Gisela
Gisela was born on the 15th of July in 1859, and Sisi was very disapointed that Gisela was no boy, but a girl.
And also Gisela was taken away from her mother, by Sophie. Gisela looked not like her mother, but she is just a look-a-like from her father.
Gisela, and her death sister
The Imperial couple experienced a personal tragedy while on a journey through Hungary: both girls fell ill with diarrhoea and high temperatures. The ten-month old Gisela soon recovered but the two-years old Sophie died in the arms of her mother after a struggle against death which lasted for eleven hours. As if she had not suffered enough, Elisabeth was even indirectly held responsible for the death of her own child. After everything she had been through, Sisi suffered a breakdown. It was all to much for the nineteen-year old Empress. For the first time the physical and psychological symptoms, which were to plague her for the rest of her life in times of crisis, were showing. She completely withdrew for weeks and months at a time, she locked herself in and cried all day. Or she spent hours out riding, keeping going until she reached a state of total exhaustion, just to avoid having to think. Her spiritual and physical health weakened. This was to be seen especially clearly when she even resigned in the battle over her second child. As a result she became emotionally distant towards Gisela and hardly participated at all in her further development. Marie Festetics, an otherwise loyal lady-in-waiting, later commented in her diary that the empress did not even participate in the preparations for her eldest daughter’s wedding. Sisi behaved in a similar way towards her only son, Rudolf, who she also had to hand over to her mother-in-law as soon as he was born.
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