Birth and Childhood of Elizabeth of Bavaria
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 dragging herself painfully toward him
with a bundle of firewood on her back. She addressed him with the usual
Bavarian greeting,
“Praised be Jesus Christ!”
“For ever and ever, Amen!” replied the Duke, adding kindly, “Why are you
carrying such a load upon your back this holy Christmas Eve?”
“I will tell you why, gracious Duke,” said the woman; “it is because my
children have no Christmas gifts, and I have been in the forest
gathering wood so that they may at least enjoy a warm room.”
“You did right,” returned the Duke. “As for me, I have already received
my Christmas gift, for my wife presented me to-day with a charming
little daughter who is to be called Liese, and I am so happy over it I
wish you too to have a Merry Christmas.”
He wrote her name and address in his notebook, and after the darkness
had fallen two servants appeared at the poor woman’s dwelling with two
heavy baskets filled with food. At the bottom of each was a banknote for
a considerable sum.
The child born on this day was Elizabeth, afterward Empress of Austria
and Queen of Hungary. In many countries it is regarded as a sign of
misfortune to be born on Christmas Eve, but the happy childhood of the
little princess had no foreshadowing of the experiences of her after
life. Most of her early years were spent at Possenhoffen, which her
father had bought some time before her birth. The great park and
surrounding forests were the child’s first playgrounds, and developed in
her sensitive soul a deep love of nature and of freedom.
The Duchess’s chief concern was the education of her eldest daughter, of
whom she had great hopes. Helene was nearly four years older than her
sister and was the favorite of the mother, whom she resembled both in
character and appearance. Overshadowed by her seemingly superior
talents, with no interest in books and ignorant of the requirements of
court life, Elizabeth—or “Sissi,” as she was called—grew up almost
unnoticed. She loved her sister with the enthusiasm of youth and with
the natural tendency of the ignorant to look up to those more clever
than themselves, but her father and brothers were dearer to her than
either sister or mother.
The little girl was the darling of the Duke. She had inherited his love
of nature, roamed about constantly with him through the mountains,
visiting the peasants’ huts, and learned to look at life and people
through his eyes. Her bringing up in no way fitted her for the high
station she was afterward to occupy. At the end of her fifth year she
was given a governess, but “Sissi,” though an unusually gentle and
lovable child, soon learned how to wind her teacher round her finger and
concerned herself little about study, for which she had no love. The
Empress used to declare that in her youth she was the most ignorant
princess in Europe, and the little she did know had been learned as she
sat on her father’s knee. But if not over-taxed with lessons, her
education in other branches was by no means neglected. The Duke was
determined that his children should be well developed physically, and
one of the best dancing masters of the time was summoned to Possenhoffen
to teach Elizabeth and her sisters to dance and carry themselves
properly. Even in her later years the Empress was an excellent walker
and famous for her easy, graceful carriage.
“Walking never tires me,” she said once to one of her attendants, “and I
have my father to thank for it. He was an indefatigable hunter and
wanted my sisters and myself to be able to leap and spring like the
chamois.” She also learned to swim and ride and dearly loved to sit a
horse and feel the wind blowing through her hair. She was never happier
than when riding about Lake Starnberg on her little pony, and in the
winter, when forced to stay in the capital, it was her greatest joy to
escape to the stables, where she would mount the most unmanageable
horses that could be found. One day while playing circus, as she often
did, she was thrown by a wild, full-blooded animal. Her governess
uttered a shriek of terror, but Elizabeth quickly rose to her feet,
neither frightened nor hurt, and laughingly besought permission to mount
the horse again, which the terrified governess refused to grant. The
happiest time in the whole year to her was when the warm spring days
made it possible for them to return to Possenhoffen and she could enjoy
unlimited freedom once more. She was passionately fond of flowers, and
it is still told among the Bavarian Alps how “Liese of Possenhoffen”
used to scramble about the wild unbeaten mountain paths to return at
last with her arms full of edelweiss.
Her father taught her to play the zither, and she often went with him on
long tramps among the Alps, stopping now and then for rest and
refreshment at some hut where they would play dance music on their own
instruments or on some they found there. On one occasion they had done
this in a remote region where the huntsman and his daughter were not
known, and the people gave the pretty child a piece of money in payment.
Elizabeth always kept it. “It is the only money I ever earned,” she once
said, when showing it to an acquaintance. There was never much pocket
money for her to buy presents with, and she used often to spend the
evenings knitting stockings for her mountain friends or sewing on some
piece of needlework. The country folk about Possenhoffen idolized the
little Liese, and when overtaken by one of the autumn storms she would
often take refuge in their huts, quite alone, and sit down by the fire
to chat and laugh with old or young. Her parents saw nothing amiss in
this. Duke Max liked nothing better than to enter into the lives of his
people, and when the mother was told how her daughter ran about with her
brothers or played the zither in hovels while the peasants danced she
but smiled indulgently, saying: “She is only a child. I will take her
education in hand later on.”
This free life at Possenhoffen taught the little Elizabeth to regard the
woods and mountains as her second home, and the most splendid halls of
the palace seemed small and stifling to her in comparison. It no doubt
exerted a marked influence on her later development, and possibly
furnished a clue to her character as Empress of Austria. Had her
childhood been different, she would unquestionably have been better
fitted for the position she was soon to occupy.