Childhood and youth
Looking back over fifty or so years, Elisabeth, Empress of Austria, a melancholy and lonely woman writes the following lines in her secret diary about herself in the halcyon days of her childhood:
"I am a Sunday child, child of the sun,
That shone its golden beams upon my throne.
Its glowing rays into my crown it spun.
Sunlight I love, and dwell in its bright zone"
Elisabeth, the second daughter of Duke Max of Bavaria, did indeed seem to be a child of fortune. She was born on Christmas Eve 1837, with one tooth already through. In Bavarian lore, this was regarded as a “lucky Tooth” and an early sign that its owner was destined for great things. Napoleon had also one tooth when he was born. Elisabeth was born as a pricness ‘in Bavaria ’not the daughter of a king ‘of Bavaria’ of the house of Wittelsbach but rather the daughter of duke Maximilian, of the line of the counts palatine of Birkenwald-Gelnhausen in the Rhineland Palatine. Her grandfather on her father’s side, William, had married a sister of the crown prince and future king Maximilian Joseph of Bavaria, from who he had been conferred the title duke ‘in Bavaria’, a title lacking any real political influence. Elisabeth was born as the third child of the ducal pair at their winter residence, Max Palace in Munich. Elisabeth and her family spent the summer months as Possenhofen on Lake Starnberg. She enjoyed happy, untroubled times with her brothers and sisters and other children from the neighbourhood in the midst of the beautiful local countryside.
As Elisabeth’s father did not belong to the royal branch of the house of Wittelsbach he had no official functions at the Bavarian Court. Consequently, the family was spared most of the demands of etiquette and protocol and could devote itself entirely to private life.
Although Duchess Ludovika was King Ludwig It’s sister, she had something of the look of a peasant woman, and nurtured no social ambitions. Contrary to aristocratic custom, she even insisted on playing a large part in bringing up her own children.
Those eight children, all equally good-looking and boisterous, grew up in an atmosphere of freedom. In winter they lived in the Palais Max in the Ludwigstrasse in Munich, little Elisabeth’s birthplace, while summers were spent at their beloved “Possi”,
The small and not particularly elegant castle of Possenhofen. They were good at mountain walking, riding and fishing, they played music, and they loved animals and the idyllic landscape around the Starnberger See. To the despair of their tutors, they were not prepared to settle down to systematic study, and they cheerfully insisted on retaining their Bavarian dialect.
Elisabeth had an older brother, Ludwig, and two younger brothers, the much-beloved Karl Theodoor and Maximilian Emanuel, 12 years younger than her, as well as four sisters. Helena, nicknamed Nene – three years older than Elisabeth and from 1858 wife of crown prince of Thurn and Taxis – was probably the closest to her.
Helene, a dark, slender beauty. She was engaged to the most eligible bachelor of his time, the young Emperor Franz Joseph of Austria. Although the mothers of the bride and groom to be were sisters, the two young people themselves hardly knew each other. Plans for the marriage were made in 1853, when Helene was eighteen.
Two younger sisters married princes of the royal house of Bourbon and went to live under the southern sun. In 1859 Maria became queen of the Two Sicilies and in 1861 Mathilde became the duchess of Trani. Both soon suffered the fate of their deposed sovereigns.
The official betrothal was timed for Franz Joseph’s 23rd birthday in August 1853, and was to take place during the imperial summer holiday at Ischl in Salzkammergut. To forestall any premature rumours, Duchess Ludovika brought along her second daughter, fifteen year-old Elisabeth or “Sisi”, as well as Helene. For although Elisabeth was not thought especially pretty, she must be married soon too – and the Emperor had three younger brothers.
The family reunion in Ischl upset all these plans. Franz Joseph, usually an obedient son to his domineering mother, Archduss Sophie, took hardly any notice of Helene. He fell madly in love at first sight with her little sister, and insisted that he would marry no one but Elisabeth.
Sisi was a mere child: awkward, unsure of herself, and so overawed by her distinguished Viennese relations that she could scarcely utter a world. Helene wept; their mother was baffled and confused. Franz Josephs, however, had a swing installed in the gardens to amuse his distressed and childish fiancée.
The myth of the imperial couple’s romantic love story is only half true. There is no doubt that Franz Joseph was head over heels, in love with his little cousin from Bavaria, but Elisabeth had no choice As her mother put in, “One does not turn down an emperor”.
Elisabeth said later, of that visit to Ischl, “marriage is a preposterous institution. You are sold as a child of fifteen, you swear vows you don’t understand, and you regret them for thirty years or more, but you can never break them.”
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