Ah, the Habsburg royal family. One of the most influential and powerful European dynasties that stretched across the Holy Roman Empire, Austria, Spain, Bohemia and Hungary, and etched their influence into the history of European politics. Known for the infamous “Habsburg jaw,” the result of generations of careful inbreeding, the dynasty produced towering historical figures such as Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor, and Marie Antoinette, the ill-fated queen who lost her head during the French Revolution. But during a summer visit to both the Schönbrunn and Hofburg Palace in Vienna,I found myself far more captivated by a figure less politically renowned, yet famous in her own right—Empress Elisabeth of Austria, better known as Sisi.
Early Life
Born as a duchess in Munich, Sisi was recorded to have spent most of her childhood outdoors rather than preparing for a life at a royal court. A free spirit, she rode horses, swam, climbed mountains and played with the children of local peasants. As the second-born daughter, she wasn’t expected to marry into imperial power. In fact, it was her older sister Helene who was meant to catch the eyes of the suitors, or more specifically, the eyes of Franz Joseph I, the Habsburg emperor of Austria, and their first cousin.
That all changed when a 15-year-old Elisabeth accompanied her mother to Austria to witness Helene’s engagement to Franz Joseph I. Upon seeing Elisabeth, Franz Joseph I was enraptured with her and soon asked Elisabeth to marry him.1 A perfect fairytale romantic story, one would think.
Side note: While getting married at 15 might seem a little odd nowadays, it was very normal back in that day. So was getting married to your first cousin, hence the infamous inbreeding.
Royal Life
Unfortunately, where her royal life started, her freedom ended. Empress is a role that carries a multitude of expectations which Sisi was expected to fulfill; the loving and devoted wife, the role of the mother and role as a figurehead. She struggled to adapt to the rigid etiquette of court life and developed health problems early on. To make matters worse, Franz Joseph I’s mother, the Archduchess Sophie, disapproved of Franz Joseph’s choice of a wife and openly criticized Sisi’s unsuitability for her role. Sisi’s first two baby girls were immediately whisked away by Sophie, prohibiting Elisabeth from either raising or even naming the children. The pressure to produce a male heir intensified public scrutiny. Still a teenager, Elisabeth soon began to suffer from an eating disorder combined with bouts of depression. The birth of a son, Rudolf, rebounded her popularity with the people and gave her temporary security and influence in the court.2
Beauty
Sisi was seen as one of the greatest beauties of era. Long, ankle-length chestnut-colored curls washed in egg and cognac that required 3 hours a day to maintain. She bathed in olive oil and slept on hard metal bedframes wrapped in wet towels to maintain her posture. Physical fitness became almost an obsession of hers and she frequently kept up an extreme exercise and diet regime of thin broths, milk, eggs and oranges to maintain her reported waist size of 40 to 50 cm. Every time her weight neared 110 pounds, she would go on an extreme fasting period to keep herself fit.
Past the age of 30, Sisi refused to sit for an imperial portrait or have her photograph taken, fearing the visible effects of age.2 Seen from another perspective, her fixation on exercise and dieting may have stemmed from a deeper need for control. In a world where nearly every aspect of her public and private life was dictated by court protocol and expectation, these routines may have been the few areas in which she held absolute authority.
Tragic End
Sisi’s fragile stability shattered completely with the death of her son, Crown Prince Rudolf. Sisi never truly recovered from the loss. She sank into a deep depression from which she never emerged, dressing in black for the remainder of her life. The public caught fewer and fewer glimpses of their once-celebrated Empress, and she retreated further into mystery. Restless and often traveling without protection, she is said to have wished to “travel the world over… until I drown and am forgotten.”2
On the 10th of September, 1898 she was assassinated by an Italian anarchist who stabbed her with a sharpened needle file. She was 60 years old. In death, as in life, she became a cultural icon—a woman whose beauty and independence were shadowed by profound tragedy, her carefree youth forever transformed by an emperor’s love.2
She wrote:
“Oh, had I but never left the path
That would have led me to freedom,
Oh, that on the broad avenues
Of vanity I had never strayed,
I have awakened in a dungeon
With chains on my hands.”2
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