Elisabeth Amalie Eugenie was Empress of Austria and Queen of Hungary my marriage to Emperor Franz Joseph I.
Background
Elisabeth Amalie Eugenie was the daughter of Duke Maximilian Joseph of Bavaria and Louisa Wilhelmina, daughter of Maximilian I of Bavaria, and was born on the 24th of December 1837 at the castle of Possenhofen on Lake Starnberg. She inherited the quick intelligence and artistic taste displayed in general by members of the Wittelsbach royal house and her education was the reverse of conventional. She accompanied her eccentric father on his hunting expeditions, becoming an expert rider and climber, visiting the peasants in their huts and sharing in rustic pleasures.
Education
She inherited the quick intelligence and artistic taste displayed in general by members of the Wittelsbach royal house, and her education was the reverse of conventional.
Career
In the early days of her married life she frequently came into collision with Viennese prejudice.
There is no doubt that her influence helped the establishment of the Ausgleich with Hungary, but outside Hungarian affairs the empress took small part in politics.
She first visited Hungary in 1857, and ten years later was crowned queen.
The tragic death of her only son, the crown prince Rudolph, in 1889, was a shock from which she never really recovered. She was also deeply affected by the suicide of her cousin Louis II of Bavaria, and again by the fate of her sister Sophia, duchess of Alenfon, who perished in the fire of the Paris charity bazaar in 1897.
The empress had shown signs of lung disease in 1861, when she spent some months in Madeira; but she was able to resume her outdoor sports, and for some years before 1882, when she had to give up riding, was a frequent visitor on English and Irish hunting fields.
In her later years her dislike of publicity increased. Much of her time was spent in travel or at the Achilleion, the palace she had built in the Greek style in Corfu.
She was walking from her hotel at Geneva to the steamer when she was stabbed by the anarchist Luigi Luccheni, on the 10th of September 1898, and died of the wound within a few hours. This aimless and dastardly crime completed the list of misfortunes of the Austrian house, and aroused intense indignation throughout Europe.
Achievements
Her popularity with the Hungarians remained unchanged throughout her life. She considered an important figure by many historians.
Views
Her attempts to modify court etiquette, and her extreme fondness for horsemanship and frequent visits to the imperial riding school, scandalized Austrian society, while her predilection for Hungary and for everything Hungarian offended German sentiment.
Personality
She was was shy and introverted by nature, strongly attached to her parents, especially to her mother.
She was obsessively concerned with maintaining her youthful figure and beauty, which was already legendary during her life.
Besides her public benefactions she constantly exercised personal and private charity.
Connections
The emperor of Austria, Francis Joseph, met the Bavarian ducal family at Ischl in August 1853, and immediately fell in love with Elizabeth, then a girl of sixteen, and reported to be the most beautiful princess in Europe. The marriage took place in Vienna on the 24th of April 1854.
Her eldest daughter died in infancy. Her daughter Archduchess Gisela married the Prince Leopold of Bavaria and and her youngest daughter Marie Valerie married the Archduke Franz Salvator.
