Equipped with her fair share of intelligence, egotism and self-confidence, Elisabeth did as she pleased. She was concerned almost exclusively with her beauty and her own interests, scarcely heeding the traditional duties of an empress. Shows of royal grandeurs had always been a burden to her, for she was naturally shy and withdrawn. Now she refused to take part in the almost entirely, and was particularly unwilling to carry out her royal duties in Vienna, where she never really felt at home or accepted. She would make exceptions only for Hungary.
When the silver jubilee of Franz Joseph’s reign was celebrated with great magnificence in 1873, all she would do was interrupt a visit to Hungary for a couple of days, and even then made very few appearance. IF she really had to appear in public she would drive in a closed carriage with darken windows, or would veil her face against curious glances. The imperial couple celebrated their silver wedding in 1879, and she made difficulties again: there was a saying at court that they were celebrating not 25 years of ménage, but rather manège.
Elisabeth still fostered the cult of her beauty, and had no scruples in refusing to attend important receptions if her hairdresser were unavailable, or she felt she did not look good enough. Although crowds gathered even in Vienna when she made on of her extremely rare appearance, her reputation of begin remiss a both an empress and a wife and mother went ahead of her.
As her beauty faded with advancing age, she hid the wrinkles on her face behind fans and screen when she appeared in public. She would not be photographed or sit to have her portrait painted after she was the age of forty. Photographs had to be retouched with the help of older shots, and painters used their imagination; this was her way of keeping the myth of her beauty alive.
She did not conceal her lack of faith in the future of the monarchy. Her republican ideas shocked people. She expected to have to go into exile in the future, and without Emperor Franz Joseph’s knowledge she had accumulated a considerable fortune in Switzerland for such a contingency.
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