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  The priest’s blessing was followed by the good wishes of all those present on this historic occasion.22 Count Grünne then made a speech in honor of the young couple. Weckbecker: “The Princess was so moved and self-conscious that she was barely able to respond.”23 Everyone was in a state of high emotion. The Emperor found it difficult to take his future bride away from the hearty crowd.

  Duchess Ludovika, however, was so worried about her daughter’s future that even on this day she complained to Weckbecker, who was a total stranger to her, “with how much trepidation she looked on the hard task facing her daughter Elisabeth, since she was ascending the throne literally straight from the nursery. She also harbored concern because of the severe judgments of the ladies of the Viennese aristocracy.” That these fears were only too justified soon became evident.

  Dinner was taken in Hallstatt. Afterward, the party went for a drive. After the previous day’s rain, the landscape was ravishing. Mountains and cliffs were bathed in the light of the setting sun. The lake glimmered. The Emperor took Sisi’s hand and explained the sights to her. Queen Elise of Prussia was enchanted: “It’s so lovely, so much young happiness in such a wonderful landscape.”24 Sophie reported to her sister Marie of Saxony in a letter how tenderly the Emperor had wrapped his betrothed in his military cloak, so fearful was he that she might catch a chill, and how he had confessed to his mother, “I can’t tell you how happy I am!”

  That night Bad Ischl was lit up by ten thousand candles and by lamps in the Austrian and Bavarian colors. On the Siriuskogl, multicolored lanterns sketched a classical temple in the sky, enclosing the initials FJ and E in a bridal wreath. This was the first time that young Sisi experienced the jubilation of a benevolent, loyal people gathered in the streets to welcome its future Empress.

  The Emperor’s happiness is clearly evident in every report on those days in Bad Ischl. Of Sisi’s feelings we unfortunately know very little, except that she was very embarrassed, very quiet, and constantly in tears. Sophie commented to her sister, “You cannot imagine how charming Sisi is when she cries!” One party followed on the heels of the last. The young girl was presented with gifts from all sides. The Emperor gave her jewelry with precious gems, among them a magnificent blossoming tendril made of diamonds and emeralds, which she could braid into her hair. Sisi, who was visibly growing more elegant, stood at the center of Bad Ischl’s social life. She was the cynosure of all eyes; her charm was widely praised.

  The young Emperor was gentle, circumspect, and generous in the consideration he showed his childlike fiancée. To give her pleasure, he even had a swing put up in the garden of the summer estate, and the girl used it with childish glee. Since he saw how much Sisi was afraid of every new strange face, the Emperor arranged for the magnificent coach, drawn by five piebald horses, to be driven not by a coachman but by his adjutant general, Grünne.25 He had noticed that the girl had already grown accustomed to this man, the Emperor’s closest confidant, and that she was fond of him.

  Grünne was forty-five years old at that time, and one of the most influential men in the monarchy, an important member of the widely deplored Kamarilla at the Viennese court. As head of the military chancellery, he was the top officer in the Austrian army after the emperor. Grünne accompanied his young master on all trips, was his closest political adviser, and had unique insight into the Emperor’s private life. To this day it is asserted in Viennese society that it was Grünne who arranged romantic adventures for the young Emperor. (After all, Franz Joseph was hardly an inexperienced stripling by the time he became engaged to be married.) The fact that Sisi trusted Grünne from the first gave the Emperor much satisfaction, and he took pleasure in making his adjutant general the guardian angel of his young love during these coach rides à trois.

  Three more balls were scheduled in Bad Ischl. According to Sophie’s diary, Sisi continued to be bashful and tractable. When Countess Sophie Esterházy, who was soon to head the Empress’s household, extended her good wishes, saying, “We are so grateful to Your Royal Highness for making the Emperor so happy,” Sisi replied, “You will have to be very patient with me for a while.”26

  Unlike the prospective bride, the rest of the young people in the imperial family were in high spirits. During the cotillion they set off rockets and firecrackers; poor Ludovika, whose nerves were badly strained, fled in horror to her sister’s bedroom. The Duchess had still not decided whether to be pleased at the great honor granted her daughter or distressed at the prospect of the emotional burdens in store for the fifteen-year-old girl.

  Helene was another source of worry to her mother. The girl was upset and unhappy. She was already eighteen—rather old, therefore, for the preliminaries of a new match. Even Sophie’s magnificent gift, a cross of diamonds and turquoise, and the assurance that Sophie continued to find her extraordinarily charming, could not console Helene. She longed to be back home in Bavaria.

  So did Duchess Ludovika, who wrote about her concern to her Bavarian relatives: “Life here is extremely busy. Sisi especially is not at all accustomed to it yet, especially the late hours. I am pleasantly surprised at the way she becomes resigned to speaking to so many strangers and that, in spite of her embarrassment, she maintains such calm.”27

  The bride’s father, Duke Max, was informed of the engagement by telegram, as was the King of Bavaria. As head of the Wittelsbach family, the King’s official approval of the engagement of his cousin was required.

  Franz Joseph’s letter to Czar Nicholas is remarkable, vouchsafing as it does an intimacy and affection between the two sovereigns that goes a long way toward explaining the Czar’s subsequent disappointment in Franz Joseph’s attitude during the Crimean War. “In the rapture of my joy, dear precious friend, I make haste to speak to you of my happiness. I say my happiness, because I am convinced that my bride has all the virtues and all those properties of mind and heart that will make me happy.”28

  Finally, papal dispensation for the marriage had to be applied for; the bride and groom were, after all, first cousins. No one seems to have been concerned about this circumstance. Elisabeth’s parents, too, were closely related—both were members of the Wittelsbach family, and second cousins. Nor, given the state of medical knowledge at the time, did anyone realize that the children of this imperial marriage, especially the hoped-for crown prince, would one day have to bear the full burden of the Wittelsbach heritage as a result of this intermingling of family members.

  The Wittelsbach line was not free of hereditary taints. There were several cases of mental illness. Duke Max’s father, Duke Pius (that is, Sisi’s grandfather), was feebleminded and crippled. At times he led a dissolute life, once landing in police custody after a brawl, and he ended his pitiful days as a hermit, living in total solitude.29 (The fact that the two sons of the Bavarian King, Crown Prince Ludwig and Prince Otto, were also mentally ill was not yet known in 1853, since both were still children. Besides, the hereditary debility was attributed to the maternal line, with which the ducal line was not connected.)

  On August 24, the Wiener Zeitung published an official statement:

  His Imperial and Royal Apostolic Highness, our most gracious Lord and Emperor, Franz Joseph I, during His Majesty’s stay in Bad Ischl, offered his hand to Her Most Serene Highness, Princess Elisabeth Amalie Eugenie, Duchess of Bavaria, daughter of Their Royal Highnesses Duke Maximilian Joseph and Duchess Ludovika, née Royal Princess of Bavaria, after obtaining the approval of His Majesty, King Maximilian II of Bavaria, as well as Their Serene Highnesses the parents of the Princess-bride, and entered on an engagement. May the blessing of the Almighty rest on this event, so happy and joyful for the Imperial House and the Empire.

  The report caused a sensation. For a long time, the Viennese, especially in high society, had racked their brains about who would be their empress. Many princesses had been discussed. Elisabeth of Bavaria had never figured in the speculations. Impatiently, the city waited for the first portraits of the imperial bride. During t
he long hours little Sisi spent sitting for painters and illustrators, the smitten groom kept her company. He sat endlessly by her side, watching her proudly.

  Since Vienna knew so little about the future Empress, gossip flourished. The first thing that always happened with newcomers to the Viennese court was critical scrutiny of the Almanach de Gotha. And here the imperial bride was not proof against criticism, for her ancestral line included a Princess Arenberg (the mother of her father, Duke Max). Though the Arenbergs were a family of the high aristocracy, they were not royal—not, that is, a family fit to furnish marriage partners to the House of Habsburg. Grandmother Arenberg, in her turn, was related to all sorts of other aristocratic but not royal families: the Schwarzenbergs, the Windisch-Graetzes, the Lobkovics, Schönburgs, Neippergs, Esterházys. The future Empress, therefore, was not above aristocratic society but merely a part of it—through complex family relations with nonroyal houses. Elisabeth, then, could not meet the one essential condition to unchallenged acceptability at the Viennese court—a flawless pedigree. She would be made to feel this lack only too soon.

  Her father also provided ample grounds for talk. His circus riding, his chumminess with the bourgeoisie and with peasants, his disregard for the aristocratic world, his far from refined stag parties in Possenhofen and Munich—all were subjects of gossip. It was said that Duke Max let his children run wild, that though they could ride like little circus artistes, they were barely able to put together a sensible sentence in French, let alone carry on a conversation. The parquet floors of the Viennese court were notoriously slippery.

  It goes without saying that Duke Max’s castles were also subjected to critical scrutiny. The new palace on the Ludwigstrasse, built by the popular architect Leo Klenze, was unquestionably in keeping with the Duke’s position. But the summer castle of Possenhofen on Lake Starnberg was far less distinguished. It was not long before Vienna heard of the “beggars’ household” that was said to be the future Empress’s family background.

  Even twenty years later Elisabeth’s lady-in-waiting Countess Marie Festetics was still disturbed by these defamatory slanders. She liked Possenhofen: “The house is simple but well kept, clean, attractive, the cuisine is good, I found no pomp, everything is agreeably old-fashioned, but elegant and without a trace of a beggar’s household, such as my counterparts of then and now made so much of.”

  The Countess was especially enthusiastic about the situation of the little castle on Lake Starnberg. She extolled the moonlight on the calm waters and the birdsong that woke her from sleep in the mornings: “they rejoiced as if it were spring—I rushed to the window—the view is delightful, deep, deep blue the waters—a paradise of trees, and green all over, and across the lake, on the other side, handsome mountains—everything loveliness and sun—the garden filled with flowers—the old house wreathed in wild vines and ivy—so poetic—so beautiful.” And the lady-in-waiting, who loved her Empress, continued: “yes, her home could not be otherwise, to allow her dreaminess, her love of nature—to develop to this extent!”30

  Dreaminess and a love of nature were qualities Elisabeth exhibited even as a child. All the romantic tales of her childhood summers in Possenhofen are true. Love of nature was one of the few shared traits that united Franz Joseph and Elisabeth.

  *

  The “divine sojourn in Ischl,” to use Franz Joseph’s words, lasted until August 31. The parting—which, Elisabeth noted in her diary, was “very tender”—took place in festively decorated Salzburg. To commemorate the engagement, Archduchess Sophie decided to buy the rented villa where the couple had met and to renovate and expand it into the “imperial villa,” to be used for the imperial family’s yearly summer vacation. The ground plan of the mansion was changed by the addition of two wings into the shape of an E—for Elisabeth.

  Franz Joseph’s happiness lasted even beyond his return “to the desk-bound paper existence here, with its cares and troubles.” He even enjoyed sitting for the painter Schwager: “to the extent that I normally find it boring to be painted, I now look forward to every sitting, since I am reminded of Sisi’s sittings in Ischl, and Schwager always brings me her portrait.” He confessed to Archduchess Sophie that his thoughts clung “with infinite longing to the west.”31 The young Emperor’s happy frame of mind also affected domestic policy: The state of siege, in effect since the Revolution of 1848, was now lifted at least in the three cities of Vienna, Graz, and Prague.

  (It may appear like a sign of things to come that, shortly after Elisabeth became a part of Austria’s history, the Crown of St. Stephen was recovered. In 1848 it had been buried by Kossuth. The holiest relic of the Hungarian nation was solemnly returned to Budapest—for some, an emblem of reconciliation between Austria and Hungary, though the bond could not be sealed until the Austrian emperor was crowned with this Hungarian symbol. That aim was accomplished by Elisabeth in 1867—her one political feat.)

  Sisi was now subjected to an extensive course of study. It was especially necessary that she learn French and Italian as quickly as possible. All that had been neglected in her schooling and upbringing was now to be remedied in the few months that remained before the wedding. Duchess Ludovika was worried, because the lessons were not progressing very well: “Unfortunately, my children have no facility in learning foreign languages, and in social circles here, the speaking of French is noticeably decreasing.”32

  The most important subject Sisi had to study was Austrian history. Three times a week the historian Count Johann Mailáth visited her in order to read to her personally from his major work, Geschichte des österreichischen Kaiserstaates (History of the Austrian Empire). Mailath was a short man, very lively and amusing, approaching seventy. He lived in Munich on the income from his books, in very modest, even shabby circumstances. (Only a year later, his financial straits drove him to drown himself in Lake Starnberg.) As a historian, he was not without his critics, because his presentation of history was highly imaginative and uncritical. Among the liberal Hungarians, he was unpopular because of his extremely pro-Austrian stance.

  But Sisi liked him. The history lessons tended to last into the evenings, and the circle of listeners kept growing; her sister Helene and her brother Karl Theodor (“Gackel”) joined, as did some of the other tutors and Duchess Ludovika. But Mailath gave his readings only “pour les beaux yeux de Sisi.”33 Even decades later, Elisabeth still talked about this teacher. In spite of his deep loyalty to the central government in Vienna, Mailath was nevertheless a proud Hungarian who related the history of Austria to the future Empress of Austria from the Hungarian point of view. He worked to instill an understanding of Hungary’s special historic privileges and explained to Sisi about the old Hungarian constitution, which Emperor Franz Joseph had abolished in 1849. He, whom the Forty-Eighters thought of as one of the Old Conservatives, even tried to make the future Empress understand the advantages of the republican form of government. At least, Elisabeth was recalling Mailath some years later, when she shocked the Viennese court with the statement, “I have been told that the most appropriate form of government is that of the republic.”34 These cozy readings in history within the bosom of the ducal family in Possenhofen established in the fifteen-year-old imperial bride the soil for her subsequent political views. It would be hard to overestimate their significance.

  A correspondence set in between Vienna and Munich—concerning the bride’s trousseau, which had to be assembled in practically no time at all and which kept dozens of Bavarian seamstresses, embroiderers, shoemakers, and milliners busy from morn until night. Archduchess Sophie sent written suggestions, such as the advice that Sisi take better care of her teeth. No effort was to be spared to turn the little Bavarian country girl into a suitable representative of the Habsburg state.

  The young woman’s fear of the Hofburg, the imperial palace in Vienna, and of her new, luxurious life grew. She became almost entirely indifferent to the many new gowns, loathed the endless fittings, was unmoved by the jewelry that arrived
from Vienna. She was still a child; none of the precious gifts gave her as much pleasure as did a parrot the Emperor sent to Bavaria.

  Sisi was not used to being hemmed in by a rigid program all day long. Her family, worried, observed that though the girl was flattered by her success and the excessive attention suddenly paid to her, she also grew more and more silent and melancholy. She wrote elegiac poems about her beloved Possenhofen, still mourned her old love, and was afraid of the new one.

  Ludovika’s fears were only too well founded—and no secret. The Belgian envoy reported to Brussels, “In order to spare her daughter the exertions arising from the festivities, the mother is said to want to postpone the wedding until June. If the ceremony were to take place at an advanced season and the major part of the nobility had already departed Vienna, it would be possible to win some dispensation from the events connected with the wedding.”35 This wish—at odds with the prevailing customs in Vienna—was not granted. After all, an emperor of Austria did not get married by excluding the public simply because the future Empress was afraid of the aristocracy.

  Another topic subjected to lengthy discussion was the site of the wedding—Munich or Vienna. Ludovika: “No consideration can be given to a proxy marriage, and unfortunately, the Emperor cannot come here. To have the wedding here is, unfortunately, impossible, although it is always the most pleasant! I regret this very much, for if we accompany Sisi to Vienna, that is a great undertaking, such a great court, the large family gathering, Viennese society, the parties, etc…. I am not made for all that … I do not even want to think of it, and until now, I myself don’t know what is going to happen. In general, I do not like to think about Sisi’s moving away, and I would wish to postpone the moment forever.”36