular belief would have it that it was the young Empress who had asked her husband to do away with this torture as a wedding present to her. The sources furnish no proofs for the theory; but it is very likely that the extremely sensitive young Empress witnessed such a punishment during one of the numerous military visits or at least heard about it.4 And it was thoroughly in character for her to have spoken out forcefully against such cruelty. The abolition of keeping prisoners in chains was also attributed to Elisabeth’s initiative. No one had any doubt that these measures could not be attributed to Archduchess Sophie’s influence. For she continued to advocate extreme harshness toward the revolutionaries of 1848 and all other insurgents. Patriotic Austrians loyal to the Emperor were only too ready to believe in the benevolent influence of a new Empress who was in sympathy with the people.
Whether Elisabeth truly had such a direct influence on the Emperor we do not know. But there is no doubt that under his rapturous love and the happiness of his new marriage, the Emperor grew more gentle and yielding, and for that reason if no other, he showed himself less firmly opposed than before to liberalizations, which were overdue.
The very young Empress became something like a political hope for all those who felt uneasy under the neo-absolutist regime. The opponents of the Concordat also soon rallied around the Empress. The signing of the Concordat of 1855 constituted a high point of political Catholicism in Austria, at the same time that it was a triumph for Archduchess Sophie, who was thus able to impose her concept of a Catholic empire: The state yielded to the church the power over the regulation of marriage and over the schools. From this time on, the church had the ultimate decision, not only over the contents of the curriculum (from history to mathematics), but also over the selection of teachers. Even the drawing master and the physical-education teacher had to meet the first requirement—that of being good Catholics (which was checked out down to the taking of the sacraments). Otherwise, they would not be given posts. The Concordat was throwing down the gauntlet to all non-Catholics and Liberals, as well as to scientists, artists, and writers, whose work was severely impeded.
The opponents of the Concordat believed that they had found a sympathizer in the young Empress—whose conflicts with Archduchess Sophie could no longer be kept secret. They may have been right up to a point. Thus, a characteristic story made the rounds in 1856. The small Lutheran congregation in Attersee wished to erect a steeple on its little church, as was recently permitted, and it needed funds for the project. The pastor turned to the court, which happened to be in residence in nearby Bad Ischl, and he met with the Empress herself. Later, the liberal Wiener Tageblatt reported that the young Empress had begun the interview by expressing her surprise “that the Protestants are for the first time being allowed to build steeples on top of their churches. Where I come from,” she said in a cordial way, “your coreligionists have enjoyed these rights, as I know, for fifty years already. My late grandfather [King Maximilian I of Bavaria] used state funds to let the Protestants build the handsome church on the Karlsplatz in Munich. The Queen of Bavaria [Marie, the wife of Maximilian II] is also a Protestant, and my grandmother on my mother’s side was a Lutheran. Bavaria is an arch-Catholic nation, but the Protestants among us surely have no cause to complain about discrimination or infringements.”
The Empress made a generous donation, though it was said to have “caused great surprise in clerical circles.” The quarrelsome Bishop Franz Joseph Rüdiger of Linz was said to have “requested a formal clarification of whether the matter was true as reported.” The newspaper of the clericals in Linz presented the “incident” from the viewpoint “as if the Empress had not been precisely informed about the actual purpose of the donation, and as if it had been presented to her that the subject was a poor congregation in general terms, but not that it was a Protestant one. The pastor, however, defended himself with a ‘correction’ in the official Linz newspaper.”5
With this innocent donation for a Protestant steeple, Elisabeth became marked, whether she wanted to be or not, as an adherent of tolerance in religious questions and as opposing the Concordat. From then on, one faction placed its hopes in her, while the other—and this was the “clerical” party of her mother-in-law, Archduchess Sophie—saw her as an opponent. Sisi’s relations to the court and the aristocracy were anything but improved by these hopes of the Liberals.
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Sisi’s behavior within the family circle also gradually changed. She was becoming ever less submissive, ever less quiet. She was more and more aware of her exalted position: She was the Empress, the first lady of the land.
This also meant that she dared to oppose her mother-in-law, who had ruled unchallenged until that time. Of course, the first bone of contention was influence in the imperial nursery. At first, Sisi received no support from the Emperor. It was not until 1856, when she was alone with her husband during a journey through Carinthia and Styria, that Sisi insisted that the children be allowed to be near her. Far from the Hofburg, far from the daily shared meals with her mother-in-law, she finally felt strong enough to free the Emperor from his excessive servility toward his adored mother and to remind him for once of his wife’s needs.
An open quarrel now broke out between Sisi and Sophie over the two little girls. Sophie resisted Sisi’s urgent pleas to move the nurseries. She raised a number of objections (the rooms in question did not get enough sunlight, and similar concerns). When Sisi would not give in, Archduchess Sophie threatened to move out of the Hofburg—her strongest weapon. And this time the young Empress managed to pull her husband to her side—to judge from Franz Joseph’s letters, it was the first and only time that the Emperor rebuked the mother he adored.
Shortly after his return from the trip he had taken with his wife, he wrote to Sophie:
I beg you most earnestly to judge Sisi with forbearance if perhaps she is too jealous a mother—after all, she is such a devoted wife and mother! If you would be gracious enough to think about the matter calmly, you will perhaps understand our feelings of pain at seeing our children enclosed in your apartments with an almost joint anteroom, while poor Sisi, who is often so heavy, must pant her way up the stairs, only rarely to find the children alone, even to find them among strangers if you were gracious enough to show off the children, which shortens e
specially the few moments I have to spend with the children—aside from the fact that showing off the children, thereby making them conceited, horrifies me; wherein, by the way, I may be wrong. By the way, it never occurs to Sisi to wish to deprive you of the children, and she specifically asked me to write to you and tell you that they will always be entirely at your disposal.6
For the first time, Elisabeth was able to get her way. The trip was a complete success and brought the couple closer again. Both deeply enjoyed the beauty of the mountains—one of the few things Franz Joseph and Elisabeth had in common. Wherever they went, the young couple aroused admiration for the simple and natural way they appeared in the rural landscape: the Emperor in lederhosen and the traditional hat with a chamois tuft, the Empress wearing a tight-fitting loden suit and sturdy mountain-climbing boots, a loden hat on her head. There was no court ceremonial here, and even the Emperor, who was so formal and stilted in Vienna, behaved casually and showed that he had preserved a certain measure of spontaneity and joie de vivre.
The two made an excursion on foot into the mountains. Elisabeth, who was an experienced mountain climber but was still weak from her last confinement, rested at the site of today’s Glocknerhaus after a three-hour hike and enjoyed the view of the peak of the Grossglockner. This place was given the name Elisabethruhe—Elisabeth’s rest. Franz Joseph went on as far as the Pasterze glacier.
From that time on, shared trips provided happy occasions for Elisabeth to be alone with her husband and to strengthen her influence.
But even if Sisi had won a battle, the war with her mother-in-law, which went on for decades, consumed a great deal of energy—all the more so as the Archduchess could always count on support from the court, unlike the young Empress.
Sophie never managed to train Elisabeth according to her precepts. The long, embittered struggle, however, deprived the monarchy and the imperial family of a highly promising, talented personality by driving Elisabeth into isolation.
Countess Marie Festetics—who, granted, could judge the situation only on the basis of the Empress’s stories—wrote about the Archduchess: “Her ambition always made her come between the two married people—always forcing a decision between mother and wife, and it is only by God’s grace that an open break did not occur. She wanted to break the influence of the Empress over the Emperor. That was a dangerous gamble. The Emperor loves the Empress…. The Empress has nothing but her rights and her noblesse to aid her.”7
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The Peace of Paris, signed in the spring of 1856, ended the Crimean War and brought a radical change in the system of European nations: Russia lost her dominant position to the France of Napoleon III. The earlier close friendship between Russia and Austria had turned into enmity, to Prussia’s advantage. These effects were unfortunate for Austria. But another factor, little considered until that time, made itself painfully felt: The seedbed of the Italian unification movement, Piedmont, had furnished France with 15,000 soldiers during the Crimean War and thereby won Napoleon III as protector of the Irredentist movement. The Austrian provinces of Lombardy and Venetia were more threatened than ever, as were the Central Italian states of Tuscany and Modena, which were ruled by Habsburgs and stood under Austrian military protection. The Italian unification movement saw Austrian rule in Italy as the greatest obstacle to the achievement of its goals.
Franz Joseph continued to reject any attempt to relinquish the Italian provinces through advantageous treaties or sale—though opinion was unanimous that they could not be maintained. In 1854, Ernst II of Coburg also tried to urge these ideas propounded by Napoleon III on the young Emperor, for “it was not to be expected that Italy would ever be pacified.” Prince Ernst: “The Emperor seemed to become very disturbed at this report and most decisively rejected any thought of ceding Italian territories.”8 And four years later, the Swiss envoy reported to Bern “that the Emperor would sacrifice his last man and his last thaler to defend Venetia.”9 War over Italy thus became inevitable sooner or later.
For the present, the Emperor hoped that he would be able to hold on to the insurgent provinces by strong military power. To demonstrate imperial sovereignty, the Emperor and Empress traveled to Northern Italy in the winter of 1856–1857, living for four months in the old royal palaces of Milan and Venice and there displaying the full magnificence of the court and the military.
On this occasion, too, there were quarrels within the imperial family. Elisabeth was unwilling to leave her children for such a long period. Against the Archduchess’s strong opposition, she succeeded to the extent that the older daughter, Sophie, who was two years old, accompanied her parents to Italy. Elisabeth justified her wish by declaring that the Northern Italian air would be good for the delicate child in the winter months. The Italian newspapers, however, conjectured that the child had been brought along primarily as a safeguard against assassination attempts.10 Archduchess Sophie, for her part, complained of the dangers of the journey for the child; she was not entirely wrong.
The trip started by rail from Vienna to Leibach. There, the thirty-seven coaches that had been brought along were unloaded, and the journey continued by post-horse and ship.
In Italy, Sisi could not possibly stay away from politics. Until this time, during all her trips to the provinces—to Bohemia, Styria, Carinthia, and of course Salzburg, which was crisscrossed during the weeks in Bad Ischl—Sisi encountered a populace that received its imperial rulers, if not with enthusiasm, at least amiably. But now she was met by contempt, even hatred.
The Italian people, suffering under the Austrian military administration, longed for the nationalist Italy advocated by Cavour and Garibaldi. There had been attempts at putsches, executions. The taxes the once rich lands had to pay to Austria were oppressive (although by this time the military occupation of the country cost far more than could be raised by taxes—even from the onetime richest province, Lombardy). The Emperor and Empress were made to feel all these dissatisfactions. The Austrian military authorities carefully arranged the receptions. The imperial couple invariably appeared with a large military retinue, intended as a demonstration of power. But the Italians regarded these entourages as hostile provocations. The military authorities were in a state of full alert; the Emperor’s and Empress’s visit practically invited assassination attempts. But as always in such situations, the young Emperor showed great courage, as did the Empress. Behaving irreproachably, she overlooked acts of sabotage and hostility among the populace.
She had good reason to be afraid. In Trieste, a huge imperial crown, made of crystal, shattered on the ship. No one believed that it was an unfortunate accident; everyone believed it to be sabotage. But happy as the young Empress was to cancel official receptions in Vienna, in Northern Italy she carried out her schedule all the more rigidly, leaving her husband’s side at most for purely military inspections.
In Venice, where the Emperor’s ship, escorted by six powerful men-of-war, lay at anchor, the military reception was splendid, but when the imperial couple with little Sophie crossed the broad St. Mark’s Place on their way to San Marco, not a single “Evviva” went up from the large crowd gathered there. Only the Austrian soldiers cried out “Hail” and “Hurrah.” The Italians demonstrated by remaining silent. The English consul reported to London, “The only emotion shown by the people was merely curiosity to see the Empress, whose reputation of being wonderfully beautiful had, of course, arrived here as well.”11
The majority of the Italian nobility stayed away from the imperial receptions. Those who attended in spite of the boycott were reviled in the streets. During the festivities at the Teatro Fenice, the boxes of the most eminent families remained empty. In the course of the imperial stay in Venice, however, the mood brightened, especially when the Emperor removed one of the greatest vexations to the Italian nobility by rescinding the confiscation of the property of political refugees and granting amnesty to political prisoners.
Franz Joseph did not neglect to praise the services of his
young wife. From Venice he wrote to Archduchess Sophie, “The populace was very correct, without exhibiting any special enthusiasm. Since then, the mood has brightened very much for various reasons, especially the good impression made by Sisi.”12 In Vienna, the Emperor’s statement that Sisi’s beauty “conquered Italy better than his soldiers and cannons had been able to do” soon made the rounds.13
In the other cities, the receptions were no more cordial—not in Vicenza; not in Verona, where the Austrian troops were headquartered; not in Brescia; and not in Milan. In the last city, the officials even tried to pay those who lived in the country to come to the city and line up to welcome the Emperor and Empress. The nobility of Lombardy maintained its iron resolve. The imperial receptions were attended by only about a fifth of those who had been invited. At the gala performance at La Scala, servants sat in the boxes instead of their aristocratic employers—an enormous insult.
The Emperor relaxed from the strain of these constant affronts by going on long troop inspections. His interest centered, not on the treasures of Venice and Milan, but on the fortifications, arsenals, barracks, men-of-war, and battle sites. Only too frequently the young Empress, who was once again ailing, was compelled to accompany him.
Field Marshal Radetzky—who was, by then, ninety years old—could hardly be said to have firm control over the regiment in Northern Italy. Since the Emperor found him “terribly changed and reverting to childhood,”14 Franz Joseph decided to pension him with full honors and to introduce separate military and civilian administrations in the Italian provinces. Archduke Ferdinand Max, the Emperor’s younger brother, twenty-four years old, was assigned the difficult task of going to Milan as civilian governor. Franz Joseph to his mother: “Our Lord will help, and time along with Max’s tact will do much.”15