The Empress in Vienna
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 Augustins, where the imperial pair had
celebrated their union nineteen years before. The bride was led to the
altar by her mother and left that same afternoon with her husband for
Munich. The Viennese overwhelmed the Archduchess with gifts and
entertainments, and the streets were lined with crowds eager to witness
the departure of the young couple.
A few days afterward, May 1, 1873, the Emperor and Empress opened the
World’s Exposition at Vienna, an event that was celebrated with all
sorts of festivities and made the occasion of a perfect jubilee. The
Exhibition was a great success as well as a source of pride to Austria,
as it demonstrated what the country could accomplish in the way of arts
and manufactures in a comparatively short space of time. Many of the
crowned heads of Europe came as guests to the capital. The old Emperor
William and his clever wife Augusta visited at the Hofburg and
Schönbrunn; Czar Alexander Second of Russia and King Victor Emmanuel of
Italy also came, as did the Shah of Persia and many others.
Elizabeth, however, cared little for people of her own rank. “Titles
mean nothing,” she declared; “they are only the trappings with which we
try to hide our nakedness; they do not change our real selves.” Little
to her taste as court ceremonies were, she bore her part in them with
ease and dignity and was always the centre of interest and admiration
wherever she went. Some years before the fall of the French Empire, the
Austrian sovereigns met Napoleon and Eugénie at Salzburg. The French
Empress was then at the zenith of her beauty, but Elizabeth with her
glorious eyes and hair and the wonderful charm of her personality did
not suffer by comparison with the Spaniard nor even with younger
princesses.
In 1873 the twenty-fifth anniversary of Franz Joseph’s accession to the
throne was celebrated with great rejoicings, the festivities culminating
in the evening by the triumphal progress of the imperial pair with the
Crown Prince through the streets of Vienna, which were brilliantly
illuminated and decorated and filled with cheering throngs. But even on
this occasion it was evident Elizabeth found it an effort to appear in
public, and she avoided the noise and confusion as much as possible. Her
growing reserve and dislike of self-display were taken as a personal
offence by the spectacle-loving Viennese and added to her unpopularity.
She was considered cold and proud and was taxed with heartlessness and
indifference, a fact of which she was well aware and which only added to
her melancholy.
She adored children, rich and poor alike, and at the close of the Vienna
Exposition took into her service a little Berber boy named Mahmoud, who
had acted as page in the Cairene house erected in the Prater by the
Khedive of Egypt and afterward presented to the Empress. Mahmoud adored
his mistress and she was exceedingly kind to him. When the climate of
Vienna affected his lungs and he fell ill with pneumonia, she nursed and
tended him herself, and he became the favorite playmate of the
Archduchess Valerie, greatly to the horror of the Austrian aristocracy.
Patience was not one of the Wittelsbach virtues, and so many false and
cruel reports were circulated about her in Vienna by careless tongues
that when Elizabeth was informed of the indignation she had aroused by
her kindness to Mahmoud she responded by having the two children
photographed together and the picture displayed in public. This act of
defiance naturally added to the number of her detractors, and many even
began to hint that the Empress’ restlessness and eccentricities were
certain signs of approaching insanity.
But there was still another reason for the Empress’ unpopularity in the
Austrian capital. Her husband’s German subjects keenly felt her lack of
sympathy with them and resented her unconcealed preference for Hungary.
It was even rumored that she intended to bestow all her Austrian
possessions upon the Magyars, but this was a rank injustice to
Elizabeth, for throughout the Empire, Austria as well as Hungary, there
was scarcely a charitable institution or cause that she did not aid or
support, nor a case of suffering and need that she did not attempt to
relieve. When Austria took possession of Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1878,
the Empress found a fresh field for her energies in caring for the
wounded soldiers and providing for the families of those who were
killed; and when cholera and smallpox broke out in Budapest, she
insisted upon accompanying the Emperor, who was obliged to go there for
the opening of the National Assembly, declaring that in time of danger
her place was at her husband’s side.
In 1879 Franz Joseph and Elizabeth celebrated their silver wedding, an
occasion not unmixed with sadness to them both, as they looked back on
the trials and disappointments of their married life. They had requested
that there should be no public observance of the day, and that the sums
contributed for that purpose should be given to charity. An exception to
this was made, however, in Vienna, where a great ovation had been
prepared for the imperial pair. On the spot where the Emperor had been
attacked by Libeny, the Hungarian, a church had been erected to
commemorate his fortunate escape, and this was to be formally dedicated
as part of the ceremonies of the day. The city was _en fête_, and crowds
had gathered to salute the Emperor and Empress as they drove to and from
the church. There was little in their appearance to suggest the storms
that had shaken their lives, for Franz Joseph was still in the prime of
his manhood and Elizabeth the youngest and most beautiful of
grandmothers (her eldest daughter Gisela had several children at that
time). The festivities, which lasted several days, concluded on the
twenty-seventh of April with an historical pageant, arranged by the
celebrated painter Hans Makart and carried out on the most magnificent
scale. Every class, institution, and province in the kingdom was
represented, and the various groups costumed with historical accuracy,
the whole procession making a most imposing spectacle as it moved slowly
along the Ringstrasse amid the deafening cheers of the spectators.