Elizabeth, Empress of Austria and Queen of Hungary

The Empress Elizabeth had no fear of death, though the thought of it was often in her mind. “I am ready to die,” she used to say; “all I ask is that I may not live to suffer.” S...

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...

On the thirty-first of January, 1889, a terrible affliction befell the Emperor and Empress in the sudden and violent death of their only son. The tragedy of Mayerling is well kn...

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 h...

On the ninth of September, 1888, an unusual event occurred in the princely house of Wittelsbach. Maximilian Joseph, the head of the ducal line of Vorpfalz-Zweibrücken-Birkenfeld...

On the twentieth of April, 1854, Elizabeth, accompanied by her parents and her two oldest sisters, started on her bridal journey to Vienna. Peasants from all the surrounding cou...

Nothing had been originally farther from the wishes of the young Empress than to fill her throne in solitary state, surrounded only by a few chosen families of noble birth. What...

One of the first journeys Elizabeth made with her parents and sisters was to Ischl. It was there that Franz Joseph’s parents were in the habit of spending the summer months, and...

At the time of her marriage Elizabeth was said to be not only the youngest but also the most beautiful Empress that had ever sat on the throne of the Hapsburgs. Her figure was t...

It was the Christmas Eve of 1837. The bells of Munich were proclaiming the festival when Max Joseph, wandering about in one of the poorer quarters of the city, met a woman dragg...

Not long after their wedding the Emperor and Empress visited an exhibition of paintings in Vienna. Franz Joseph was anxious to purchase some of them, but left the choice entirel...

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...

Not only the Emperor and his family but the whole nation were anxious for an heir to the throne, and the disappointment was great when on May 5, 1855, the Empress gave birth to...

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 Augustin...

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 t...

Again the Archduchess Sophie’s schemes for the house of Hapsburg proved disastrous, and Franz Joseph’s eyes were opened at last to the fact that her sway had been as unfortunate...

The years following the coronation in Hungary were without doubt among the happiest of the Empress Elizabeth’s life. She interested herself in the details of her children’s educ...

The estrangement between the Emperor and Empress gradually increased. Affairs of state, the distractions of court life, together with Franz Joseph’s growing disposition to retur...

Elizabeth’s sojourn in Madeira did not bring the permanent improvement that was hoped for. A few weeks after her return to Austria the cough returned, and fearing that the natur...

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 pu...