Elizabeth never appeared to better advantage than when on horseback. Her habit, which seemed as if moulded to her figure, was usually dark blue, trimmed with fur. She also wore a low round hat and heavy riding-gloves, but never a flower or bow or anything superfluous except a black fan, which she carried in her hand or hung by a strap to her saddle. Strangers generally supposed this was to protect her complexion, but her friends were well aware that it was merely to guard herself from the inevitable photographers who pursued her everywhere. “I hate being photographed,” she once declared: “every time in my life that I have been, something dreadful has happened to me.” She liked to attend to her horses personally and visited them every morning, taking sugar and carrots in her pocket for them, sometimes even going into their stalls to pet or rub them down. At Schönbrunn she had a room the walls of which were completely covered with pictures of horses. “Look,” she once said to her Greek teacher when showing him this room, “all these are friends I have lost. Many of them have died for me, which is more than I can say of any human being. People would far rather have me killed.” She was never so happy as when in the saddle, dashing through the forests of Austria or the wide Hungarian plains. But these long rides also served another purpose. On both sides of the house she had relatives whose lives were darkened by the fatal inheritance of the Wittelsbachs; so it was not strange that as she grew older her sensitive nature should have brooded over the fear of developing the family disorder. To banish these terrible fits of depression she would gallop for hours, insensible to weather or physical exhaustion, sometimes drenched to the skin, and it was only when she felt her horse quiver under her with fatigue that she would slacken her pace.
Immediately after the coronation the Hungarians presented to their Queen the castle of Gödöllö, situated in the depths of the forest, not far from Budapest, and for many years it was her favorite residence. Here there was nothing to break the peaceful seclusion but the plaintive notes of the Zingaris’ violins. Here she was her own mistress, spending long, happy, care-free days. She usually rose at four o’clock, and was in the saddle from five till eleven, when she breakfasted. It was an ideal country for riding, and she became familiar with every forest pathway for miles around, often stopping at some camp of the Czikos to chat with these half-savage Bedouins of the Hungarian Puszta, in whom she felt the greatest interest. She brought them gifts of tobacco, and was always welcomed with delight by these strange herdsmen.
But there were gay times also at Gödöllö in those days, when her husband and children were there and the castle was full of guests. Her stag hunts were famous, and the walls were covered with trophies of the chase. “There is a tree at Gödöllö,” she once said to a companion, “who is one of my best friends. He knows all my inmost thoughts, and whenever I go back there I tell him all that has happened to me since we parted.”
Wherever she might be her thoughts turned longingly toward her beloved Hungary, where she was happiest, and among whose romantic, impulsive people she always felt most at home. All classes in Budapest adored their beautiful Queen, who wore the national costume of the country and lost no opportunity of remaining among them. Her courage, gentleness, and open-hearted generosity made her universally beloved. She would go about among the poorest and vilest quarters of the city, helping the suffering and needy, quite unconscious of danger or fear. The wretched creatures often little suspected who she was, but she was welcomed everywhere as an angel of mercy, and could go unharmed where even the police would scarcely venture.
One evening she was riding with a companion through the outskirts of Budapest, and was just passing a hovel set back a little from the main road when they were startled by hearing piercing shrieks from within. The voice was that of a woman evidently in the greatest distress. On the impulse of the moment they leaped from their horses, and rushing to the door and bursting it open, found themselves in a low, dirty room, where a huge ruffian of a man was dragging a woman about the floor by her long, unbound hair, kicking her vigorously as he did so. Without a moment’s thought Elizabeth dealt him a blow in the face with her heavy hunting-crop, which so surprised the fellow that he dropped his victim and stared at her in blank amazement. Elizabeth’s own astonishment was still greater, however, when the ill-used woman arose and sprang at her like a tiger, overwhelming her at the same time with the vilest abuse for presuming to attack her husband. The Empress burst into a peal of laughter, and taking a gold piece from her pocket she handed it to the man, exclaiming: “Beat her, my friend. Beat her all she wants; she deserves it for being so loyal to you.”
The year 1873 was a memorable one to Franz Joseph and Elizabeth. Their eldest daughter, Gisela, was married, April 20, to Prince Leopold of Bavaria in the Church of the Augustins, where the imperial pair had celebrated their union nineteen years before. The bride was led to the altar by her mother and left that same afternoon with her husband for Munich. The Viennese overwhelmed the Archduchess with gifts and entertainments, and the streets were lined with crowds eager to witness the departure of the young couple.
A few days afterward, May 1, 1873, the Emperor and Empress opened the World’s Exposition at Vienna, an event that was celebrated with all sorts of festivities and made the occasion of a perfect jubilee. The Exhibition was a great success as well as a source of pride to Austria, as it demonstrated what the country could accomplish in the way of arts and manufactures in a comparatively short space of time. Many of the crowned heads of Europe came as guests to the capital. The old Emperor William and his clever wife Augusta visited at the Hofburg and Schönbrunn; Czar Alexander Second of Russia and King Victor Emmanuel of Italy also came, as did the Shah of Persia and many others.
Elizabeth, however, cared little for people of her own rank. “Titles mean nothing,” she declared; “they are only the trappings with which we try to hide our nakedness; they do not change our real selves.” Little to her taste as court ceremonies were, she bore her part in them with ease and dignity and was always the centre of interest and admiration wherever she went. Some years before the fall of the French Empire, the Austrian sovereigns met Napoleon and Eugénie at Salzburg. The French Empress was then at the zenith of her beauty, but Elizabeth with her glorious eyes and hair and the wonderful charm of her personality did not suffer by comparison with the Spaniard nor even with younger princesses.
In 1873 the twenty-fifth anniversary of Franz Joseph’s accession to the throne was celebrated with great rejoicings, the festivities culminating in the evening by the triumphal progress of the imperial pair with the Crown Prince through the streets of Vienna, which were brilliantly illuminated and decorated and filled with cheering throngs. But even on this occasion it was evident Elizabeth found it an effort to appear in public, and she avoided the noise and confusion as much as possible. Her growing reserve and dislike of self-display were taken as a personal offence by the spectacle-loving Viennese and added to her unpopularity. She was considered cold and proud and was taxed with heartlessness and indifference, a fact of which she was well aware and which only added to her melancholy.
She adored children, rich and poor alike, and at the close of the Vienna Exposition took into her service a little Berber boy named Mahmoud, who had acted as page in the Cairene house erected in the Prater by the Khedive of Egypt and afterward presented to the Empress. Mahmoud adored his mistress and she was exceedingly kind to him. When the climate of Vienna affected his lungs and he fell ill with pneumonia, she nursed and tended him herself, and he became the favorite playmate of the Archduchess Valerie, greatly to the horror of the Austrian aristocracy. Patience was not one of the Wittelsbach virtues, and so many false and cruel reports were circulated about her in Vienna by careless tongues that when Elizabeth was informed of the indignation she had aroused by her kindness to Mahmoud she responded by having the two children photographed together and the picture displayed in public. This act of defiance naturally added to the number of her detractors, and many even began to hint that the Empress’ restlessness and eccentricities were certain signs of approaching insanity.
But there was still another reason for the Empress’ unpopularity in the Austrian capital. Her husband’s German subjects keenly felt her lack of sympathy with them and resented her unconcealed preference for Hungary. It was even rumored that she intended to bestow all her Austrian possessions upon the Magyars, but this was a rank injustice to Elizabeth, for throughout the Empire, Austria as well as Hungary, there was scarcely a charitable institution or cause that she did not aid or support, nor a case of suffering and need that she did not attempt to relieve. When Austria took possession of Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1878, the Empress found a fresh field for her energies in caring for the wounded soldiers and providing for the families of those who were killed; and when cholera and smallpox broke out in Budapest, she insisted upon accompanying the Emperor, who was obliged to go there for the opening of the National Assembly, declaring that in time of danger her place was at her husband’s side.
In 1879 Franz Joseph and Elizabeth celebrated their silver wedding, an occasion not unmixed with sadness to them both, as they looked back on the trials and disappointments of their married life. They had requested that there should be no public observance of the day, and that the sums contributed for that purpose should be given to charity. An exception to this was made, however, in Vienna, where a great ovation had been prepared for the imperial pair. On the spot where the Emperor had been attacked by Libeny, the Hungarian, a church had been erected to commemorate his fortunate escape, and this was to be formally dedicated as part of the ceremonies of the day. The city wasen fête, and crowds had gathered to salute the Emperor and Empress as they drove to and from the church. There was little in their appearance to suggest the storms that had shaken their lives, for Franz Joseph was still in the prime of his manhood and Elizabeth the youngest and most beautiful of grandmothers (her eldest daughter Gisela had several children at that time). The festivities, which lasted several days, concluded on the twenty-seventh of April with an historical pageant, arranged by the celebrated painter Hans Makart and carried out on the most magnificent scale. Every class, institution, and province in the kingdom was represented, and the various groups costumed with historical accuracy, the whole procession making a most imposing spectacle as it moved slowly along the Ringstrasse amid the deafening cheers of the spectators.
Both Franz Joseph and Elizabeth were very proud of their only son, whose winning ways and kindness of heart had made him wonderfully popular with all classes. He had inherited his mother’s impatience of restraint as well as her literary and artistic tastes, and, like her, cared little for people of his own rank. His own intimate circle was composed of poets, artists, and journalists, and he had an enthusiastic friend and teacher in the celebrated naturalist, Brehm. According to the custom of Austrian princes, he had been required to learn some trade and chose that of printing, but he possessed a marked talent for writing and published several books of real merit. He adored his mother, and the relation between them was one of the closest confidence and intimacy, but Elizabeth’s love for her son did not blind her to his faults, and she fully realized that he had all his father’s youthful susceptibility and love of pleasure. Both she and the Emperor were agreed as to the necessity of his marrying early, not only to insure the succession, but also because they hoped it would steady the rather wild and headstrong young prince. Franz Joseph, however, had political advantages most in mind in the choice of a wife for his son, while Elizabeth was chiefly concerned as to his prospects of domestic happiness. She felt the importance of his marrying some one with sufficient beauty and intelligence to restrain his somewhat errant fancy and win his respect as well as affection.
There were but few marriageable princesses in Europe at that time (Rudolf was then in his twentieth year), and the Emperor’s choice was far from satisfactory to Elizabeth, for it fell on the Belgian princess Stephanie, a seventeen-year-old girl of very ordinary mind and not at all attractive in appearance. Elizabeth had no liking either for King Leopold Second of Belgium or his wife, an Austrian archduchess, who played rather an unenviable role at her husband’s court, and bitterly opposed the match; but the Queen’s sister, the Archduchess Elizabeth (mother of the Queen Regent of Spain and a favorite cousin of the Emperor’s) brought all her influence to bear in her niece’s favor, and the Empress’ objections were overruled, Rudolf himself, meanwhile, seeming to regard the whole affair with perfect indifference.
The wedding took place May 10, 1881. All through the festivities that preceded the great event Elizabeth played her part perfectly as mother of the bridegroom, though her cold and distant manner toward her future daughter-in-law as well as the King and Queen of Belgium was only too evident. Part of the ceremonies consisted of a state procession through the streets of the capital, and during the whole progress she hardly spoke once to Queen Henriette, who rode beside her, but sat erect, bowing continuously in acknowledgment of the cheers of the populace, with a look almost of absentmindedness on her lovely face. In the middle of the marriage ceremony her self-control gave way completely, however, and she burst into a violent fit of weeping. This was her last public appearance in Vienna.
Gay, frivolous, and fond of admiration, Stephanie was a princess to please the taste of the Viennese. Her arrival at court was hailed with delight, and when on the third of September, 1883, a daughter was born to the young couple, the public enthusiasm was a proof of their popularity. A change in the relations of Rudolf and his mother after his marriage was inevitable. Though he continued to make her his confidante, she was not long in discovering that he was far from happy in his marriage. Wretched over this unfortunate state of affairs and feeling less at home than ever in the Hofburg, she now rarely visited Vienna, sometimes spending only a few weeks there in the winter.
CROWN PRINCE RUDOLF
CROWN PRINCE RUDOLF
She had never liked the Hofburg nor Schönbrunn, where the Emperor always spent the spring months, and now determined to have a residence of her own somewhere in the neighborhood of the capital. The spot chosen was the beautiful park of Lainz, hidden from the public gaze by high stone walls and further protected by a thick, impenetrable hedge surrounding the gardens. During the two years that “Waldesruhe,” as she called the Schloss, was being built it was rigidly guarded from intrusion of any kind, and even after it was finished no one but the servants and the family were allowed to enter the park or gardens. The building itself is in the style of the Renaissance, thefaçadeadorned with balconies and terraces which in the Empress’ time were always a mass of flowers. A wide marble staircase covered with red velvet carpet led to the first floor, which contained the apartments of the Emperor and Empress, connected by a great salon or reception hall. Elizabeth’s spacious sleeping chamber was on the corner, with two windows to the east and two tall ones to the south, giving upon a balcony. The bed was placed in the centre of the room, protected at the head by a large screen, upon the reverse side of which was a painting of the Virgin Mary. A figure also representing the Blessed Virgin stood in one corner, holding in her hands a magnificent antique rosary. Opposite the bed was an exquisite statue of Niobe, the pedestal buried in growing plants and lighted with green incandescent lamps so arranged that as the Empress lay in bed she could see no light in the room but the green glimmer that fell on the Niobe. Breakfast was served on the balcony, which was like a flower garden. Here too in later years she placed a favorite work of art, a small reproduction of the marble statue of Heine made by the Danish sculptor Hasselriis for her villa Achilleon at Corfu. Adjoining her bedchamber and also giving upon the balcony was the Empress’ study, filled with photographs of her family and friends, and a picturesque litter of casts, sketches, bronzes, souvenirs of travel, and porcelain vases filled with flowers. Over the great square writing-table hung a striking portrait of her cousin King Ludwig Second of Bavaria. A fire was always burning on the wide hearth, and the Emperor and Empress used often to sit there together in the evenings watching the glowing logs and talking over the events of the day. The guest chambers and apartments of the Archduchess Marie Valerie were on the floor below, as was the Empress’ gymnasium. Physical exercise was so necessary to her that she always had a room fitted up in this way wherever she happened to be staying.
Another favorite retreat of Elizabeth’s was Miramar, the Emperor Maximilian’s palace, where for several years after his death she used to make frequent visits. Built of the purest white marble, it stands on a rocky promontory overlooking the sea, and near by is the pavilion used as a residence by the Empress Charlotte when she returned from Mexico a widow and hopelessly insane.
At the time Elizabeth was first sent to Corfu to recuperate, the beauty of the country made a deep impression upon her, and her love for the shores of Greece after repeated visits in later years decided her to build a villa upon the island, the planning and furnishing of which should reflect her own individual taste. Near the idyllic village of Gasturi accordingly there rose the masterpiece of architecture which she called Achilleon. It stands on a hill facing the sea, the slopes of which are covered with olive and lemon trees and laid out as gardens on wide terraces. The house contains one hundred and twenty-eight rooms, filled with treasures of Greek and Pompeian art, and there are accommodations in the stables for fifty horses. All the rooms are filled with classic treasures. The Empress’ own apartments were entirely apart from the rest of the building, with a private entrance so that she could come and go at will. She used to rise at five and after her bath would go for a walk, usually alone, with a book under her arm. The mornings were devoted to study, the afternoons to long rambles. She knew every road for miles about, but loved best to explore the steepest and most dangerous mountain paths, the silent grandeur and beauty of the heights seeming to soothe for a time the restless cravings of her spirit. At nine she would retire after another bath in the marble basin which was brought from the Villa Borghese in Rome. Heine’s Book of Songs was always under her pillow, and often she would rise in the middle of the night, unable to sleep, and wander about through the dark avenues. At Achilleon, as elsewhere, she was most anxious to escape observation, and a high wall of marble with a screen of olive trees hid the palace from the public gaze. It was not people, however, that she disliked so much as being the object of their curiosity.
“All I ask of people,” she often said, “is that they will leave me in peace.”
She was always kind and gracious to the poor, and the peasants used to kneel in the dust before her when she approached, calling aloud in their melodious language, “O Queen of Beauty, may God bless thine every step!” All heads were uncovered when she passed, and the children who watched for her coming would run to meet her with their hands full of blossoming orange and almond boughs. On the heights above Achilleon stood a monastery where she often used to go and talk with the monks. She asked one of them once if he ever went to the village.
“There is always the marketing to do,” he answered. “Man is but human, and the body suffers from cold or hunger; but except for that, what should one do in the village? It is far better and more beautiful up here.”
“That is true,” said the Empress; “undoubtedly you have chosen the better part.”
Through all her sorrows and troubles Elizabeth never lost her love for her Bavarian home or for her own family, with whom she corresponded regularly. For many years she was in the habit of spending part of every summer at Possenhoffen, revisiting the scenes of her childhood and going about among her peasant friends, who always spoke of her as “our Empress,” forgetful of the fact that this title properly belonged to the Queen of Prussia.
The years had brought many sorrows and misfortunes to Duke Max Joseph and his wife. Their oldest son married an actress of doubtful reputation. The Princess of Thurn and Taxis early lost her husband and oldest child and was left with the burden of managing the vast family estates. The third daughter, Marie, like Elizabeth, was elevated to a throne at the age of seventeen, by becoming the wife of Francis Second, King of the Two Sicilies; but barely a year later Garibaldi’s freelances robbed her unworthy husband of his crown and made her a queen without a country. A scarcely happier fate befell her sister Mathilde, who was married at eighteen to Count Louis of Trani, a broken-downrouéwho afterward died by his own hand. Neither of these Princesses had seen their husbands before their marriage.
Sophie, Duchess d’Alençon, the youngest of the five sisters, was very beautiful and resembled the Empress Elizabeth in appearance, though not at all in disposition, for those who knew her as a young girl describe her as being full of animation and vivacity. She became engaged to her cousin Ludwig Second of Bavaria a year after his accession to the throne, and the betrothal met with general approval. He was a strikingly handsome young man of twenty at this time, and so desperately in love with his cousin that he had a bust made of her by a famous sculptor and placed in his winter garden where he could always look at it. Just before the wedding was to take place, however, he suddenly broke the engagement without a word of preparation or explanation, because he suspected that she was untrue to him. There is no doubt that the Princess was the victim of a deliberate plot to rob her of the King’s affection, but Ludwig made no attempt at reparation of any kind and his behavior made a breach between him and Duke Max’s family which was never healed.
Ludwig himself, fed by continual flattery and admiration and with a morbid idea of his own dignity, was deeply injured by the supposed faithlessness of hisfiancée. In the first transports of his rage he seized the bust of the Princess and flung it out of the window, dashing it to pieces on the stones of the courtyard. Even at the beginning of his reign he had shown signs of mental unsoundness, but from this time he began to shun the society of his fellow creatures and lived a solitary life. He would have nothing more to do with women, and except for a few chosen companions would see no one. Even when obliged to receive his ministers, he would hide behind a screen. The only exception he made was in favor of his cousin Elizabeth, with whom he was a great favorite in spite of his erratic ways, and who also was devoted to him until his death. They were much alike in temperament as well as in appearance, and he always looked forward to her arrival each summer at Feldafing, near which was one of his favorite retreats, “Roseninsel,” a small island shut in by dense shrubbery and lofty trees. In olden times it had been the site of a heathen temple which was replaced later by a Roman Catholic chapel. The gardens, which were laid out by King Maximilian Second, were greatly enlarged and beautified by his son Ludwig and are said to contain sixteen thousand of the choicest varieties of roses, the perfume of which is wafted far out across the lake. The Hermitage, a small villa in the Italian style, and the gardener’s cottage are now the only buildings left in this wilderness of flowers, so overgrown that it is almost impossible to approach the little wharf where King Ludwig used to land from his yachtTristan. Here he collected all his favorite authors and spent long happy days dreaming over them or working in the garden, and here too he and Elizabeth would meet and pour out their hearts to each other, alone and undisturbed.
After all, who can say with certainty where human reason ends and insanity begins? “I am not sure,” the Empress once said, in speaking of Shakespeare’s Hamlet, “that those persons who are called mad are not the really wise ones.” King Ludwig’s eccentricities became so pronounced, however, that in 1886 he was forced to resign the government and was sent to Schloss Berg on Lake Starnberg under the care of a physician. One June evening they went out to walk together as usual, and when, after waiting in vain for their return, a search was made, the bodies of both were found at length at the bottom of the lake. Elizabeth happened to be staying at Feldafing when the catastrophe occurred and was deeply affected by the King’s tragic death. She hastened at once to the castle, and entering the room where his lifeless body lay, requested to be left alone with it. For an hour her attendants waited, and at length, alarmed at the delay, ventured to enter the apartment, where they found their mistress stretched upon the floor, apparently lifeless. It was only with the greatest difficulty that she was restored to consciousness, and when at last she did open her eyes, she stared wildly about her for some moments, then cried in a shaking voice: “For God’s sake, release the King from the mortuary chapel! He is not dead—he is only pretending to be so, that he may be left in peace and not tormented any longer.”
Ludwig’s body was carried back to Munich, where he lay in state, the bier heaped about with wreaths and floral offerings, but on the breast of the dead King lay a simple spray of jasmine, Elizabeth’s last gift to her friend and kinsman.
Urged by her love of nature and of new scenes as well as by her inborn restlessness, Elizabeth, as is well known, spent a great part of her time travelling about incognito from place to place like any ordinary tourist. She never tired of studying strange lands and peoples, and the constant change and communion with nature calmed her tortured spirit as nothing else could. “One should never stay indoors except when absolutely necessary,” she declared, “and our homes should be so ordered as not to destroy the illusions we bring in with us.” The sea had an irresistible attraction for her, and she would pace up and down the deck of her yacht for hours sometimes, ordering no one to speak to or approach her. “The sea is my father confessor,” she used to say; “it removes all my cares and troubles and has taught me all I know.” Her yachtMiramar, on which she spent so much of her time, was elegantly and conveniently fitted up with every comfort. On the deck was a large round pavilion of glass commanding a view of the sea in all directions, for her use in wet weather, but the Empress’ favorite spot was the after deck, which was shut off from the rest of the yacht with sail cloth so that there should be nothing to interfere with her outlook over the sea.
She usually travelled under the name of Countess of Hohenembs, her Majesty’s thirty-eighth title in the Court Calendar. She loved to explore strange, out-of-the-way places, and displayed wonderful enthusiasm and endurance as a traveller. Of all lands, however, she loved the East the best. Her favorite cities were Tunis, Algiers, Cairo, and Alexandria, and she was the first European sovereign to visit Troy.
Her talent for languages was remarkable. Besides German and Hungarian, she had mastered French, English, and Greek, and had a fair knowledge of Latin. She never cared to learn Italian, indeed she had the greatest dislike to everything pertaining to Italy, having been subjected to several outrages at the hands of the people of that country. She had narrowly escaped death at Trieste in the early eighties, when a bomb was thrown into the citadel where she was staying.
Owing to the Empress’ reluctance to appear in public, her features were not generally known in Austria, a fact which led to many absurd situations. One day when taking the train at Mödling she sent her servant to order the station-master to have the train stopped at a small station near her palace at Lainz. Seeing that the train was about to start, she called to the guard: “Tell that man in the black coat to make haste!” Whereupon the officer bawled out, “Here, hurry up, you! or else your good woman will go off and leave you!” evidently taking the Empress for the horrified servant’s wife. It was not always easy to preserve her incognito on her travels, though she made every effort to do so because of her keen enjoyment of the adventures which it brought about.
In her younger days she used to spend much time in Scotland and Ireland, where she delighted in the hunting. During one of these visits in Ireland the fox she was pursuing sprang over the wall of Maynooth College, near which the chase had led her, and dashed across the exercise ground where the students were sauntering peacefully about. Great was their amazement the next moment when the wall was also cleared by several hounds and a horsewoman on a magnificent hunter, who had evidently followed the fox through a pond, for she was dripping wet. The fox was quickly captured, and the rider dismounted and asked to see the head of the college, to whom she explained her identity, requesting to be shown to a room where she could change her clothes. No feminine garments were to be found, however, in a seminary for young priests and she was forced to borrow one of the doctors’ cassocks. While her clothes were drying she invited the professors to have tea with her, charmed them all with her graciousness, and caused much merriment by her comical appearance and lively descriptions of her adventures.
Once while in Amsterdam, where she occasionally went to be treated by an eminent specialist in nervous disorders, she entered a toy shop to buy a doll, saying to her companion:
“I am sure my granddaughter will be delighted when she gets this.”
The shop-keeper, thinking it impossible that this slender, youthful-looking person could be a grandmother, made some remark to that effect.
“Oh, yes, I have four grandchildren,” said the Empress, “and to prove it I will come again soon and buy some toys for the other three. You may send them to my daughter, the Princess Gisela in Munich.”
The poor shop-keeper was dumfounded and humbly apologized for his rudeness.
“You were not rude,” said Elizabeth kindly; “on the contrary, you were very flattering.”
She was usually regarded as somewhat eccentric in Amsterdam, from her habit of always holding a fan before her face in the street, and once a street urchin ran up to her and snatched it away, crying, “Let me see your face!” But in spite of the unpleasant experiences which her incognito occasionally created, she could never be induced to abandon it and was much displeased when people did not respect her wishes in this matter. When one of the servants at a Spanish hotel, where she had registered as “Frau Folna of Corfu,” addressed her as “Your Highness,” she retorted sharply, “There are no Highnesses in my apartments.”
She would often start off on the spur of the moment to see some work of art of which she had heard without telling any of her suite where they were going. Her Greek teacher, Professor Rhousso Rhoussopoulos, relates that on one occasion when the Empress was staying at Wiesbaden for the baths, he suddenly received orders to get ready to accompany herself and the Archduchess Marie Valerie on a journey, and not until they reached the railway station did he learn that their destination was Frankfort-on-the-Main, where Elizabeth wanted to see Thorwaldsen’s reliefs and Danecker’s “Ariadne,” which were in the Rothschild collection there. Luncheon had been ordered for them at the station restaurant at Frankfort. The Empress was in high spirits, and taking her daughter’s arm, walked up and down, watching the people and enjoying the bustle of the station. She was delighted that no one recognized her and ate the first part of her luncheon with great relish. But when the second course arrived it was specially served on gold plate with extra attendants; evidently her identity had been discovered. Instantly her cheerfulness vanished and she hastily finished the meal in order to escape as soon as possible. There was nothing she disliked so much as being stared at.
As Professor Rhoussopoulos was walking with her one day in a North German city, she suddenly exclaimed:
“Look how that woman across the street is staring at us! What do you suppose it means?”
“Probably it is only a bad habit she has, your Majesty,” replied the professor; but before the words were out of his mouth the Empress had rushed across the street and the next moment the two women were in each other’s arms. It was her sister, the Countess of Trani, who was almost as fond of travelling as Elizabeth herself.
Wherever she went the Empress was perpetually at warfare with the police authorities whose duty it was to watch over her safety. She resorted to all sorts of devices to elude and mislead them, and their task was no easy one. Once when she and the Emperor were staying at Mentone, she sent for the chief of police there and told him that it annoyed her exceedingly to be continually followed about by detectives and she wished it stopped. The officer replied that he was compelled to perform his duties, and if it displeased Her Majesty there was nothing left for him but to resign his position.
“No, no!” said the Empress. “Remain in Mentone, by all means, and devote yourself to protecting my husband, for his life is most necessary to his subjects. As for me, what am I? A mere stranger and far too unimportant to attract any attention.”
An English journalist was glancing over some books one day in front of a second-hand bookshop in Monza, when the dealer came out and asked him to go away, as the lady inside did not wish to be followed about, evidently supposing him to be a detective. Curious to know who the lady was, he cast a searching glance through the window and recognized the Empress. Taking out one of his cards, he handed it to the dealer with the request that he inform his illustrious customer of her mistake. An hour later, as he was strolling through the palace grounds, he saw Her Majesty a short distance in front of him. Not wishing to arouse her suspicions a second time, he was about to turn down a side path, when she beckoned him to approach and with much dignity and graciousness explained to him the annoyance she was subjected to by the officiousness of the police, and apologized for the scene at the bookshop. Late the next evening, as the journalist entered a well-known restaurant in Milan, great was his amazement to find the Empress seated at one of the tables quite alone and unattended. As he took his seat near by, one of the waiters came to her and said:
“It is rather late, signora, to get anything good; almost everything is gone.”
“But I am hungry,” replied Elizabeth; “you will have to find me something.”
The man disappeared and was back again in a moment. “There is just one course left, signora,” he said, “but it is the best of all. I can recommend it, for I have just eaten some of it myself. But it is a trifle dear!”
“How much does this superior dish cost?” asked the Empress, smiling.
“Eighty centesimi,” said the waiter doubtfully.
Elizabeth laughed aloud.
“The signora need not laugh,” he went on in an offended tone; “most people find it so dear they order only a half portion!”
The journalist had sat all this time hidden behind his newspaper, but the Empress recognized him at once and addressing him pleasantly with “Good-evening, Herr Journalist,” continued to converse with him during the meal.
She was extremely fond of Paris and rarely failed to go there when on her European tours, though always as Countess of Hohenembs and never as Empress of Austria. She would often meet her sisters, the Duchess d’Alençon and the Countess of Trani, and go about with them, as she could do so there without fear of annoyance. One day she took a fancy to ride on an omnibus, but when the driver came to collect her fare she gave him two pieces of gold, an act of munificence that stunned the frugal Parisians and led to her being recognized. Annoyed at the curious interest of the other passengers, she hastily alighted and took refuge in the nearest house, where she waited till the crowd had dispersed and then drove back to her hotel in a closed carriage with the shades closely drawn, vowing it was the last time she would ever attempt to ride on an omnibus in a city like Paris.
Elizabeth was passionately fond of both music and poetry. From her father she had acquired a perfect mastery of the zither, but she had also a beautiful voice and was a piano pupil of Liszt, and often sung and played at court charity concerts. Her favorite composers were Rubinstein, Chopin, and Wagner, to the latter of whom she proved a true friend by sending him a large sum of money at one of his times of greatest need, and after his death she made one of her incognito trips to Bayreuth to hear the Wagner productions there.
For art, too, she had the greatest enthusiasm. Both Makart and Munkacsy were warm personal friends of hers and she would often spend hours in their studios. She never went to the theatre in her later years, but always manifested great interest in the foremost actors and actresses in Austria and showed them many kindnesses on various occasions.
It was in literature, however, and poetry in particular, that she found her greatest inspiration and distraction. She was never without a book in her hand and would sit or wander about for hours so absorbed in her reading as to completely forget the passage of time, while as for her general knowledge competent judges have declared it to be amazing. “To converse intelligently with the Empress,” said Hasenauer, “one should be well versed in history, science, and art.”
She translated the whole of Schopenhauer into modern Greek and was an earnest student of Rousseau and Voltaire. But her prime favorite in the literary world was Heinrich Heine, for whom she had the greatest reverence and admiration; she possessed all his works, many of them in manuscript, and many touching instances are told of her kindness to the great poet’s family. She had learned to love his poems soon after her marriage, in her first days of sorrow and disillusionment, and they always found a responsive echo in her heart. Anxious that his memory should be honored publicly, she interested herself in the erection of a monument to him in some German city, heading the subscription list herself with a large sum. The plan was in a fair way to succeed, when a letter arrived from Bismarck to the cabinet in Vienna, expressing his surprise that the ruler of a friendly neighboring country should wish to do public honor to a poet who had insulted the Hohenzollerns. As a rule, Franz Joseph and Elizabeth respected each other’s peculiarities and differences of taste, but in this case, on account of the Triple Alliance, the Emperor was obliged to ask his wife to remove her name from the list, and, thanks to this episode, it remains for the future to erect a monument to Heine in Germany. But Elizabeth was determined not to be thwarted and had her revenge, for, learning that the Danish sculptor Hasselriis in Rome had already prepared designs for a statue of her favorite poet, she commissioned him to execute it in marble and had it placed in front of her palace at Corfu. Apparently the Hohenzollerns did not resent this, however, for the then Emperor of Germany was most attentive to her whenever she was travelling in that country. He always made a point of calling upon her with his wife and is said to have considered her one of the cleverest women he ever met.
There were not many books that she cared for, but she loved to read her favorites again and again. Heine was the only one of the German poets whose works she understood and treasured. Neither Goethe nor Schiller appealed to her, nor did the modern French poets interest her, although she thought highly of Lamartine. In English she specially admired Shakespeare and Byron, Shakespeare indeed ranking only second to Heine in her affections. She made excellent translations of several of his plays and could repeat whole scenes from them by heart. “Hamlet” and “Midsummer Night’s Dream” were her favorites, and she had a painting of Titania and her lover with the ass’s head hanging in each of her palaces. “Our illusions are the asses’ heads that we all kiss,” she used to say.
She wrote charmingly herself, and while on the long journeys that consumed so much of her time she would send long letters every week to her husband and children, containing brilliant descriptions of her travels, bits of poetry or translations, often illustrated with exquisite pen-and-ink or water-color sketches. These valuable souvenirs are all preserved in the Hofburg, together with what she called her “day-book,” a sort of diary covering many years.
As time went on, the hereditary disease of the Wittelsbachs, now known as neurasthenia, which for generations had manifested itself in one form or another, became more and more pronounced in the Empress Elizabeth. Her passion for solitude, her aversion to mingling with people, and constant craving for change must certainly be regarded as inherited peculiarities, though she was more ill than was generally suspected. A complication of disorders together with neuritis made her later years a perpetual martyrdom, yet she bore her sufferings with a patience and fortitude that her physicians pronounced almost superhuman.
It was a bitter sacrifice for her to give up her riding, but fortunately she was still able to take the walks and climbs that meant so much to her. Often, indeed, it was not so much the love of exercise as the effort to find relief in physical exhaustion from the sleeplessness that tortured her and secure the rest so necessary to her overwrought nerves.
Always a remarkably small eater, her tastes were extremely simple. For weeks at a time she would live on nothing but milk, and even at state banquets often took nothing but a slice or two of wheat bread, a cup of bouillon, and some fruit. She detested liquor of any sort, and never tasted it except when the physicians insisted upon her drinking a little wine for her health. As a rule, she had little respect for medical knowledge and much preferred to treat herself with her own remedies. She had a morbid horror of getting stout. Every day she had herself weighed, and if her usual weight increased at all she would live on oranges till it was reduced to the proper amount, in spite of her physicians’ warnings of the danger of so slender a diet. But although Elizabeth cared so little for eating, when at home she gave much attention to the menus presented to her each morning by the chef, which she often altered to suit herself. No table could be served more daintily and artistically than that of the Austrian court when the Empress was present. She selected the costliest porcelain and glass and had gold and silver services for all her palaces, though they were rarely used owing to her long absences.