The Tragic Life and Death of Sissi
By: The Unlikely Techie
Tags: Mystery, Monarchy, Murder, History, Women

The Tragic Life and Death of Sissi

From an untroubled childhood to an adulthood filled with tragedies

Sissi und Franz: Karlheinz Böhm und Romy Schneider. Photo: © imago / United Archives.

They say shortly before you die, you relive your life and your extraordinary moments. What might have the Empress Elisabeth of Austria, known as Sissi, been thinking about before she died from a needle file stab into her chest?

Was she thinking about that fateful summer of 1853, when she traveled to Ischl with her mother and sister to attend the birthday party of the young Emperor Franz Joseph of Austria, her future husband? Or was she thinking of her firstborn daughter Sophie, the beloved daughter that died in early childhood — a death she had a hard time getting over? Did she think about her two other children, Gisela and Rudolf?

The making of Sissi

When Sissi was born into a noble family on Sunday, December 24, 1837, it was considered a happy omen. Growing up, she showed little interest in school subjects and preferred to ride, draw, and write verses.

Elisabeth had a good relationship with her siblings, but they cooled off later in life. She fell out with Marie when she heard that she was spreading the rumor of a secret love affair Sissi supposedly had. She also had a very intimate relationship with her younger sister Sophie, but it deteriorated when Sophie wanted a divorce to marry a bourgeois doctor. The family subsequently admitted Sophie into a sanatorium because of an alleged mental illness. Sissi commented on this with two poems full of “malice and malicious joy.” This malicious joy is astonishing since the two had many things in common — they were both beautiful and cherished their wonderful childhood at Possenhofen Castle. There was another thing that united the two above all, in what can be considered a twisted turn of fate: they both died in a tragic way.

The eternal waltz at the court of the Emperor

Sissi was only sixteen years old when she got married to the twenty-three-year-old Emperor Franz Joseph of Austria. Barely a year after the wedding, the young empress gave birth to a girl named after her husband’s mother, Sophie Friederike. The following year, their daughter Gisela was born. Unfortunately, both daughters fell ill with diarrhea and fever during the journey through Hungary and two-year-old Sophie died.

Empress Elisabeth of Austria portrait by Franz Xaver Winterhalter, oil on canvas, 1865.

In 1858, Crown Prince Rudolf Franz Karl Joseph was born. Elisabeth had difficulty recovering from his birth. After the death of her firstborn daughter, she showed little interest in both Gisela and Rudolf. Her mother-in-law arranged for the crown prince to receive military training from an early age. Although the sensitive Rudolf suffered greatly from this, Sissi could not end this kind of education at first. To many, this was the reason why she gave her youngest and fourth child much more attention.

Born in 1868 in Buda, Hungary, the “Hungarian Child,” called Marie Valerie Mathilde Amalie, was born. In contrast to her older two children, Sissi took more intensive care of the little archduchess. In the Vienna Hofburg, Marie Valerie was, therefore, nicknamed “the only one.” Rumors spread that Franz Joseph wasn’t the child’s father, and that, instead, she had been fathered by the Hungarian Count Gyula Andrássy.

However, there is no doubt about the paternity of Franz Joseph because Marie Valerie was very similar to the Emperor in appearance and character. Throughout her life, Elisabeth had an intimate relationship with her youngest daughter. Marie Valerie accompanied her mother on many journeys and was also free in her choice of the bridegroom. It is assumed that Elisabeth thereby tried to make up for what she had obviously missed with the other children. Furthermore, it seems it was one of the only close relationships Sissi had that lasted throughout her whole life.

The Mayerling tragedy

However, it cannot be assumed that she did not love her other two children at all. The Mayerling incident was a personal tragedy for Sissi, one she barely recovered from and that prompted her to wear black for the rest of her life.

In January 1889, her only son, Rudolf, went to his property in Mayerling. He had bought it three years prior and converted it into a hunting lodge. His special hunting trips were quite unconventional: people relaxedly wore knee-breeches and lived in simply furnished rooms. It was considered his bachelor pad, although the crown prince was unhappily married to Princess Stéphanie of Belgium and had a known affair with Mary Freiin von Vetsera. When the crown prince arrived at Mayerling, such an informal stay was suspected. However, one day after his arrival, he killed himself and his beloved mistress with pistol shots.

Official efforts were made to cover up the murder-suicide committed by Rudolf, since dying by suicide would have prohibited him from having a church burial. Therefore, Rudolf was given a medical certificate of his insanity at the time of his suicide. His mistress, Mary, had to disappear so she was brought away in the middle of the night and hastily buried. As late as 1889, Franz Joseph commissioned the conversion of the hunting lodge into a monastery. Today, the monastery’s altar is located at the site where the disaster took place, in what was previously a bedroom. The circumstances of Rudolf and his lovers’ death could never be clarified entirely. Allegedly, the Habsburg family has a casket containing the pistol, cartridge cases, and some other crime evidence.

Not only was his death a personal tragedy for the family, but it also had dire political consequences. Being the only male heir to the throne, Franz Joseph’s younger brother, Archduke Karl Ludwig, was next in line to the Austro-Hungarian throne. When he died, his son Archduke Franz Ferdinand became the new heir presumptive. In 1914, the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand precipitated World War I. Four years later, the dynasty ceased to exist — it was the bloody end of yet another European monarchy.

Death by needle file

Sissi did not have to experience the end of her dynasty. The puncture of the stiletto-shaped blade of an industrial needle file was so small that the empress did not notice it and thought the attacker had only given her a punch. She rose again, thanked all passers-by who had rushed to her aid, and talked to Irma Sztáray about the incident. Elisabeth went on for ten minutes. Shortly after the steamer had left, she collapsed and regained consciousness briefly. Puzzled, she asked: “What has happened to me now?”

The ship returned to the pier, and the empress was taken to her hotel on a hastily made stretcher. All attempts at resuscitation were in vain. A priest administered the last sacraments in her hotel. On the death certificate, it was noted that Elisabeth had died at 14:40, she was sixty years old. According to Luigi Lucheni’s statement during interrogation, he originally wanted to murder Prince Henri Philippe d’Orléans. However, since the prince had changed his travel plans at short notice and did not arrive in Geneva, Lucheni chose Elisabeth as his victim after learning of her presence in the city. The murderer was sentenced to life in prison for the crime. On October 19, 1910, he was found hanged with a belt in a dark cell.

Was her life passing her by during her last moments on Earth? The day before she was killed by the anarchist Lucheni, she was talking and sprawling through Baroness Julie Rothschild’s gardens, saying: “I wish my soul could escape to heaven through a very small opening in my heart.”