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  While court society showed no tolerance for Sisi’s defiant behavior, it had all the more sympathy for a husband’s romantic adventures. In the circles of the high nobility and the court, marriages of convenience and dynastic marriages were the rule. They were necessary to maintain an immaculate pedigree. Love affairs alongside these marriages of rank were common. The wives understood as much. Though for the most part they could not retaliate with affairs of their own (for similar open-mindedness was not granted to a woman), on the whole they accepted their husbands’ affairs without complaint. For they were repaid by the high social position they occupied by virtue of their marriages, which, for all practical purposes, could never be dissolved.

  But Elisabeth had not married Franz Joseph out of any social ambition. Purely emotional reasons (whether or not they can be called love in a fifteen-year-old) united her to the Emperor. Now she had to admit that the young Emperor was not adequate to her emotional demands (which surely seemed excessive to him, given his life), that he was betraying her. Franz Joseph was the only one, besides the children, who tied Elisabeth to the Viennese court. This one link in an otherwise alien and hostile world was now threatening to break.

  Elisabeth had witnessed the unhappiness of her parents’ marriage; Duchess Ludovika with her horde of children lived apart from her husband, Duke Max. As the whole family knew, he had affairs and a whole string of illegitimate children, whom he provided for generously. This marriage was characterized by decades of humiliation and total isolation of the wife and mother. The fear of such a lamentable fate as Duchess Ludovika’s may have played a large part in Sisi’s vehement reaction.

  Disturbing news from Naples now aggravated the difficult situation. In May 1860, Garibaldi’s troops conquered the island of Sicily, and a short time later, Naples, the capital of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies was threatened. Cries for help from young Queen Marie reached Elisabeth. In June, her brothers Karl Theodor and Ludwig arrived in Vienna to discuss possible measures to aid the Bourbon kingdom. But no matter how much solidarity Emperor Franz Joseph felt for the royal house, related to him by marriage, and no matter how much he and Archduchess Sophie deplored the predicament in which this monarchy found itself—given Austria’s own unfortunate situation, there could be no thought of military or financial aid. The young King and his Queen were abandoned to their fate. Elisabeth’s worries about her beloved young sister, who had tried in vain to obtain Austrian help, not only further strained her already overtaxed nerves, but also placed an additional burden on the imperial marriage. In July 1860, the differences between the Emperor and Empress were so acute that Elisabeth left Vienna, taking little Gisela with her, and went to Possenhofen—for the first time in five years. This sudden trip was in the nature of flight. Sisi used the new railway line from Vienna to Munich (Kaiserin-Elisabeth-Westbahn) before its official opening, thus introducing no little chaos into the solemn celebrations.

  Elisabeth was in no hurry whatever to return to Vienna. She passed the time primarily in horseback riding, and it was the Viennese stables she missed most. For her brother’s horses no longer met her high expectations. They “are terribly overridden and out of hand,” she wrote to Grünne, to whom she was openly affectionate. “I hope that you miss me a little and feel the absence of all my complaining, which you always tolerate so patiently.”3

  To avoid creating a stir, however, Sisi had to return to Vienna before Franz Joseph’s birthday on August 18. The Emperor drove to Salzburg to meet his wife. Sisi asked two of her siblings to come with her—Karl Theodor and Mathilde—a sign that she needed support against the imperial family and still did not feel confident enough to be alone with Sophie and Franz Joseph.

  In the meantime, the situation in Naples had worsened. Garibaldi had invaded the capital. Queen Marie and her sickly, weak husband retired to the fortress of Gaeta. In spite of great bravery on the part of the twenty-year-old Queen (“the heroine of Gaeta”), the fall of the fortress and the ultimate victory of the Italian unification movement was only a matter of time.

  *

  Austria’s domestic policies ushered in hardly less radical changes than did her foreign policy. The call for a constitution could no longer be ignored. Characteristic of the mood is an anonymous letter delivered to the Emperor in August 1860.

  A voice from God! To Emperor Franz Joseph. Why do you hesitate so long with the constitution. Why have you taken from your people what Emperor Ferdinand the Kindly gave it?!

  Take the side of citizens and farmers, not merely of the nobility and the great. Imitate the great Emperor Josef II.

  Take as a warning the unfortunate King of Naples.

  If you continue to persist in absolutism, the same will happen to you.

  Down with the Kamarilla.

  Build your throne, not on bayonets, but on the love of the people.

  In short do as the other German regents do, in unity there is strength.

  Justitia regnorum fundamentum. With joined forces.

  Your devoted friend Martin vom guten Rath [Martin of the good advice].4

  The Emperor remained helpless in the face of all political demands; outraged, he complained to his mother, “But such vileness on the one hand and cowardice on the other as rule the world now have surely never been seen before; one wonders sometimes whether everything that happens can really be happening.”

  He begged for “forgiveness for the fact that the banditry of Garibaldi, the thievery of Victor Emmanuel, the unprecedented sharp practices of the arch-villain in Paris, who surpasses even himself—the Reichsrat, now happily and truly buried beyond all expectation, the Hungarian nuisance, and the inexhaustible wants and needs of all the provinces, etc. claim me to such an extent and fill my poor head so much that I had hardly a moment for myself.”5

  The first concession to the Austrians thirsting for freedom was the October Diploma of 1860, the beginning of a constitution. Franz Joseph wrote to reassure his mother, who was worried about the fact that “popular opinion” was prevailing, “Though we will get a little parliamentarianism, all the power remains in my hands, and the overall situation will suit Austrian conditions very well.”6 But the Emperor, who had ruled absolutely, felt even this modest concession to be a personal humiliation. Sophie went so far as to regard this first loosening of absolute rule as the “ruin of the realm, which we are rapidly approaching.”7

  The family peace had now been broken for a year. No improvement was in sight—quite the contrary: Elisabeth’s health, affected by nervous breakdowns and unrelieved starvation diets, became so fragile by the end of October 1860 that Dr. Josef Skoda, a lung specialist, determined that she would have to seek out a warmer climate at once; he felt her condition to be acutely life-threatening. She could no longer, he advised, endure the Viennese winter. During the preliminary consultations, the physician recommended Madeira as a suitable wintering place.

  It is not clear why he chose Madeira; it may be that the Empress herself suggested this destination. A short time earlier, Archduke Max, Sisi’s favorite brother-in-law, had returned from a trip to Brazil and a lengthy stay on Madeira and had told the imperial family many stories of the scenically beautiful island in the Atlantic. These recitals may well have inspired the Empress’s eccentric wish. For in fact the Austrian monarchy contained enough resorts situated in mild climates (to mention only Merano), where consumptives could go to be cured. Madeira, on the other hand, was not exactly famous as boasting a climate conducive to recovery from life-threatening pulmonary disease. It looked to all the world as if by choosing a distant destination, Elisabeth wanted to prevent frequent visits from the Emperor.

  The form of disease was completely obscure—and remains so to this day. To the same degree that Elisabeth was healthy as a child, she began ailing from her wedding day on. Three pregnancies within four years had exhausted her body, especially the difficult birth of the Crown Prince in 1858. For years, she suffered from severe coughing attacks, which increased ominously in the winter of
1860 and probably led to the diagnosis of pulmonary disease. Her stubborn refusal to eat not only caused her to suffer from “greensickness”—anemia—but kept her physically exhausted. Her nerves could take no more. Repeatedly, she fell into crying jags that would not stop. To calm her strained nerves, she had acquired the habit of taking a great deal of exercise: daily rides over often considerable distances (for example, from Laxenburg to Vöslau, which the Emperor called “sheer foolishness”8), obstacle jumping to the point of complete exhaustion, hikes extending for hours, gymnastics.

  The diagnosis of life-threatening “affected lungs” was received with much skepticism. Especially the Viennese relatives and the court society were not willing to believe that the Empress was really so very ill. Archduchess Therese, for example, wrote to her father, Archduke Albrecht, “One cannot get to the bottom of whether there is much or little wrong with her, since so many versions of Dr. Skoda’s pronouncements are told.”

  Rumors were rife at court. For example, Therese again: “Yesterday, Aunt Marie visited the Empress; she brought along a large handkerchief, because she thought she would cry a lot; instead, the Empress was very merry, she is infinitely happy about going to Madeira. Aunt was so indignant that she gave the Empress a piece of her mind in a pretty blunt manner: ‘the Emperor is still in Ischl.’”9 What is astonishing is that it was exactly during the days when Dr. Skoda diagnosed a life-threatening illness that Franz Joseph went hunting in Bad Ischl and left his wife in Vienna. He did not return until November 7.

  During this marital crisis, obvious to the inner circle at court, all sympathies were unequivocally with the Emperor. Archduchess Therese: “I feel infinitely sorry for him for having a wife who prefers to leave her husband and her children for six months instead of leading a quiet life in Vienna, as the doctors ordered.” And after a meeting with the Emperor: “it cuts me to the quick to see him so sad and weary. I hope that his children will give him much comfort and cheer this winter.”10

  Sisi successfully insisted that Countess Esterházy, her mother-in-law’s confidante, stay behind in Vienna rather than coming to Madeira. Therese: “Countess Esterházy is being pushed aside strangely. Instead of her, young Mathilde Windisch-Graetz is traveling to Madeira; it is also strange of the latter to leave her little child.” The behavior of the allegedly mortally ill woman was astonishing: “The Empress is fully occupied with her summer wardrobe for Madeira.”11

  Nothing can be found in Archduchess Sophie’s diary concerning the nature of Sisi’s illness, only regret that the Empress was abandoning her husband and children for so long. “She will be separated from her husband for five months, and from her children, on whom she has such a beneficial influence and whom she really raises so well,” wrote Sophie of all people. “I was devastated at the news.”12

  Duchess Ludovika was also more inclined to be astonished at the bad news from Vienna than she was to believe in a potentially fatal illness. “Sisi’s trip worries me a great deal,” she wrote to Saxony, “and it was a great shock, for when she was here, one would not have foreseen such a necessity, although she always coughed a little, especially when she first arrived…. Sadly, she does not take enough care of herself and trusts too much in her strong constitution.” Strange too is Ludovika’s remark, “Since the stay in Madeira is said to be very quiet and, as she writes, very boring, I hope she will soon find opportunity to seek out some amusement.”13

  The Viennese court reacted with spiteful glee. It was noted with gratification that Archduchess Sophie and the Emperor grew closer again and that, for the time being, the Empress was not around to cause further annoyance. Archduchess Therese wrote, “Now the family dinners will always be at Aunt Sophie’s. I believe that much as she minds that the Emperor is so lonely since his wife left, secretly she is hoping that he will join her more often and perhaps devote most of his evenings to her.” Therese voiced the court position and her own view: “In Vienna, no one has any compassion for the Empress; I am sorry that she could not win the love of the people.”14 This statement, however, refers mainly to the aristocracy and to court circles. Among the common people, the young Empress was still popular.

  The news of the Austrian Empress’s serious illness created a sensation throughout the world in early November 1860. Offers of help came from the four corners of the earth. Since no suitable ship was available for the journey to Madeira, Queen Victoria of England made her private yacht available. Ludovika wrote about seeing her daughter again in Munich. “Sisi has become thinner and looks, if not ill, nevertheless not as blooming as last summer; but what is remarkable is the coughing, which has increased a great deal, so that one comes to believe that a warmer climate could not help but be beneficial to her.”15 These sentences are remarkably calm for the constantly excitable Ludovika and thus do not fit at all with the newspaper reports that mentioned the Austrian Empress’s imminent demise.

  It was also astonishing that Sisi, who was known to despise official calls, used the few hours of her stopover in Munich on formal family visits.

  From Munich, Sisi’s trip continued by way of Bamberg (where Franz Joseph took his leave of her) to Mainz. There she spent the night, and the following day she continued on to Antwerp, where she boarded the British royal yacht Victoria and Albert. Her servants and the luggage followed in the Osborne. It is remarkable that almost all the passengers (including the physicians) became seasick during heavy storms in the Bay of Biscay, while the allegedly fatally afflicted Empress was spared.

  To this day, the strangest rumors are rife in Vienna concerning the Empress’s illness before her flight to Madeira. Time and again one hears the version of a supposed venereal disease with which the Emperor is said to have infected his young wife. If that were true, the Empress really would have had to be very ill indeed in November 1860. But according to all the reports from her closest family members, she was hardly that.

  Corti, Elisabeth’s biographer, came closer to the mark when, discussing the difficulties of November 1860, he wrote, “the cover of illness will reduce all that, and she really is ill, her mental state also affects her body severely. And what would otherwise be a little anemia, an insignificant cough, under such circumstances, almost really an illness.” Nevertheless, out of excessive loyalty to the Imperial House, Corti did not dare to allow himself to publish these sentences and crossed them from the manuscript, as he did the following sentences regarding Archduchess Sophie. “She, however, is fully informed and is merely outraged at Elisabeth, who is unmindful of her obligations and who, in her opinion, was only shamming illness in order to escape winter and to be able to pursue her peculiar habits without constraint.”16

  Modern medicine would speak less of a mental than of an emotional illness. The Empress’s excessive drive to physical activity, her constant refusal to eat indicate (with all due reservations against such retrospective diagnoses) a neurotic anorexia nervosa, which is often coupled with (somewhat pubertal) rejection of sexuality. This theory would also explain the fact that Sisi seemed to recover at once whenever she removed herself from Vienna and her husband.

  *

  In Madeira, Sisi lived a quiet solitary life in a rented villa by the sea. Now and again, the Emperor sent a courier who was to inform himself about her condition and convey letters. The first of these couriers was Joseph Latour. He brought to Munich and Vienna details of Sisi’s “quiet existence and the very calm, sensible suitable life she leads,” as Ludovika wrote to Saxony. Sisi’s mother, however, went on to mention the “very melancholy” letters from the young Empress, her unhappiness about “the great distance and long separation,” especially from her children. “She longs enormously for home, for the emperor and the children.”17

  Madeira offered little distraction. The Empress did what she had liked doing best in Possenhofen: She spent the major part of her days with her animals. There were ponies, parrots, but most especially large dogs. Card playing was another pastime—which became a further occasion for gossip in Vienna
. Archduchess Therese: “The couriers returned from Madeira cannot say enough about how boring it is there. Everything is divided according to hours, even the card games. From 8–9 Old Maid, from 9–10 Half Past Eleven [another popular card game]. No one talks, even loquacious Helene Taxis has given it up.”

  In Vienna, a photograph from Madeira was passed from hand to hand. Archduchess Therese: “The Empress is seated playing the mandolin, Helene Taxis crouches on the ground in front of her, holding the Doberman in her arms. Mathilde Windisch–Graetz stands with the horn in her hand; in the background stands Lily Hunyady, she looks thoughtfully at all the others. All the ladies in sailors’ blouses and sailor hats.”18 Archduchess Sophie gave a detailed description of the same photograph in her diary. If we consider the difficult times the monarchy was passing through, the political problems weighing on the Emperor, we will understand the astonishment at this photograph, which Vienna felt to be an insult. The children were without their mother, the husband without his wife, the country without its Empress. And in Madeira, Elisabeth stared thoughtfully out to sea, complained about her situation, and played the mandolin and Old Maid. On the other hand, the doctors insisted that the Empress continue her stay on the island, postponing her return to May, when Vienna’s climate would be milder.

  Thus, Elisabeth continued to be bored, endlessly operating her “Werkel”—an Austrian expression for a barrel organ—playing especially arias from La Traviata. She read a great deal and passed some of the time in Hungarian lessons, given her by one of her “honorary escorts,” Count Imre Hunyady. Of course, it was not long before Hunyady, considered extremely dashing, fell in love with the young Empress and was promptly recalled to Vienna. The Austrian Empress’s entourage was so vast, with everyone watching everyone else, so many petty jealousies raged within this small society on Madeira, which was completely cut off from the outside world, that not even the slightest emotion could go unrecognized.