Sissi or Elisabeth of Austria

Name: Elisabeth 

Birthdate: December 24th, 1837 in Bavaria
Death: September 10th, 1898 in Geneva, Switzerland

            I'm reading a biography about the empress of Austria-Hungary: the beautiful Elisabeth, aka Sissi (or Lizi or Sisi, depends on how you see it). The book was written by Egon Cesar Corti in the early 20^th century so just a few decades after Elisabeth's death.

                   Mind you, I've read many works on this famous woman (this one and this one among others), but that's probably the first time I'm reading a book emphasing so much on her beauty.

Since the book was published around 1936, it is not surprising that Corti remained quite discreet about a few aspects of Sissi's life: her horrendous honey moon, her cousin Ludwig II's allegded homosexuality, and some darker sides of the empress herself.

                       Indeed, she had numerous qualities (talk about it later) but she was also a human being with flows.

She was capricious, whimsical, selfish, self-centered, depressed, misanthrope, sometimes lazy, too much of a dreamer. 

Moreover, her beauty was maintained at a high price: she probably suffered from anorexia. At least in the book, Corti mentioned Sissi's obsession with not getting weight. “Valérie a même décidé Elisabeth à prendre des repas normaux. Ce ne fut pas sans difficulté- à chaque bouchée l'impératrice craignait de devenir 'comme un tonneau'. Crainte bien injustifiée! Elisabeth n'est plus svelte, elle est maigre; mais la crainte d'engraisser est chez elle une idée fixe. Au dire de Valérie, il n'y a pas moyen de lal luire faire sortir de la tête.” Translation: Valerie (her daughter) pushed Elisabeth to have normal lunches. It was not without difficulty; with each morsel, the empress was scared to become a “barrel”. That was quite unjustified! Elisabeth was no longer slim and slender; she was rather thin; but the fear of becoming fat was to her an obsession. According to Valerie's words, there was no way to make it disappear from her mind.

She found an outlet in practicing intense sports on repeated opportunities: it first started with horse-riding and then very long walks. The empress was one of the best riders ever. She rarely fell, and was able to gallop through very dangerous sites. Corti spoke about the fact her big sister Helene was the first to start horse-riding before completely ceasing this activity. She wasn't really talented in this sport and her little sister Elisabeth was becoming a better horse-rider than her! I wonder how Helene had felt when once again Sissi became even more successful than her, beauty-wise. She “snatched” the Austrian emperor's heart, their cousin Franz-Josef.

Sissi was a free-spirit and cherished her freedom more than everything. She hadn't wished for an empress' life. When I read about her numerous travels through Europe and else, I was getting the impression that she couldn't settle somewhere. Why? Because she was somewhat perturbed and she had to flee, to escape. As soon as she got the unpleasant sensation of getting too attached to a place, she had to go. She detested the Etiquette, rules, crowds, immobility.

What somewhat irked me while reading her bio was how she asked her ladies not to marry. Just because she had a mixed opinion about her marriage and marriages in general, it doesn't mean that she should have thought that her ladies getting married was bad for them too! At the same time, they completely accepted this condition in order to stay with her. So...I can say both parts had a role in this celibacy. 

Her qualities.

She was quite modern, just like Marie-Antoinette: she claimed her right for privacy and more independence. Since she couldn't refuse her condition as an imperial woman, she took advantage of her money. Many somptuous dresses, a plethora of horses, a personal train, lots of trips around Europe, etc.. Sissi was having a hard time adapting to her status as an empress. Who could blame her? She was so young (around 15-16) when Franz married her. Her new entourage thought they would manipulate her, since she was young and inexperienced. They really, really didn't know her then!

She resisted and tried to impose her way of life. While people in Vienna and Austria didn't like her (or at least, she thought so), she enjoyed a great popularity in Hungary.

Indeed, when she loved something, Sissi was quite able to give all the efforts possible to learn more. She became fluent in Hungarian and Greek. She was one of the most physical persons at the court. She was more liberal and better politically educated than what people thought of her. She made it possible for Hungary to be a more equal country with Austria. She seemed to see better in political changes (whether it was in Italy or in Europe in general) than, for example, her own husband!

(she loved big dogs)

Once people got to know her, they realized how delightful Sissi could be, how intelligent and graceful she was.

She spoke softly, most of the time, and gained a very delicate demeanour when she didn't ride horses or go for long walks.

Furthermore, she loved poetry and writing. Her daughter encouraged her to write and express herself. I read some of her poems and one really struck me. I don't remember it quite well, nor the title (oops!), but she talked about someone dear (her husband?) dying in her dream. She wakes up, crying, relieved to see him alive. The French translation I read actually touched me.

Just like for Marie-Antoinette, I wish a new film was made about Sissi. In a previous article, I already mentioned which actress I'd like to see playing her.

(Eva Green!!)

PS: Fashion Minute. I see Dita von Teese's wedding dress and I don't know why she reminds me of Sissi in it. 

So pretty!

Marie-Antoinette and October, 16th

              Today is the anniversary of Marie-Antoinette's death. In October, 16^th, 1793, she was executed in the current Place de la Concorde. When I was in Paris, I stayed there several minutes trying to imagine how that day happened for one of the last queens of France...

After learning that she was condemned to death, she was brought back to her cell, in the Concergierie.

Some people, her lawyers believed that Marie-Antoinette thought she was going to be spared, maybe locked up in a convent, or sent in exhile. After all, why kill a woman who had become so “insignificant”? The revolutionaries killed the very royal emblem: the king (January, 21^st). However the hatred towards her own person was so strong that she had to be eliminated.

(personal pictures)

The queen walked back to her cell, calm, dignified, silent.

Was she thinking of all the superstitious things that had told her, that she would end in a very tragic way?

She asked for paper and quill to write her testament, a last and long letter to her sister-in-law, Madame Elisabeth. The latter represented one of her strongest moral supports during the last year of her life, mainly after the king's death. ( Her life turned even worse when her son Louis-Charles was taken away from her).

No hatred, no feeling of revenge in her words.

Just a deep chagrin to leave people she loved, to “forsake” her children still too young to be orphans. The thought of joining her husband at last, leaving this earth as innocent as he was.

She was said to have written those last words:

 "on october, 16th, 4:30 am. my God! have pity on me! my eyes have no more tears to cry for you, my poor children; farewell, farewell! Marie Antoinette."

(painting by Vigée-Lebrun. A lost happiness...)

She lay on her bed, exhausted (it was still very early in the morning). She had cried.

How could her life turn the way it was, now, in this cold mid-October? No one can really know what actually ran through her mind.

Did she think about how she should have acted better as a queen? How unfair people treated her? How uncertain the lives of her two children had become? How she had fought for nothing? What history would keep and remember from her?

The young and happy Autrian princess, showered with love and wealth and all the gifts life could have given, had become a sad, unfortunate woman hated by everyone.

Despite all the negative things that she may have pondered over, she gathered her courage: she was to die a dignified and noble death. Marie-Antoinette was Maria-Theresa's daughter after all; she could not act as a coward, and she was none of that.

Rosalie Lamolière, her last servant, brought her food. The young girl was crying as she urged the queen to take something. She herself found the queen shedding tears when she entered the cell. Men penetrated her room, acknowledging her no intimacy. She was denied until her status as a woman, as a human being.

After that the queen changed her clothes, pulling on a white dress (the mourning colour for French queens), she tried to hide her former ones that blood has stained. Indeed, Marie-Antoinette had undergone a serious illness and today many people think she might have had uterine cancer. Therefore, had she not been executed, she wouldn't have lived long.

They cut her hair short and tied her wrists together behind her back, refusing to give the somewhat human treatment that Louis XVI enjoyed during his last day. How humiliating it must have been for Marie-Antoinette to be treated as an object. She didn't want the services of a sworn priest since he had pledged allegiance to the Convention and the revolution.

Then, she was conducted to the carriage that would lead her to the guillotine.

From the conciergerie to the Place Louis-XV, there are only around 2 kilometres. However, her last journey lasted quite long. The crowd flowed to the queen's path, shouting her obscenities, insults. What a stark contrast with how people had welcomed her in France! With flowers and love! Now people were smiling at her with cruelty and satisfaction. La reine va mourrir, vive la révolution!

(David's famous sketch)

However, some of her last admirers flocked to her ride, crying, watching the injustice with which she was enduring her last hour. They had to hide their sadness and despair: people shouldn't believe that they supported royalty!

The queen could see the palace of the Tuileries.

Marie-Antoinette arrived at the feet of the scaffold, pale and absolutely composed. She was going to prove how much courage still inhabited her. Death had no hold on her. She looked at the long machine, her last encounter. Fine. Despite blood leaving her cheeks, the queen climbed the stairs and stepped on the platform, and the executioner's foot. She apologized. 

Men tied her around the wood board. She didn't cry, didn't resist, didn't lose consciousness. She remained firm and strong. What were these men thinking when they approached and sealed her to the destinity? What were their thoughts when the famous woman they were about to kill was the Queen of France, the woman who fed so many phantasms?

They slid the wood board horizontally back, secured the wooden “necklace” around her as the crowd cheered on this last act. The blade fell and everything was over.

Sanson grabbed the head, planted it on a bayonet and pranced it around to show it to the crowd. People had been silent and dismayed when Louis XVI died. But for his wife, they had reserved long applauses and cries of joy; "the whore was dead!"

At last, they placed her body in a wicker coffin, her head between her legs, blood trailing. Everything was brought to the Madeleine cemetry and her body stayed there, during several days until they finally buried her, not far away from her husband.

Nowadays, thanks to Louis XVIII, a chaptel “Chapelle expiatoire”stands where the cemetry used to be. 

(picture source: wikipedia)

I apologize if there is any mistake (factual, grammar, vocabulary etc.). 

Something New

Yes, I admit it...I am sometimes the perfect commercial target.
When I saw a specific ad on TV about a book whose price is only 2,99 euros...Hmmm, well I jumped at the chance and got myself this book just a few hours later.

 Marie Antoinette, Editions Hachette Collections.

Yes, a new and highly documented biography with a pleasant profusion of illustrations. I started to read it and I absolutely enjoy the writing style.

 (yes, I used the cardboard on which the book was stuck as a bookmark! Nice recycling, imo)
Small price and quality= a great deal!

Some time ago, I also bought these two books: number 1 is a small biography of Countess Marie-Joséphine of Savoy, Marie-Antoinette's step-sister and Louis XVIII's wife. To be honest, I've always been interested in this particular historical figure. She was considered very ugly (except for her pretty brown eyes) and dirty. She offered a stark contrast with her sister-in-law. Nonetheless she also was a strong woman fond of her own principles (but very lonely too). She survived the French Revolution.

La Reine Velue, by Charles Dupêchez.

 Mémoires sur Marie-Antoinette, by Rose Bertin.

A very interesting small book. Rose Bertin presented herself as a loyal royalist. She seemed really attached to the French queen, her most illustrious client. It's important to read about Marie-Antoinette from different (and contemporary) points of view. After reading Madame Campan's mémoirs, I had to possess this one.

Marie-Antoinette, how does she look like?

Here are a few descriptions of the Queen of France by some contemporaries. Most of these are from their memoirs...Please, forgive my English :)

"Many people only met Marie-Antoinette in 1789, that is to say at the time when crushing issues had started to veil the most beautiful face that you can imagine; but it was when she arrived in France that you had to see her. Imagine a complexion with a dazzling whiteness, where colours as fresh as the spring rose mix together; big azure-blue eyes that were noticeable right away*, a forehead that a forest of blond hair crowned, where majesty united itself with candour, and which gave to her physiognomy the most noble expression, to which her nose's shape added even further. The only flaw of this lovable princess' face was that her lower lip was a bit too prominent. Nonetheless this was a distinctive feature of the house of Austria, which reminded people of the fact she was Marie-Therese's daughter. Elevated enough for her age, her height was well-taken**, her neck, her breast perfect; her hand charming, her foot and her leg as beautiful as the Medicis' Venus. She had a grace, a facility in her gestures, and most significantly a harmony in all her person which delighted people; as a result you could not see her without adoring her, because she did not meet anyone who she did not want to please."

Rose Bertin in her Mémoires de Mademoiselle Rose Bertin

sur la Reine Marie-Antoinette.

* In French, she says: "à fleur de tête" when she speaks about the queen's eyes, which means big eyes; that is a very distinctive feature of someone's face.

** I'm not sure, to be honest if she speaks about her height (most people agree that MA was tall enough when she reached her maturity, and even taller than most women at her court) or her size (MA's waist was 59 cm after her pregnancies thanks to corset and a sober diet). 

"Marie-Antoinette was tall, admirably well-made, without being exceedingly fat. Her arms were superb, her hands small, perfect in shape and her feet lovely. She was the woman of France who walked the best; carrying her head very high with a majesty which allowed people to recognize the queen. Her features were not regular: she inherited from her family this long and narrow oval face so typical of the Austrian nation . She did not have big eyes; their colour was almost blue; her gaze was spiritual and soft, and her lips not too big though they were a bit strong. But the most remarkable sign of her face was the radiance of her skin. I have never seen such bright skin before, and "bright" is the right word; because her skin was so transparent/clear that it did not take any shadow...I did not have enough colours to paint this freshness, these tones so refined which only belonged to this charming face and that I have not found in any other woman since then."

Mme Vigée-Lebrun (her favourite portraitist).

"Many times I have heard people talk about the beauty of this princess, and I admit I have never really shared this opinion. But she had what is worthier on the throne than perfect beauty: the face of a queen of France, even in the moments when she intended the most to appear only as a pretty woman. Her eyes were not beautiful but they reflected every expression: benevolence or aversion painted themselves in this gaze more singularly than in any other I have encountered. I am not sure her nose belonged to her face. Her lips were decidedly unpleasant; that thick lip, advanced and sometimes drooping, has been mentioned as giving to her physiognomy a noble and distinctive quality; it only expressed anger and indignation, and it is not there the usual expression of beauty. Her skin was admirable, so were her shoulders and her neck. I have not seen such beautiful arms and hands again. She walked in either of these two ways: the first one was firm, a little bit hurried and always noble; the other one softer and more relaxed, I would say nearly caressing, but still reminded people of the respect they owned her. People had never bowed with such grace as she did, greeting ten people with one bow and giving to everyone what they were due, with her head and her gaze...To put everything in a nutshell, if I am not mistaken: when you offer a chair to other women, you would nearly always have wanted to present her a throne."

                                                                                                                       Comte Alexandre de Tilly

" This unhappy princess still kept some small jealousies of women. She had a very beautiful complexion and a lot of radiance, and was a bit jealous of these young women's skin who brought in the broad daylight their youthful complexion,  more dazzling than hers. Mine was among them." (year: 1787, when MA was 32).         

Marquise de la Tour de Pin. 

"Madame la Dauphine was, at that time, tall and well-made, though a little bit skinny. She has barely changed then; she always has this same long and regular face, that aquiline nose which was nonetheless a bit pointed at the tip, this high forehead, these lively blue eyes. Her mouth, already small, seemed a little bit disdainful. She had the Austrian lip more pronounced than any other people of her illustrious family. Nothing can give you an idea of the radiance of her complexion, literally mixed with lilies and roses. Her ash blond hair had a thin cover of powder only. The way she carries herself, the majesty of her height, the elegance of all her person, were what they are today. At last everything in her transpired the grandeur of her race, the softness and the nobility of her soul: she attracted people's hearts." (or love)

Baronne d'Oberkirsch.

My visit to Versailles!! PART 2-TRIANON and le HAMEAU

After visiting the castle, I decided to look for the Trianon, not knowing that I would walk so much! Well, now I do understand why Marie-Antoinette needed a carriage to go there! I went along the Grand Canal and then, among trees, on paths. I followed other visitors in order to find my way to Trianon. I felt so odd to be there, after waiting so many years to visit the castle of my dreams, the place I had imagined walking through since childhood. And here I was.

I had also a map, offered by the castle.
But, first of all, the Queen's chambers: incredible to be there and to imagine she spent some of her time here, with friends (just as she nearly died two times here, during her first labour, and on October, 6th, 1789).

(Don't be fooled, there were many other tourists, in fact)

 The famous portrait by Vigée-Lebrun representing Marie-Antoinette as a loving mother.

Le Grand Trianon

Marie-Antoinette, dancing with her brothers and sisters. She loved so much this painting that it was sent from  Vienne to Versailles for her.

(The toilets...but apparently, not from the 18th century)

I had this sort of calm, eerie feeling while strolling through the park. To be honest, where I got the most scared was near the grotto; I simply didn't dare to get closer to it. But all in all, I had this great feeling of contentment for having visited, at last, Marie-Antoinette's favourite place. 

Nonetheless, I may have to make a post about this strangeness surrounding Trianon  and the Hameau. One of my friends visited it last year and she told me she was not so at ease. That' ll be interesting to speak about it with the topic "Ghosts at Versailles castle". It has been a long time hot topic since two English women claimed they had seen ghosts from the 18th century, at the Trianon. 

These are my pictures, you can't use them without my permission. At least, add a link to this article.