Dear Reader,
In September I read two historical fiction novels based on the life of Empress Elizabeth (Sisi) of Austria-Hungary. The novels, The Accidental Empress and Sisi: Empress on Her Own by Allison Pataki, tell the story of her happy childhood in Bavaria, her unhappy marriage to Emperor Franz Josef, her tumultuous time as Empress of Austria and Queen of Hungary, her deep and abiding friendship with Count Andrássy, the suicide of her son, Crown Prince Rudolf, and her eventual assassination in Geneva. The second novel ends with a short epilogue that explains the advent of World War I and the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, which decades earlier was eerily predicted by Sisi. I was left emotionally depleted.
If you’re interested, I wrote a short primer about the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
The novels stayed mostly true to the history. They deviated at times to make the plot move along faster. At first, the historical inaccuracies bothered me and I swore I’d pass on the second novel. But by the time I finished the first novel I was hooked and started the second book right away. One inaccuracy in the novels that the author ran with is that she had an affair with Count Andrássy (later Prime Minister of Hungary) and had a child with him (Archduchess Gisela). The author borrows these rumours from history. Though the rumours have been disproven by scholars (Gisela was the spitting image of Franz Josef) the vicious rumours refused to subside. The court loved to gossip about their empress. The toxicity of the courtiers is a major plotline in both novels. But I think the author made good use of these rumours because the “affair” helped bring to life the love Sisi had for Hungary as she used her time with Andrássy to discuss independence for Hungary. While it’s true that Andrássy and Sisi were extremely close, it wasn’t a love affair. I’d say it was very much a best-friend type of situation.
A fun fact about Sisi that’s not mentioned in the novels is that she believed that, someday soon, the empire would collapse. She found it difficult to believe that people would willingly endure an absolute monarchy for much longer. In preparation for a possible collapse, she deposited money in a secret bank account in Switzerland so that she would have funds for a post-royal life. Even the emperor did not know about this. The bank account was discovered after her assassination.
I felt as if I was inside Sisi’s head because the stories were told through her POV. It’s obvious the author did a lot of research and sometimes I could tell which books or letters she read for certain sections of the books (because I also read the same research).
Another fun fact, Sisi was a talented horsewoman and a lover of dogs. She loved the outdoors and could walk for hours and hours at a time, much to the dismay of her exhausted ladies-in-waiting who had to trod along.
But now that I finished reading the books, my overactive imagination is in overdrive. I thought I saw Sisi at the Jardin des Tuileries, walking briskly on the trail between the chestnut trees, a tall, impossibly skinny woman dressed in black, but upon closer inspection, my poor eyes spotted only a jogger in black yoga pants. The heart sees what the heart wants to see. I thought of her when I walked past children practising their horseback riding on the Bois de Boulogne. I am in a strange one-sided relationship with Sisi. When I spotted the poetry section at Smith & Son on rue de Rivoli, I remembered her unhealthy obsession with German poet Heinrich Heine. On my way to H&M Home to buy a candle, I walked past the famous Opéra Garnier and remembered that German composer Richard Wagner is the only major composer not honoured at the opera. All the other great composers of the era have a bust at the top of the building. The Opéra Garnier was built during heightened tensions between France and Prussia, so German Richard Wagner didn’t make the cut. But this slight made me think, again, of Sisi because her beloved cousin King Ludwig had a bizarre obsession with Wagner.
This month I’ll have to read less emotionally intense books so I don’t see historical characters everywhere I go.
PS. If you are interested in learning more about Sisi, I highly recommend reading The Reluctant Empress (1982) by Brigitte Hamann. It began as a thesis before it became a published biography.
As always, thank you very much for being here and reading. I appreciate your support.
I hope you have a lovely weekend.
I read Brigitte Hamann and appreciated the book. Have you seen this recent film, Corsage?
I studied the Austro-Hungarian empire at school and a lot of detail has stayed with me for 45 years. I has the same fascination with the last Tsar’s mother when reading a fictionalised account of her life. Like you, I was a little disturbed by historical inaccuracies or artistic licence, I guess. I’ll definitely read these books and if you are interested, The Tsarina Maria Feodorovna novel is The Romanov Empress by CW Gortner. Happy reading?