Sophie, a child dies
The young Empress gave birth to a girl who was named after Franz Joseph’s other, Sophie, just a year after they were married. Sophie was born on 5th March 1855. In the following year she presented Franz Joseph with another daughter, Gisela.
Even though they were both girls, who did not have to be educated for duties as a future monarch, Sisi was not allowed to raise the children herself. She might have given birth to them but she was still too young to bring them up, Sophie decided and took the children away from their mother. Elisabeth later said, ‘She took my children from me straight away. I was only allowed to see them when Archduchess Sophie gave her consent. She was always present when I went to visit the children. Eventually I could only concede to her and only seldom went up to see them.’. Sisi’s pleas to the Emperor to intervene went as good as unheard. It was not until they went way together and were far away from Sophie’s influence, that the Emperor at last took his wife’s side in the matter and she was able to spend more time with her children again. Then she started openly going against the express wishes of her mother-in-law and even took her little girls with her when she travelled.
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.
There is a poignant detail from an official portrait of the 26-year old Empress: Elisabeth is wearing a likeness of her dead daughter on her arm.
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