![]() ‘You have no idea how much I loved this woman’, Franz Joseph is said to have exclaimed after Elisabeth was murdered. Franz Joseph and Elisabeth maintained a bond of friendship, corresponding and meeting regularly. ![]() From the 1860s, the couple could no longer be said to have had a married life together. Elisabeth withdrew more and more, and increasingly turned her back on both the Court and her husband. However, she came increasingly into conflict with the conventions and rules of the Viennese court, personified by her mother-in-law.įranz Joseph was torn between the wishes of his wife and the demands of his mother. She even fulfilled the most important duty of an empress, giving birth to Crown Prince Rudolf. However, in the early years, the young empress did strive to live up to expectations. Elisabeth found life at Court extremely uncongenial, suffering from the strict protocol, the intrigues and her official duties as empress. ![]() In 1854, six months later, the ‘dream wedding’ was held in Vienna, and so began a marriage which, for both parties, constituted an extremely unhappy arrangement. ‘Oh, if only he were a tailor!’ Elisabeth is said to have exclaimed, adding, however, that ‘One doesn’t turn down an emperor!’ Before they even left Bad Ischl, the couple’s engagement was announced. However, events took a different turn, for Franz Joseph – and here, the narration of the famous Sissi film trilogy reflects real history – fell head over heels in love with Helene’s sister, Elisabeth, only fifteen years of age and still very childlike, who in fact was only supposed to play a ‘supporting role’ on the trip. On the occasion of her son’s twenty-third birthday, she arranged a party at Bad Ischl, to which her sister Ludowika was invited along with her nineteen-year-old daughter Helene, in the hope that the emperor would take a fancy to his young cousin. Indeed his mother Sophie, who was extremely ambitious politically, already had concrete plans. Young, attractive, ruler of a global empire and – single! Franz Joseph was much in demand on the European aristocratic marriage market.
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