Elizabeth of Bavaria: the beautiful queen who was driven crazy by her mother-in-law and killed by a passerby

Elizabeth of Bavaria is one of the most famous queens of the XIX century. Her story is compared to the fairy tale of Cinderella: from simple noblewomen to empress. But in life, the fairy tale ended sadly.

Anyone who has been to Austria, especially before Christmas, knows that Empress Sissi - Elizabeth of Bavaria - is adored there. Several films are dedicated to her, which are played on Christmas — after all , she was born in Christmas Eve. You can hear much more kind words about Sissy than about the reformer Maria Theresa.

This is all the more surprising because during her lifetime the Austrians barely paid attention to Elizabeth. She showed little to the general public, and almost nothing was known about her - only that she was stunningly beautiful.

Elizabeth's husband was the same Franz Joseph, under whom the action takes place in The Adventures of the Brave Soldier Schweik. In the works of the Czechs and Hungarians, he generally has a very caricatured image, and not to say groundlessly.

For example, because of his inertia, Franz Joseph missed the opportunity to get Einstein himself a professor at one of the universities of his empire: for the emperor, the religion of the professors was more important than any other circumstances. It was supposed to be Catholic.

When Franz Joseph and Sissi met, the young emperor, however, had not yet managed to become famous for anything dubious. He was twenty-three, she was fifteen. He was supposed to announce her older sister Elena as the bride, and she was to announce his younger brother Karl Ludwig as the groom. Something went completely wrong as planned, and a year later Franz Joseph married Elizabeth.

His choice surprised many. Elizabeth was pretty - but also Elena was no worse. But their manners and upbringing could not be compared. Elizabeth always had a hard time studying, was restless and inattentive, indifferent to books. Sissy could sit still for a while for three purposes: when she was drawing, when she was writing poetry (rather simple) and when she was trying to fish on the lake shore.

More than anything else in the world, Elizabeth generally loved everything related to walking: picnics, outdoor games and even just walking-wandering along the paths.

When Elena began to prepare for the future position of empress, horse riding was added to her usual occupations. Sissy persuaded her parents to allow her to learn to ride, too, and soon surpassed her older sister so much that she lost all desire to try to stay in a terrible sidesaddle — she had to sit in it with her hips turned sideways, because the lady's legs could not be pushed apart, they hung neatly from one horse's side.

She was shy of people, was awkward in conversation with her subjects at social events, did not know how to adjust to her mother-in-law, was indifferent to charity, hardly withstood the requirements of ceremonial and etiquette... She was still interested mainly in walking. Only one interest worthy of the empress appeared to her after her marriage: Hungary.

Austria's relations with subordinate Hungary were very complicated, and Elizabeth warmly took to heart the floating idea that it was the queen who should reconcile her subjects and defend their interests. She managed to learn Hungarian, showing miracles of perseverance, which no one expected; purposely gave birth to one daughter in Hungary to touch the heart of Hungarians; organized her husband's negotiations with the Hungarian nobility; chose ladies-in-waiting only from among Hungarians.

The second requirement for the lady-in-waiting was to be able to walk quickly and a lot: Elizabeth loved walking in the mountains and hated to moderate her pace.The relationship with the domineering mother-in-law did not work out so much that Sissy even avoided seeing the children — because it meant communicating with the dowager empress who took them to herself.

The young queen developed depression, and she was prescribed injections of cocaine - for cheerfulness. So Sissy also became a drug addict. She traveled endlessly, as if she could not calm down anywhere, and she communicated with her husband more often by letters than face to face.

Elizabeth would have been happy to become a loving, caring mother to the children, but her mother-in-law intervened in their relationship. When Elizabeth became pregnant, her mother-in-law ordered the fence to be removed from the garden in which her daughter-in-law liked to walk: let everyone see that the emperor had conceived an heir. Sissy's curiosity turned out to be unbearable, and she almost stopped walking — although in the palace, walking in the garden was almost her only joy.

The first two children were girls. The mother-in-law could not hide her disappointment. Nevertheless, she literally took the babies away from their mother, moving them closer to her and appointing a separate staff of servants. Elizabeth was allowed to see her daughters only a few hours a week.

The husband did not interfere in anything. Mother-in-law interfered in everything. Together with the death of her daughter and the alienation of the other children, all this led to the fact that Elizabeth began to develop nervous disorders. She did all sorts of strange things—for example, she got a sailor tattoo. Fortunately, not a curvy mermaid, but a laconic anchor. Travel became even more messy, but, most importantly, Sissy suddenly became obsessed with her beauty.

As if there was nothing more important in life, she was only thinking about how not to lose her wonderful long hair, how not to get even an inch fatter, how to keep her complexion. At night she slept in cosmetic masks — her favorite were pieces of raw meat. In the evening, I took baths from heated olive oil, once I got burned: the oil was overheated. During the day, she wandered endlessly, accompanied by ladies-in-waiting. I counted the hairs combed by the hairdresser.

When I realized that I was getting old, I was afraid to show myself in public — and even more so to be photographed! - without a veil. The death of my mother-in-law has not changed anything. Elizabeth, in a good way, needed treatment — both from drug addiction and from an old nervous disorder, but then hardly anyone understood it. The empress's condition worsened after the suicide of her only son, Prince Rudolf — she herself considered him a murder.

Elizabeth stopped communicating with anyone other than ladies-in-waiting and relatives, completely, and traveled around Europe without stopping. So she died - far from home.

The Queen was walking along the embankment in Geneva, as always — accompanied by a fleet-footed maid of honor. A man caught up with Elizabeth and punched her hard in the chest. He ran away; the queen got up and went on, but after a few minutes complained of a pain in her heart, sank to the ground and soon died.

The anarchist was captured. He did not repent of anything. The Austrians were imbued with the tragic end of Elizabeth and finally fell in love with her dearly. Franz Joseph lived for almost twenty more years. Many films were made about their love with Elizabeth. Nervous disorders are not mentioned in these films. Who is interested in them? The queen was beautiful, that's the main thing.