what a magnificent crown of hair frames her face! What lovely soft eyes she has, and lips like strawberries.” Efforts were made to steer his attentions to the older sister. Her aunt, Archduchess Sophie, recalled in her diary her son’s outpourings of praise: “Oh, but how sweet Sisi is. Soon after the three women arrived, eagle-eyed courtiers could not help but notice how the young emperor’s attention was directed not at Helene but at her younger sister. She seemed a bit player in a drama reserved for Helene. She was so shy that she had trouble eating in the presence of the Austrians. She appeared very much a child, still dressing simply and wearing her hair in two braids. Shy and introverted, Sisi showed no interest in romance. A surprise engagementĪt first, only Helene and Ludovika were to make the journey that summer, but Sisi joined them. Following discussions between her mother and Sophie, Helene was invited to Bad Ischl, the town where the imperial family summered, with a view to securing an engagement in 1853. He looked to be a promising catch, and Ludovika set her sights on him.Īt age 15, Sisi was too young to be considered a potential mate for the emperor, and the family focused on her eldest sister, Helene, whose elegance, piety, and reserve would be essential qualities for an emperor’s consort. In 1848 their unmarried son, Franz Josef, became Austrian emperor at age 18. Sisi’s maternal aunt, Sophie, was married to the Archduke of Austria, Franz Karl. Her father, the duke, was a music-loving bon viveur with notably liberal views that filtered down to his children.Īs Sisi and her sisters grew, her mother Ludovika’s thoughts turned to their marriage. Her childhood was unusually informal for the time and for her status. Nicknamed Sisi from a young age, Elisabeth loved nature and spent her summers in the comfortable family mansion on the banks of Lake Starnberg south of Munich. "It gives an extremely strange impression to see the manner in which the man whose death sentence Emperor Franz Joseph had signed in 1849 and whose name was nailed to the gallows in Pest, now, eighteen years later, places the crown on the head of the monarch whose highest confidence he today enjoys.Please be respectful of copyright. This vestige from the Middle Ages simply does not fit with our times.’ The envoy moreover noted the irony of Franz Joseph being crowned by Count Andrássy: The Swiss envoy did not experience the ceremony in quite the same manner as the young Rudolf, finding it no longer contemporary in all its pageantry: ‘Despite its pomp and veritable magnificence, yet the entire procession gave the detached observer somewhat the impression of a carnival masquerade. In personal union, Franz Joseph was now simultaneously King of Hungary and Emperor of Austria, but through the Compromise, the two halves of the Empire were two formally independent states of equal status.Īs a coronation gift, the royal couple were given the Baroque palace of Gödöllö. In 1867, Franz Joseph agreed to the Compromise plan, which required the restoration of traditional rights and Hungary's independence, and which reinstated the old Hungarian constitution dating back to the period before the 1848 Revolution. This forced the emperor into a hasty compromise with the representatives of Hungary, something his wife Elisabeth had also strongly favoured. Then the imperial orb and sceptre were placed in Papa’s hands."Īs a result of defeats in Italy in 1859 and against Prussia in 1866, Franz Joseph's position within the Monarchy had been considerably weakened. Afterwards, the drums resounded and Andrássy and the Primate put the crown on Papa’s head. Mama sat down on a kind of throne, and Papa went to the altar, where a lot of Latin was read out. "In the church there were many magnates and officers, then the music started and the Primate and many Catholic and Greek bishops and very many other priests. Here, on 8 June 1867, using the Crown of St Stephen, Franz Joseph and Elisabeth were crowned King and Queen of Hungary by Hungarian Prime Minister Count Andrássy and the Primate of the Catholic church: His spelling still not entirely reliable, the nine-year-old Crown Prince Rudolf gave an account in his school exercise book of the coronation ceremony held in Matthias Church in Budapest.
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