24 / 01 / 12
Book ISBN: 9780786476749
Amazon Link: https://www.amazon.com/Franz-Joseph-Elisabeth-Monarchs-Austria-Hungary/dp/0786476745
A brief but informative history book about the last monarch of Habsburg, Franz Joseph and Empress Elisabeth. The reason I read this book is I am recently obsessed on Musical Elisabeth. So naturally, I want to know more about that Empress Elisabeth who longing for Liberty （at least as far as the musical has tol me)
This book itself was divided into 12 chapter. First two parts introduced the background setting of Austria in 19th century. From Napoleon and Prussian's military friction with Austria to rising nationalism or liberalism around central European. Chapter 3 to Chapter 5 discussed personal life and marriage life of Franz and Elisabeth. Chapter 6 and chapter 7 talked about the royal children and royal mistress of Franz Joseph. Chapter 8 mainly depicted the Hungarian, including their nationalist thoughts and their friendship with Elisabeth. Author thought that life of Elisabeth and Franz in Austria was nothing but an "illusion" of flourish or happiness. Both their court life and personal life are mere for "The duty of keeping up a fine front." Chapter 10 Fate show life of Elisabeth from adolescence to death. (more details needed); Chapter 11 depicted elder life of FJ; Chapter 12 History after FJ died.
As I said above, I read this book basically because I am recently obsessed on Musical Elisabeth, so my reading review will concentrate on the characters of the Habsburg, rather that its political institution. This reading review mainly focuses on Franz Joseph, Sophie, Elisabeth, and Rudolf. As you see, all of who are protagonists of Musical Elisabeth. Though real history is almost inaccessible for nowadays people. I still want to figure out how much extent does this Musical reflect so-called real history?
Sophie Friederike Dorothea von Wittelsbach, was one of 13 children born to King Maximilian I Joseph of Bavaria. Elisabeth's mother Marie Ludovika was her sister.
Sophie was Kaiser Franz Joseph's mother. Before Franz Joseph came to power as Emperor as Austria, her husband should have be the Kaiser. But because his well-known weakness in politics, his wife, also known as Sophie managed to make him give up the chance to be the Kaiser, and made his son, Franz Joseph to be the Emperor of Austria.
Sophie gave her child both physical beauty and mental instability. Many family members of Wittelsbach suffered from mental illness in the 19th century.
Sophie hated Hungary because it demanded parliamentary rule an a constitution of its own. Sophie quested to find a royal princess who was easy to control, Franz Joseph's future wife must be submissive and docile, Sophie considered on her sister Ludovika's elder daughter Helene.
Before meet in Bad Ischl, Sisi just lost her second "lost love". In order to shake off the depression, her father suggested taking her sister along to Bad Ischl.
On 19 June 1867, Ferdinand Maximilian was executed by firing squad in his 35 years old. Sophie profoundly and continually mourned his death for 5 years and died.
> To some historians it seemed, however, that Sophie’s malice may have been somewhat exaggerated. Upon an examination of Sophie’s diary it appeared that she meant well even though she employed the wrong means.
"Krieg soll andern führen, die Glückliche Österreich heiratet."
The Habsburg's motto could have been "Make love not war!", Habsburg expand its power by marital instead of martial. They has an uncanny talent for choosing the right spouses from the right royal family to make the right alliance, and subsequently inherited the right properties. So the Habsburg Dynasty consisted of multi-nationalities.
Marriage, at least for the upper class was a property transaction.
Franz Joseph, Emperor of Austria and King of Hungary.
He was born in 1830. His mother was Sophie, a powerful archduchess. While his father was a far too weak man had little influence on Franz's life. It was under his mother's help, could he, rather than his father, successfully come into power as the Emperor of Austria.
Franz was strictly treated when he was young, his lesson lasted from 6am to 9pm, when he was still 6 years old. Franz was a good linguist, he mastered eight languages of his dynasty.
Prior to his coronation, the former Emperor made a compromise to Hungarian's independent movement. In order to rule Hungary again, the former had to abdicate.
Perhaps half influenced by his aide-de-camp Count Karl Grunne, half self predisposed, Franz Joseph inclined to military when he was a young boy. When sent by his mother to the battle field during 1848's uprising in Italy, though, to avoid danger in revolutionary Wien. He still felt excited and wrote his mother that "he was overjoyed when he heard the cannon ball". After he first came into power in 1848 when he was only 18 years old, he conduct a military suppress on Hungarians and executed circa half dozen of Hungarian officers as a punishment.
Franz Joseph was rarely closed to others, in most occasions, he barricaded himself behind a wall of isolationism and only a limited few were able to chisel their way through, yet for a brief time.
He didn't believe all men are created equal, as a firm supporter of absolute monarch, he regard attaining popularity among ordinary people as a shame.
For Franz, Catholicism was the only true faith. His bond with the church culminated in the Concordat of 1855, which gave the church jurisdiction in many field including censorship and education. But paradoxically, he also allowed Jewish intellectuals and artists.
As Schwazenberg noted, before 1850 Franz was able to face the truth, even the bitterest. But after 1850, hearing bad news would made the patient emperor impatient.
He did have some mistress, but not as the musical says, his mother found one for him. He did this by himself. His mistress was called Schatt.
One of his chief defects was his inclination to look at the surface, short-term aspects of a situation and react with too much haste. (FOR EXAMPLE?)
On 18 Feb, 1853, Franz Joseph was almost assassinated by one of Hungarian youth. Sophie was shocked, this attack intensified Sophies's determination to her son married.
In every country through the years royal mistresses were a national institution.
> When Queen Caroline was dying, she begged King George the Second to marry again. The king burst into tears and said, “No—I will have—mistresses.” “My God,” the dying queen said, “marriage doesn’t stop that.” (p.103)
Franz's most famous mistress is Katharina Schratt. She played a light hearted social role, who Elisabeth was incapable of or declined to play.
Sisi was infected with syphilis because Franz's disloyalty (but may not with Frau Schratt). The mercury cure badly affected Sisi's teeth. She made every effort to conceal the flaws in her teeth.
Over the years, Sisi mellowed and Franz Joseph's affairs did not cause the angst that they once did. Moreover, she encouraged the Franz and Katharina relationship. Partly because their relationship assured her long travel off Vienna.
When Franz lost Rudolf, Schratt provided the distraught father with soothing words and tenderness Elisabeth could not. When Katharina arrived at the palace, Elisabeth told her Ÿou must go to him. You must try and help him. I can do no more."
On St.Valentine's Day in 1888, Katharina offered to become Franz's mistress, but was refused by Franz.
Sisi's parents were not in love, their marriage was an ordinary upper-class-style one. But among her sisters, Ludovika's marriage was "the worst", because she married below her station. She always complained to Sisi about her failure marriage when Sisi was young.
Sisi's elder sister Helene: Helena was polished by her mom on royal-character building while Sisi was alomost unobserved. In today's vernacular Sisi would be called a tomboy.
Sisi's father Maximilian Joseph was described by historians as a freedom loving, unreliable and popular man in Wittelsbach. He was frequently away from home as though he needed to run away from something. Sisi adored her father, the two had a very good relationship and spent hours talking about poetry and arts, took time riding in the countryside.
> Träumen und Gedichte schreiben, Oder reiten mit dem Wind, Ich möchte mal so sein wie du. (Excerpted from Musical Elisabeth)
Elisabeth loved writing poem, and identified with the queen of fairies, Titania, from Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream, a play, in part, about women defying men.
Siss had admired her second cousin Ludwig since he was a boy. Ludwig love clothes and cross-dressing.
Both the Habsburgs and the Wittelsbach family lines suffered from a long history of madness and hereditary disease. The Wittelsbach trait of mental instability appeared to trouble ELisabeth as well. One can see her angst in her poems she wrote in the ensuing months after Ludwig's death, all show an obsession with death. Even as an empress, she visited insane asylum in Vienna before Christmas, when Franz Joseph asked what she wanted for Christmas, she answered she'd really would like a completely equipped insane asylum. Madness held a certain amount of fascination for Sisi along with a paranoiac dread.
It took Sisi 11 years (15-26) to emancipated herself from the intrusiveness of her mother-in-law, 11 years to find her strength rather than escaping through activities like traveling.
Der letzen Tanz mit Franz
The last dance of the cotillion was a tell tale sign of Franz Joseph 's intentions, as an old
Franz announced to his mother in the end that he was going to marry not Helena but Sisi.
On 18 Aug 1853 the engagement was made official. But 1853 was a hard time for the Austrian empire, war broke out in the immediate vicinity of the Austrian empire. Between Russia and Ottoman. Moreover, the empire was riddled with unemployment, poverty and lack of political freedom.
Elisabeth left her family for Vienna on 20 April 1854.
>April 1854, Sehr passend, porca miseria! (Excerpted from Musical Elisabeth)
Éljen, Éljen, Erzsébet!
Elisabeth loves Hungary, loves liberty.
Hungarians adore Elisabeth.
Elisabeth played a major role in creating Austro-Hungary Empire.
Der letzte Tanz, der letzte Tanz, gehört allein nur dem Tod mit Elisabeth!
On 9 September 1898, Elisabeth visited Geneve under a pseudonym, but she was recognised by the hotel owner and in the first edition of Journal de Genéve, all of readers including Luigi Lucheni, her assassin, knew the empress of Austria was in their city.
Luigi Lucheni was condemned to life imprisonment but committed suicide in 1910.
The inscription on the coffin had originally described Elisabeth only as "Empress of Austria", which caused vehement protest from the Hungarians so the words "Queen of Bohemia"was added to the inscription.
Reise Reise
Elisabeth engaged in waling, and she walked fast and far. Adding to her exhaustion, she scarcely ate or slept, spending whole days on the bridle path in the woods about Vienna.
The Doctors recommended she to spend winter in somewhere warmer, thus, she started her long-period travel away Vienna. The expense of any one of her voyages was documented at more than 200k dollars.
Milch, Kaiserin braucht sie für ihr Bad! Was? Ja!
Bathing was considered to be unhealthy in early 19 century. But bathing took on a more hygienic role in Sisi's time and was done at least once a week.
Sisi would have her corset pulled so tight that she often suffered from shortness of breath. Thinness was not the beauty norm in earlier periods of history. During the Renaissance and even up to the 1900s, beautiful women were chubby.
Sisi's hair was her most crowning and significant feature, when undone it would reach almost her ankles. The maintenance of her hair costed 3 hours per day. Her hair made her suffer from "mysterious"headaches.
Every fortnight, Sisi's hair was washed in a procedure costing the whole day. Cleansing formula was composed of eggs and brandy. At night, Sisi always wear a mask or pasty cream. She sometimes covered strawberries on her face. When she bathed, her baths were in ice-cold water, occasionally she bathed in warm olive oil in the afternoon. She sometimes slept in a mummy-wrap of wet rags soaked in cider vinegar, thinking it would preserve her thinness. Her bed was stiff and hard, she slept without pillows. Sisi never used and never allowed her ladies-in-wait to use perfumes. She didn't wear rings on her fingers, but strung them on a chain on her neck.
As she aged, her beauty became an obsession. Later in life, she often hid her face from others with a fan or her umbrella.
#AyanoComments Why? I think one of the reasons she was obsessed with her weight is she was always on display as an empress. Her clothing, her jewelry, her hair, everything about her furnished endless matter for discussion among folks in the court. Every flaw, even the thinnest would be noted and commented on. "Every second, Elisabeth had to live up to her reputation as the greatest beauty of Monarchy.
Though possessive Sophie had made an effort not to interfere with his son's rule, she did interfere his personal affair. She subjected her son to a detailed inquisition even while he was still at his honeymoon breakfast.
After marriage, the newlyweds went for Laxenburg Castle to spend their honeymoon, but even in this period, Sisi would not have her husband all to her. Franz would rise long before she was awake and travel back to Hofburg to immerse himself in affairs of state, only returning to her in the time of six o'clock dinner.
The fact that an infinitely intricate political situation (the Crimean War) occurs coincide with their newlywed, the emotional and mental stress on the emperor left him far too little time for his young wife.
Shortly after the wedding, foreign guests began arriving for the 1873 Vienna Exposition, whose motto Koltur und Erziehung.
From the beginning, Sisi was never close to her second daughter, half because Sophie's intrusions, half because the death of her firstborn daughter, who died during the Couple's trip to Hungary. Elisabeth had little intimacy to this daughter. Moreover, because of Sophie's sole proprietorship over raising the children, sisi seemed to free herself of child-rearing very early.
Overall, their marriage could not be called a happy one. But was pretended to be a happy royal family to fulfill the Repräsentazions-Pflicht (the duty of keeping up a fine front.)
Rudolf was born in December 1857, he had a delicate constitution and was frequently ill, absolutely did not fill his father's hopes of being a good soldier-like son.
Elisabeth wants her son as little German as possible. She fought against Gondrecourt's Spartan training to her son. Before Rudolf was 7 years old, he suffered spasms of hysteria.Sisi fought again but to no avail again. Finally she wrote an ultimatum to Franz to retrieve Rudolf.
After Condrecourt left, Rudolf's angst appeared to dissipate, he was no longer afraid, but his internalized anger externalized, he began to lash out and inflict violence on others. At age 14, he was received a shotgun sent by Sophie as Christmas present. Elisabeth was shocked by the 'childish killer', she resolved at once to alter his mode of life and place him in hand of a Hungarian tutors.
But as on the one hand, Sisi freed herself fairly early from children rearing, on the other hand, Sisi adore her last daughter, Marie Valerie, who was born in Hungary more. To Sisi, Marie Valerie was more than a daughter but her only intimate friend.
Rudolf had a quite loveless childhood and phantom parents. Rudolf tried to gain his mother's love, but Elisabeth did not pay enough attention to his efforts that it had deserved and that he expected.
Franz continued to deny Rudolf's heir any responsibilities in the empire, even as Rudolf approached thirty. Rudolf began drinking and according to some historians became addicted to opium.
Rudolf once had a bad fall from his horse, he did not tell this to his father. The fall seems to have worsened his headaches from he was suffering, for the relief of which morphine was prescribed. As we know, morphine is a dangerous addictive substance.
Rudolf's marriage was nothing but a political alliance. Rudolf did not love his wife Stephanie. Soon after his suicide, Stephanie remarried.
Rudolf committed suicide on 30 January 1889 with his mistress Maria Vetsera. Both Franz and Elisabeth failed to notice the tragic decline in Rudolf's appearance and demeanor, nor did they do anything to help him overcome his addiction to alcohol and morphine. While Marie Valerie knew already Rudolf was mentally disturbed, no one took thirty-year-old Rudolf's frequent mentions of his imminent death seriously.
After the death of her only son, Elisabeth became more and more embittered, and receded into her own world. She became unsociable and inapproachable. Elisabeth only wore mourning since then.