Elizabeta Bavarska-Sissi

"I live in a dungeon,

My hands are in handcuffs and the homesickness is getting stronger.

My freedom is moving further and further away.

Never alone, never free. The crown would be for others

it means joy, for me it is a heavy burden. "

What happened to the great love that Sissi and the young Austrian Emperor Francis Joseph felt for each other, what happened to the eruption of feelings that canceled the already arranged marriage between the Emperor and Sissi's older sister Helena, the strong infatuation that led Sissi to give up from their fields, the wind in their hair, riding and freedom?

Sissi was born in 1837 in Munich as the youngest of four children and her childhood was quite idyllic. Her father, Duke Maximilian Joseph of Bavaria and Princess Louis of Bavaria did not care too much about court protocol and chose to live in a castle in the countryside.

It was this rather free upbringing that later created problems for her with court etiquette and hundreds of imposed rules. Until the age of 16, she was like all other girls of her age and class, but then everything changed overnight.

That year, Sophia of Bavaria (mother of Emperor Franz Joseph and sister of Sisa's mother Louis of Bavaria) began looking for the ideal girl for her son and decided that it was best to marry a noblewoman.

She arranged to meet Helena, Sisa's sister, who at the age of 23 seemed like the right choice for the queen. They were supposed to meet in Austria, and Helena set off. She was accompanied by her younger sister. Pictured below are Sissi and Helena

No one could have expected Franz to fall in love at first sight with a girl with "soft, lovely eyes", who had "strawberry-like lips". Neither the lush, long hair nor the waist, which was 51 centimeters in circumference, should be neglected. He proposed to her after only five days, and she agreed. They were married after nine months in Vienna's Augustinian Church.

Their marriage was a union of two incompatible people - Franz was strict and meticulous, he did not listen to music or read books, and his young wife was very unconventional, she loved poetry, travel and animals (especially horses and dogs).

The day of their wedding, which made them both happy, was actually the end of Sisa's days of freedom.

The shy and introverted princess was forced to conform to the court protocol of Vienna, which was difficult for her. Even worse was the fact that her mother-in-law interfered in her life: she chose her courtiers, chose names for the children without asking their mother, did not allow the young queen to breastfeed or raise them .

In the first years of marriage, however, everything was fine. They had three children - Sofia, Gisela and Rudolf. The upbringing of the children was taken over by the mother-in-law, and everything was further aggravated by the fact that Franz devoted too little time to Elizabeth.

Their daughter Sofia dies at the age of only three, and the mother-in-law tells the young empress that this is proof that she is a bad mother. At the same time, Sisi finds out that her husband is unfaithful.

Unlike many women of her time, she was not an excessive fan of cosmetics and perfumes, but skin care was her real obsession and she constantly experimented with various preparations, which doctors prepared especially for her. The most important ritual for her was to put on a night face mask - she prepared herself from strawberries, and when there weren't any, they put raw veal on her face overnight.

Sissi As a person she was more of a woman of our time than her own. Her obsession was hair care (she spent three hours every day taking care of her, and she usually learned languages - mostly Greek, French, English and Hungarian - while hairdressers did their job), she constantly practiced to be skinny and in certain for periods she ate almost nothing, for she was terrified of the idea of being as fat as Britain's Queen Victoria.

She was obsessed with her face and, as she got older, she realized that beauty was fleeting. Because of that, at the age of 32, she forbade them to take photos of her, so there are no photos of the empress with wrinkles and chin.

Her and her husband's relationship, after a long period of coldness and minimal communication, still improved in 1867, and a year later their fourth child was born, a daughter Maria Valeria, who was born in Budapest.

Sisi could finally be a real mother then, because old Sofia was not around, but the sources of that time say that she exaggerated and that she suffocated the child with too much attention.

Just when everything seemed to be going well between her and her husband, a tragedy occurred.

Crown Prince Rudolf killed his 17-year-old mistress Maria and himself.

"I wander alone in this world ... I have long avoided pleasure and life ... I have no one to share myself with ... I have never discovered a soul mate ..." Sissi wrote at the time.

That event, which would only tie some couples tighter, was the last nail in the coffin of finished love. Sissi first fled to Corfu, and then traveled to Europe.

During a trip to Geneva in 1898, she was mortally wounded by the Italian anarchist Luigi Lucheni. Half an hour after the attack, Sissi is dead. An autopsy reveals an 85-millimeter triangular stab wound inflicted with a long, pointed object that first damaged the fourth rib, then penetrated the left lung, destroyed the heart sac and pierced the left ventricle.

The news of the assassination is spreading like wildfire. In Vienna, newspapers print special numbers with a mourning margin, the noble houses of Europe are shaken and telegrams of condolence are sent. In Geneva, tens of thousands of people attend the Sissi myth. Two days later, the corpse is transported by an additional train from Geneva to Vienna, where the popular Empress with much public sympathy is finally buried on September 17 in the Capuchin tomb.