Marie Valerie - Elisabeth’s "Only Child"
Elisabeth and Franz Joseph grew completely estranged from one another over the years. She did not see this as a failing as she was not a very sensuous woman. Their married life was a matter of duty and as far as children were concerned, she felt she had done what had been expected of her.
Nevertheless, her pleasure at the compromise with Hungary did revive her relationship with Franz Joseph for a while and she made an exception to her resolve not to become pregnant again. Just a year after the coronation she gave birth to a little girl, Marie Valerie, on 22nd of April 1868, in Budapest. At the Viennese Court she was spitefully dubbed the ‘Hungarian child’. Sisi saw her as her ‘only child as it was the only one that she was finally allowed to always have around her and whom she could watch growing-up. She took Marie Valerie everywhere she went and enjoyed being a mother with all her heart : ‘Now I know what happiness a child means – now I have shown the courage to bestow her with my love and keep her by me’.
One of the ways she expressed her love for he daughter was by supporting her so that she could avoid having to make a marriage of convenience, giving her time to find a husband for herself. Marie Valerie choice fell on Archduke Franz Salvator. After waiting two and a half years to be sure, as her mother had advised her to, she married him in 1890. Elisabeth felt profound anguish at the loss of her daughter to a man.
Marie Valerie ( 1868-1925 ), the youngest daughter, bore the strongest resemblance to Elisabeth. With her, Elisabeth was at last able to savour the pleasures of motherhood. Marie Valerie was given time to be sure that she had met the right man before she married him. She chose Archduke Franz Salvator. Their become parents of nine children.
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