Empress Elisabeth Was Exquisite, Vicious—And Doomed

One day, the mysterious and reclusive Empress Elizabeth's husband asked her what she wanted for a gift. Her response was so disturbing, it's impossible to forget. Elizabeth of Bavaria rose to become Empress Consort of the Austrian Empire at the height of its powers, yet behind her exquisite facade lies a lifetime of pain, violence and an unimaginably tragic death. Elizabeth Amélie Eugénie was supposed to have a charmed life. Her father Maximilian was from a revered German house, while her mother Ludovica was the half-sister of King Ludwig I of Bavaria. Her family might have been rich, but they were kind of miserable. Her parents had never been in love, and Duke Maximilian openly kept a string of mistresses. Besides flaunting his infidelities, Elizabeth's father was also an infamous eccentric obsessed with only two things, himself and more bizarrely, circuses. The little girl grew up watching her father perform feats in his own personal circus ring. Today Elizabeth is famous as one of the most beautiful women in history, but it was a much different story when she was young. Nicknamed Sissy by her family, she was actually quite shy and plain as a girl. She was apparently so forgettable, her mother even worried she would never find a husband, claiming her daughter had no single pretty feature. Well, that didn't last, and it was her famous looks that would change the course of history. She grew to be tall with gentle features, piercing eyes and an ineffable something that made people unable to look away. For years, Sissy's mother, Princess Ludovica, had been angling to get her children into advantageous marriages, very much like the Kris Jenner of her time. Before long, she had betrothed Elizabeth's sister Helene to Emperor Franz Joseph of Austria, the girl's cousin. Legend has it that on the day Helene was introduced to the Emperor, accompanied by her mother and sister, the 23-year-old Franz Joseph took one look at Elizabeth and swore he would marry none but her. Soon, Elizabeth walked into a whirlwind courtship, all while poor Helene looked on. All of a sudden, the quiet, dark horse Sissy was the golden centre of attention. But Franz Joseph's obsession with Elizabeth was not the fairy tale it might seem on the surface. Just before meeting Elizabeth, Franz had actually been desperately in love with Princess Anna of Prussia, then marriage negotiations fell through and he had to give her up. So in many ways, Sissy was just his latest obsession and plaything. One problem? She just wasn't that into him, royal title or not. In Elizabeth's first days as a fiancé, it became clear that she was nowhere near ready to be Empress of Austria. After all, she was still barely into her teenage years. Some of Sissy's most childlike behaviours contained a disturbing amount of her father's eccentricities. For example, as Franz Joseph's fiancé, people showered the future Empress with gifts of gowns and jewels and all kinds of luxury items, yet Sissy only had eyes for the strangest present of all. She took madly to a parrot and was practically inseparable from it. There are horrific mothers-in-law and then there was Princess Sophie of Bavaria, Franz Joseph's legendarily domineering matron. An absolute force of nature, Sophie more than earned her nickname of the only man in the Hofburg Palace and she wasn't an easy woman for Sissy to get along with right from the beginning. If Sissy wasn't sure about the Austrian court, the Austrian court was very sure about her and not in a good way. Vienna was ultra-traditional at the time, even for noble courts. To add insult to injury, many courtiers thought Elizabeth was an upstart coming, as she did, from a so-called beggar's household and a father who was more interested in circus horses than his own wife. As Elizabeth's wedding day approached, there were a few bad omens. Days before the big event, someone dropped and broke the exquisite diamond crown the Emperor had made for his fiancée and on the day itself, Elizabeth caught her tiara on the carriage as she was getting out, causing her to stumble in front of the assembled dignitaries and her new family. The 16-year-old was so upset at the daunting future ahead of her with Franz Joseph, she spent the whole morning bawling her eyes out and barely managed to hold the tears in for the ceremony itself. When it was all over, she was Empress of Austria. When she spotted the familiar faces of her cousins in the reception crowd, she ran over to hug them. Appalled by this informality, her mother-in-law gave her a dressing down and forced the girl to only extend her hand for a The stresses of her position at court, especially with her mother-in-law breathing down her neck, took an enormous toll on Elizabeth's physical and mental health. She was naturally a little reserved and introverted, and palace life made her more anxious than ever. Within weeks of moving into the royal castle, she developed frequent coughing fits and couldn't even descend staircases without suffering panic attacks. On top of that, Elizabeth found herself pregnant almost immediately after the wedding. The teenager barely understood her new world, and now she had to worry about the horrors of childbirth. To say Sophie got excited about her grandchild is a massive understatement. She even made the young empress show off her pregnant belly to the When the baby was born, Sophie of Bavaria went ahead and, without asking any permission, named the baby girl Sophie, after herself. Dismissing Sissy as a silly young mother, Sophie all but stole the baby girl right out of the birthing room. She then refused to let Elizabeth see, breastfeed or care for her newborn without her express permission. Just a one-off though, right? Nope, she did the exact same thing when Elizabeth's second daughter, Gisela, was born a year later. Throughout this turmoil, Elizabeth's husband, Emperor Franz Joseph, was the opposite of a comfort. Although never completely in love with Franz in the first place, Elizabeth now began to resent him as a dullard, pinned right under mummy's thumb. Even as her private world was falling apart around her, the empress's public image was taking off. Around this time, Elizabeth became an honest-to-god sensation. At balls, the empress's now incredible beauty became the talk of the entire room. Nobles would clamour to get closer, touch her hand or catch a glimpse of her face. In 1857, Elizabeth endured a mother's worst nightmare. Her daughter Sophie became ill and died, most likely from typhus. Elizabeth was still a teenager, yet she was already mourning her own child. Even the smallest moments hit the sensitive Elizabeth right in her heart, so she was nearly driven mad with grief over the earth-shattering loss of her little girl. She refused to eat almost anything and spent her days in total desolation, unwilling to distract herself from her all-consuming sadness. By the late 1850s, the still-mourning empress had born Franz Joseph two daughters but no sons. In an empire obsessed with male heirs, this was a big cause for concern. The court began to isolate Sissy even more, blaming her for not doing her duty. Empress Elizabeth was a horse girl to end all horse girls and was one of the very best horseback riders in the world during her heyday. Indeed, Elizabeth insisted on riding for hours every day. This led to a vicious controversy. Not only was her obsession seen as unladylike, but both Sophie and her husband Franz Joseph were afraid it would harm her precious fertility. Elizabeth had a notorious drive to go harder, faster and longer while riding, but this was rooted in a chilling desire. After one hunting jaunt, she exclaimed on her return to Vienna, Elizabeth maintained a famously trim figure throughout her life, but this compulsion contained a dark secret. Seemingly unable to control anything else in her life in the Viennese court, Elizabeth strictly controlled her food intake and her exercise and most historians now believe she had an eating disorder. This also manifested itself in an infatuation with tight-lacing, where women wore their corsets so tight that it made them wasp-wasted. On August 21st 1858, Elizabeth finally shut her mother-in-law's mouth and gave birth to a baby boy, the crown prince Rudolf of Austria. The happy news came with a 101-gun salute and the blossoming of Elizabeth's full political power at court, whose courtiers would now truly accept her into their fold. One of Elizabeth's biggest strains in conservative Vienna were her liberal-minded beliefs. She had never quite abandoned her free-wheeling upbringing and this was in constant tension with Vienna's rigid ways. She became obsessed with Hungary, one of Austria's unruly territories at the time. Sissi felt an affinity with its staunch independence hidden under a placid interior, but there might have been a more salacious reason for her enthusiasm. Those in the know claimed it was because she was in love with the handsome Hungarian count Jula Andrássy. Andrássy was a dashing vain and infamous rake who was nonetheless whip-smart, aka everything Elizabeth wanted and more particularly everything her husband wasn't. Elizabeth and Andrássy quickly fell into, at the very least, a deep friendship. They were soon corresponding constantly, passing letters back and forth through clandestine routes to avoid too much attention. Elizabeth loved riding and hunting for its own sake, but she also liked the company of the men on those jaunts. One of the Empress's favourite hunting companions was the rough, crude and excessively talented horseman, Bay Middleton, who was nine years her junior. Elizabeth harboured feelings for Bay, but as with Andrássy, she could look but not touch. Bay Middleton was a vicious daredevil, just like everyone else in Elizabeth's riding set. In 1892, Middleton was gunning along in a horse race once more when he slammed to the ground. It was over in seconds. He broke his neck and perished almost instantly. It was almost like Elizabeth was cursed to be unhappy, and once more she took a lot of that unhappiness out on her husband. Partly because she loathed the idea of being pregnant again and ruining her figure, and partly because she had zero interest in him, Sissi began refusing to let the Emperor sleep with her. Like, ever. Elizabeth only conceived a fourth child when she wanted a fourth child. That is, after Hungary and Austria finally became a dual monarchy, and she and Franz Josef became King and Queen of Hungary. Her reasons were ruthless. Once the imperial integration was complete, Sissi knew it would be politically advantageous to birth an heir in Budapest. Her daughter, Marie Valerie, was born in the Hungarian metropolis in 1868. Deprived of her maternal instinct for years, the once emotionally withdrawn Empress now smothered her youngest daughter. People at court snidely called Marie Valerie the only child because of how much Elizabeth doted on her. As Elizabeth grew more and more miserable in Vienna, her behaviour grew more erratic. Besides her various panic attacks, she was also hyperactive and often suffered from insomnia. And to combat these things, she took up a scandalous habit – smoking – which absolutely shocked Viennese polite society. Then again, Elizabeth was getting harder to get along with in general. She was one of the most beautiful women in Europe, but she wasn't the only one. When the gorgeous Empress Eugenie, wife of Napoleon III, was visiting court, a jealous Elizabeth eyed her up for all she was worth. Later on during the day, an attendant accidentally stumbled upon the two empresses in a room together, taking measurements of each other's waist, hips, and calves. Ladies, ladies, you're both hot. If Elizabeth's relationship to her husband was out of whack and the one with her daughter Gisela distant, her relationship to her son Rudolf was downright destructive. Just as she did with Gisela, Elizabeth forced Rudolf into a loveless union with Princess Stephanie of Belgium. And this time she didn't get away with it. Rudolf grew more and more dissatisfied. Soon he became hugely depressed and sought comfort in the arms of mistresses. Elizabeth and Rudolf were eerily alike in many ways. Just like her, the Crown Prince was stubborn, sensitive, introverted, depressive, and largely uninterested in artifice. Indeed, they were probably the last two people on earth who could ever be happy in a loveless marriage, as Elizabeth knew all too well. Moreover, Rudolf departed from his father's conservative political views, taking up Elizabeth's more liberal beliefs instead. Yet thanks to the imminent catastrophe lying in wait, they would never really know each other. On January 30th, 1889, after years of depression, her only son Rudolf took his own life. What's more, Rudolf took his teenage mistress Mary Witzera along with him in a so-called love pact. The tragedy sent shockwaves through Austria, and Elizabeth was never the same. Rudolf's heartbreaking decision to end his life not only threw the line of succession into a tailspin, it also broke his mother's heart. For her short remaining years, Elizabeth could never let go of her son's tragedy. Her grief quickly grew desperate and dark. She tried to establish contact with his ghost in a séance and even visited the family crypt to be nearer to him. A life in the spotlight as the most celebrated beauty of her age twisted Elizabeth in tragic ways. She began to believe it was her duty to be beautiful, and this led to one of her most notorious decisions. After she turned 32, Elizabeth absolutely refused to sit for any more photos or portraits, preferring to live in an eternal youthful glow in the public's imagination. As it turned out, the late 1800s were brutal to Empress Elizabeth. In the four-year span from 1888 to 1892, she lost her father, her mother, her sister, her only son, B. Middleton, and also her beloved Hungarian, Gyula Andrássy. Upon Andrássy's passing, the broken Elizabeth reportedly cried out, my last and only friend is dead. In 1898, Elizabeth would meet her own fate due in no small part to her informality. She was travelling anonymously through Geneva, Switzerland, and despite hearing reports of plots against the monarch's lives, she decided to court danger and When the anarchist Luigi Luceni heard Empress Elizabeth of Austria was in town in Geneva, he quickly devised a chilling plan. He found her walking on a promenade toward her ship almost entirely alone. It was too perfect for him not to take advantage of. He went up, peered under her parasol, and struck her in the heart with a crude four-inch needle file. Everything happened so fast that Elizabeth's last moments on earth were full of confusion. After her collapse, attendants rushed to her but could only notice a small incision on her chest. Her last words were, what happened? She was pronounced dead at 2.10pm on September 10th, 1898. She was 60 years old and had ruled the Austrian Empire for 44 years. Her official autopsy revealed heartbreaking findings. Luceni's aim was fatally accurate, with the needle penetrating over three inches into Elizabeth's thorax, fracturing her rib, puncturing her lung, and then piercing her heart. She never had a chance. When Emperor Franz Josef and the rest of Elizabeth's family heard the news, they were nearly on their knees in pain. There was only one question on their minds. Why had Luceni done it? Unfortunately, there isn't a satisfactory answer. To those on the outside, Elizabeth's informality, isolation from the Viennese court, and interest in Hungary had made her a champion of the common people, which made her death at the hands of an anarchist seem totally nonsensical. Luceni was sentenced to life imprisonment, although this actually enraged him since he hoped for capital punishment to go out with a bang. Eventually, he got his wish by other means. In 1910, he succeeded in ending his own life in his cell. The original inscription on Elizabeth's coffin simply read, Elizabeth, Empress of Austria, but her loyal Hungarians bought at this exclusion of their realm. They demanded the final version also read Queen of Hungary. Elizabeth may have come from a respectable family, but her father, Duke Maximilian's circus obsession was only the tip of the iceberg when it came to their eccentricities. Her grandfather, Duke Pius, was mentally ill, and Elizabeth was cousins with none other than the notoriously unstable King Ludwig II of Bavaria. During her life, Elizabeth took a nearly indecent interest in the mentally ill. She frequently visited asylums, not to comfort patients, but to prod them with questions and watch procedures like hypnotism take place. One day when her husband asked her what she wanted for a gift for an upcoming occasion, she replied brightly and seriously, what I would like best of all is a fully equipped insane asylum. We know now that, partly because of her horrible experiences with her mother-in-law, Sissi wasn't a great mother and could never figure out how to regulate her attachment to her children. Sadly, she was a worse grandmother. Always image conscious, Elizabeth was acutely aware that her daughter, Gisela, lacked beauty, and she never fully forgave the girl for it. When Gisela gave birth to a granddaughter, Elizabeth's response was appalling. Gisela's child is of a rare ugliness, she said. It looks exactly like Gisela. Charming. If you enjoyed this video, please give it a like and subscribe for more videos.