Golden Fleece: The Story of Franz Joseph and Elisabeth of Austria

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Text originally published in 1937 under the same title.

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Although in most cases we have retained the Author’s original spelling and grammar to authentically reproduce the work of the Author and the original intent of such material, some additional notes and clarifications have been added for the modern reader’s benefit.

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GOLDEN FLEECE:

THE STORY OF FRANZ JOSEPH & ELISABETH OF AUSTRIA

BY

BERTITA HARDING

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Contents

TABLE OF CONTENTS 3

DEDICATION 4

ILLUSTRATIONS 5

BOOK ONE—PRELUDE 7

CHAPTER 1 7

CHAPTER 2 17

CHAPTER 3 22

CHAPTER 4 31

CHAPTER 5 38

CHAPTER 6 48

CHAPTER 7 53

CHAPTER 8 58

CHAPTER 9 64

BOOK TWO—FUGUE 73

CHAPTER 10 73

CHAPTER 11 82

CHAPTER 12 91

CHAPTER 13 96

CHAPTER 14 101

CHAPTER 15 107

CHAPTER 16 118

CHAPTER 17 124

CHAPTER 18 135

CHAPTER 19 144

CHAPTER 20 152

CHAPTER 21 162

CHAPTER 22 166

BOOK THREE—RHAPSODY 175

CHAPTER 23 175

CHAPTER 24 180

CHAPTER 25 186

CHAPTER 26 191

CHAPTER 27 197

CHAPTER 28 204

CHAPTER 29 214

CHAPTER 30 223

CHAPTER 31 228

CHAPTER 32 239

CHAPTER 33 246

BOOK FOUR—FINALE 254

CHAPTER 34 254

CHAPTER 35 261

CHAPTER 36 268

CHAPTER 37 275

CHAPTER 38 286

BIBLIOGRAPHY 289

In German 289

In Hungarian 290

In English 290

In Italian 291

In French 291

In Spanish 291

Anonyms and Pseudonyms 291

Documents 292

REQUEST FROM THE PUBLISHER 294

DEDICATION

To

FREDERICK A. MANCHESTER

...whose approval matters, though it is not to be won by dedication...

ILLUSTRATIONS

Empress Elisabeth at twenty

Duke Max of Wittelsbach

Duchess Ludovika of Wittelsbach

Archduchess Sophia of Austria

The Emperor and his brothers

Franz Joseph at the time of his accession

Elisabeth at the time of her betrothal

Palace of Schönbrunn, Vienna

The Empress Elisabeth of Austria as a bride

Royal Palace, Budapest

Nené

Elisabeth, at twenty-four, with her favorite dogs

Elisabeth in Court robes (1857)

Franz Joseph with Rudolf and Gisela

Elisabeth and Shadow

The mad King of Bavaria

Ludwig’s Wagnerian Castle, Neuschwanstein

Elisabeth in Hungarian coronation robes

Count Gyula Andrássy

Archduchess Valerie and her companion-lady, Marie Wallersee

Archduchess Valerie and the Moor Rustimo

Rudolf at the time of his engagement

Crown Princess Stephanie

Countess Ferenczy, Countess Festetics, Archduchess Valerie and Archduchess Gisela

The Empress in Court dress

Crown Prince Rudolf

Baroness Marie Vetsera

The imperial couple in their carriage drawn by the famed Lipizza steeds

Franz Joseph in his old age

The actress Katharina Schratt

Franz Joseph and his old rugs

BOOK ONE—PRELUDE

CHAPTER 1

WHEN Duchess Ludovika of the extraordinary Bavarian house of Wittelsbach traveled, she always took along the wicker portmanteau. This unwieldy piece of baggage, the servants knew, must be packed by the mistress herself. Its roomy depths were replete with paraphernalia essential to a lady roaming over the land during the middle of the nineteenth century. First of all there would be the neat array of vast cambric petticoats, properly boned camisoles, kerchiefs, striped hosiery of the finest lisle, a colored parchment fan for everyday use and a more pretentious one of lace for dress occasions. Next came smelling salts, headache powders, the bottle of Karlsbad Sprudel, a yellowed ballroom mantilla, patent leather boots with cloth button tops—and the good taffeta Besuchskleid or visiting frock which had billowing green skirts and an ocher bosom. At this point the defenseless portmanteau seemed incapable of holding more. But the Duchess was not nearly through. She must yet accommodate her prayer book, the spare umbrella, a pincushion, her sleeping bonnet and the lap robe.

It would be after the lap robe that she usually called for help. Elsewhere on the rambling country estate of Possenhofen a meager servant staff propelled trunks and lunch baskets toward the waiting post chaise. However, it would not be for maid or handyman that Ludovika called, but for her husband, the Duke.

Max, she cried always with the same startled tone, it won’t close!

Whereat there sometimes appeared in the doorway of an adjoining chamber a tall, elegant gentleman with an absent-minded air. Often as not, his left hand clutched a sheaf of papers while in his right he flourished a most dilapidated quill.

What won’t close, my dear? he would inquire with a solicitude not at all convincing, since it went with that faraway look in his eyes which characterizes poets and sleepwalkers. Duke Maximilian was both. He rejoiced in the reputation of being the most impractical man of his time.

Phantasus! moaned the Duchess, exasperated at his lack of comprehension. Is it any wonder that people call you Phantasus?

At this the valet, Gustaf Lampel, who was a frequent witness to such scenes, saw the ducal eyebrows rise reprovingly as his master made an oft-repeated explanation. Why should they not call him Phantasus? He had selected the name himself.

"It is my pseudonym, my nom de plume."

Later, when a daughter of this house became the most talked of woman in Europe, Herr Lampel would have trouble reconstructing that familiar phrase with its incomprehensible and assuredly foreign terms. Just as he would have trouble rendering the Duchess’s reply about a creature named Pegasus which seemed to be her husband’s horse. The faithful Gustaf knew each beast in the Possenhofen stables and there was not one Pegasus among them.

Not one Pegasus among them, he assured the journalists, those strange scribbling men who came from distant cities to ask him questions and to publish over his name a quaint story entitled My Life with the Wittelsbachs. There had been Rotbart, the stallion...Nereïde, the mare...the pony Jock....Gustaf was very particular in describing these. But Pegasus? He shook his head. He could not explain it. He knew only that the mistress had a way of insisting that her husband dismount and come down to earth instanter to sit on her bag.

It must be said to the master’s credit that he grasped the situation almost at once. Sit down? Certainly. Duke Max was nothing if not obliging. After a nod in Gustaf’s direction, indicating that additional mass would be of value, both master and servant descended upon the creaking luggage piece. From its lid the Duke regarded his wife quizzically. Poor Ludovika, he seemed to be thinking (often he Gallicized her cool, classical name to Louisa), she was eccentric, but she could not help it. A Wittelsbach she was, of the mad Wittelsbachs. He was a Wittelsbach himself. He and Ludovika were cousins....The valet Gustaf could spin his master’s thoughts to astonishing lengths, for he knew each intimate phase of Wittelsbach history. The Duke and Duchess had been betrothed in childhood and bound in wedlock by their elders before either of them knew enough to raise a protest. Marriage had been difficult, a matter mostly of avoiding each other. Even so, eight children (a ninth having died at birth) bore witness to an occasional meeting. The Duke, who was seldom at home, never quite got used to them.

It was different with the Duchess, who likewise loved travel but always took the children with her, for, even if marriage had proved a disappointment, maternity was not. Ludovika found herself completely wrapped up in her brood. Gustaf, the valet-reporter, was sure of this; not only did he consider himself an expert in reading the master’s thoughts but he knew those of the mistress as well. She rather pitied her husband. Poor Max (she often seemed to think), he was a trifle odd. But he could not help it. A Wittelsbach he was, of the strange royal Wittelsbachs whom Napoleon the Great had made kings of Bavaria. Such an erratic lot! Quite unmindful of her own identical ancestry, Ludovika always made allowance for that of the Duke.

On a hot summer day in 1853 Gustaf and his master chanced again to be exerting their combined pressure on the wicker luggage piece while Duchess Ludovika struggled with the lock. But as she scowled at the recalcitrant mechanism the two men observed a cryptic expression on her face. It was the sort of expression that bespoke far-reaching purposes. The Duchess had a plan. One could usually tell when she had a plan because it made her look so uncomfortable.

This sister you are going to see, the Duke prompted casually, will she be at Innsbruck?

No, in Ischl. Sophie and the court are spending their holiday at the imperial villa.

One always spoke with unction of Sophie, who was a Hapsburg archduchess and the mother of Austria’s young Emperor Franz Joseph. Just as one tiptoed in her presence, lest uncalled-for noises give offense to august ears.

And now Gustaf suddenly recognized the plan. It was at least five years old. It had to do with the Duke’s eldest daughter Helene, whom everybody called Nené, and who recently had reached the advanced marriageable age of nineteen. For several summers the worried Ludovika had watched Nené shoot up into a tall, lanky, sharp-featured girl whose main attribute would most decidedly not be beauty. In a family of eight children, five of whom were of the sex that needs a husband, such a discovery was no laughing matter. Indeed, few things drew a smirk from Ludovika; at Possenhofen and in the wintry residence of Munich all the laughing was done by the Duke. But long ago maternal foresight had resolved to aid destiny where destiny was almost sure to falter. In a shrewd old-fashioned manner, Ludovika advertised. For years her conversation and correspondence abounded with references to her ugly duckling’s piety and docile rectitude. It required some perseverance before the Archduchess Sophie in Vienna, herself the mother of four handsome growing sons, begged to be shown this paragon of female virtues. Thus, barely fourteen, Nené had been rushed to Innsbruck where the imperial family sojourned during the revolutionary spring of 1848. At that time she had won her Austrian aunt’s complete approval. But the eighteen-year-old Franz Joseph, then on the verge of his accession, took no notice of her.

Five summers had gone and with Sophie’s encouragement the plan had not died. The Dowager Archduchess at Vienna, although a Hapsburg by marriage, remained closely linked to her Bavarian kin. At heart she was a Wittelsbach, determined—like Ludovika—to further the interests of her own house. But added to this loyalty of the clan there existed another and far more potent factor. Sophie loved her first-born, Franz Joseph, with a passionate adoration. Jealously she scanned the marriage marts of royalty for a consort worthy of her boy whose exalted station no less than his extraordinary good looks made a choice particularly difficult. The proud mother did not want to surrender him to a charmer. Only recently a candidate had appeared in Budapest: the young Archduchess Henriette, daughter of Hungary’s Palatine Joseph. But Henriette was much too pretty. Far better a plain wife, even a homely one, who would not crowd Sophie out of Franz Joseph’s heart. Nené? Why not? She was a niece, duly in awe of her magnificent aunt. Given such a starting point, the prerogatives of a mother-in-law might grow unlimited. Yes, Nené would do. Another meeting of the young people must be arranged at Ischl. The boy Emperor, who neared the age of twenty-three, would recognize his duty as a monarch and offer no resistance. Sophie must have felt confident of this when she issued the invitation to her sister at Possenhofen.

Only one person seemed unhappy about the plan. This was Duke Max. Gustaf Lampel knew that his master lay awake during such nights as he spent at home, brooding about the Viennese negotiations. What the valet could not guess was that Duke Max tried vainly to compute the exact ratio of Nené’s transgression against Mendelian law if she, the child of cousins, married the son of her mother’s sister, which sister was also a cousin of Nené’s father at the same time that she was the mother of Nené’s own cousin and husband. Such ruminations confused and exhausted him until he arrived at the sober conclusion that the Wittelsbachs stayed at home too much. They had stayed at home for generations—seeing, marrying, breeding only Wittelsbachs. If this kept on, somebody would one day feel an impulse to lock them up and throw away the key. The picture did not look cozy. It invariably made Duke Max reach for his hat.

But whatever his own qualms might be, the present orgy of packing disclosed that Ludovika’s mind was made up. As the lock of the portmanteau snapped shut the matrimonial pilgrimage to the Austrian Salzkammergut had become a certainty.

Light footsteps approached from an upper story and a moment later Nené, clad in poorly fitting tweeds, stood before her mother. She looked a trifle glum and ill at ease. Strangely affected, Duke Max avoided meeting his daughter’s gaze as she bade him good-by. For that matter, Ludovika herself looked none too happy. The long mountain journey (Ischl, near Salzburg, lay in the heart of the Austrian Alps) appalled her somewhat. She doubtless knew that with an ungainly daughter and an ambitious plan for her only companions, the trip would not be a merry one. It was uncertain which of the two she dreaded most being alone with.

At this point Duke Max was visited by a brilliant flash of thought. Brilliant flashes of one sort or another characterized him.

Why don’t you take Sisi along? he asked, the while, still clutching paper and quill, he meandered back in the direction of his study.

Ludovika was non-plused. Devoted mother though she might be, this was one time when her remaining offspring would have to be deserted.

I certainly think, insisted the Duke, that you ought to take Sisi.

But she was not included in—er—the arrangements. Sisi is only a child.

All the better. She’s jolly. She will keep you amused without knowing that she is amusing anybody but herself.

The more Ludovika considered this idea, the better she liked it. To include in her train the fifteen-year-old tomboy Elisabeth, known to everyone as Sisi, gave an entirely new note to the venture. In Sisi’s irrepressible and bubbling presence there could be little chance for gloom. Here was a solution. Decidedly, Sisi must be added to the baggage. Gathering up her skirts, the Duchess hastened upstairs to the old nursery wing, there to engage in an additional frenzy of packing. Her husband and the others remained behind, forgotten.

In proposing their second daughter as a bit of cheer on a journey otherwise cheerless beyond words, the Duke had acted purely on impulse. Fourth in order among the children (two boys, one of them dead, had been born before Nené) Elisabeth was her father’s favorite. Of an entire family whom he forever strove to escape, this daughter alone had a deep and lasting hold over him. Only by Sisi did he feel himself completely understood. Unlike her brothers and sisters who embodied the Munich traits of clannishness and introspection (a dynastic propensity of which the gay beer-drinking public was totally unaware), Elisabeth shared her father’s claustrophobia and became a partner in his numerous flights from reality. It was she who made him grasp, if only dimly, that the thing from which he wanted to flee quite possibly was not reality at all. Perhaps the Wittelsbachs themselves were unreal, while the rest of the world—but neither he nor Sisi ever came nearer an answer than that.

She had been born at forty-three minutes past ten o’clock on Christmas Eve of the year 1837. Sunday’s child. Duke Max remembered every detail: even before the umbilical cord was cut a door opened and into the room of the Duchess poured a cluster of ministers and courtiers who, in obedience to strict precedent, must bear witness that no substitution of infants had taken place. Although the Possenhofen clan enjoyed only a secondary importance and was not in direct line for the Bavarian succession, each visitor observed to his own satisfaction the nature and gender of the new arrival. Next, amid conversational chatter and clatter, the Duchess completed her function and a protocol was set up to perpetuate the entire proceedings. This document must be filed in the Geheimes Hausarchiv together with untold others from which it differed in one respect. The little Christmas Princess had been born, like Napoleon at Ajaccio, with a tooth in her mouth. Added to the special day of the week at a festive time of year, this circumstance lent itself to glorious prophecy.

Queen Elisabeth of Prussia, a Wittelsbach aunt by virtue of being Ludovika’s oldest sister, became godmother to the infant. Her name was quickly changed to the more intimate Sisi, deemed more fitting for a little girl.

Of the five children that followed, three were to acquire equally rare nicknames. Karl Theodor, born in 1839, chortled to his baby self with a peculiar cackling sound, whereupon he was called Gackl, the Bavarian peasant vernacular for a barnyard fowl. Marie, two years younger, escaped unlabeled. But the delicate Mathilde, born in 1843, seemed to call for a descriptive effort; they named her Spatz (sparrow). Again, four years later, there was a girl named Sophie who retained her identity, but Maximilian Emanuel, rounding the circle in 1849, lost his to the slightly nonsensical Mapperl. Nobody knew what Mapperl meant, yet it offered distinct advantages over Maximilian Emanuel when applied to a small boy.

The children grew up in carefree abandon. This was largely due to a certain informality that pervaded the parental establishment. Duke Max himself looked upon life with an air of whimsical detachment. Although a native of Munich, he had the habits of a typical Bohemian. Nature and the muses captivated his fancy; he painted, wrote poetry (not very good poetry), sang dialectic roundelays and played the zither. His favorite garb was the alpine costume of Tyrolean huntsmen; he wore a feather in his hat, short leather pants, hobnailed shoes and Wadelstrümpf’—the latter being fragments of socks which covered the calf of the leg but left knee and ankle bare.

As cousin twice removed to Bavaria’s ruling King, the Duke enjoyed the minor title of "Herzog in Bayern as opposed to the more regal Herzog von Bayern." His military rank was that of a cavalry general. Now and then he donned uniform and led his regiment in a parade. But for the most part, time hung heavily on his hands, to do with as he pleased. He spent two-thirds of the year away from home, scaling the Dolomites in northern Italy or camping on the classic plains of Asia Minor, Egypt, Greece. On returning to the bosom of his family he related his adventures in glowing word pictures, carrying away the listener on a wave of romantic prose. After this he retired to his study for long spells of dreamy absentmindedness, forgetting even his meals unless they were brought to him on a tray. Often the children went for days without seeing their father, even though they knew him to be at home.

We can hear him whistle, they declared emphatically.

Innately democratic, Duke Max had a wide assortment of friends. First among these was Johann Petzmacher, son of a Viennese tavern keeper, whose originality as a doggerel rhymester made him an asset in any gathering. The Duke had picked him up at a Bamberg beer festival. Henceforward, despite great consternation on the part of the Duchess, Petzmacher became musician-in-extraordinary at Possenhofen. He also proved a resourceful traveling companion; together master and minstrel made a journey to the Nile where they visited Gizeh and played the zither atop the Pyramid of Cheops.

Kaspar Braun, founder and editor of the Fliegende Blätter, was another of the Duke’s cronies. He belonged to the round table of Arthurian Knights over which Duke Max presided as toastmaster and chief raconteur. Between drinking bouts the fourteen courtly brethren played an exceedingly clever game called Leberreime, which was much in vogue among wags of that time. Its object was to improvise, somewhat after the manner of Schnitzelbank, a series of lightning-quick rhymes on the theme of that necessary organ, the liver. Much hilarity and no earthly gain could be derived from this happy pastime. True, the Duchess frowned. But the round table disposed of her bilious censure by finding a rhyme for it. She was exhorted, for the sake of her liver, to have a drink and be a forgiver.

In an atmosphere of this sort it would have been difficult, if not impossible, to smother a brood of eight lively youngsters. The children ran wild over the picturesque grounds that stretched along the shores of Lake Starnberg, scarcely fifteen miles from Munich. Possenhofen, like many members of the family, had been endowed with a nickname of its own. They called it Possi. Everyone loved Possi. In the center of the estate stood an old moated castle with high towers flanking the four corners and holding a pointed roof between them. To the back lay the stables, a carriage house and mews, a diminutive dairy, as well as the keeper’s lodge. Frankly the whole place looked somewhat run down, since the Duke had not much money. The floors in the great mansion needed repairing, the staircase swayed perilously under the onslaught of galloping feet, the attic was alive with bats. Many of the plants, carried thither from Italy or the Levant and left to grow in idle profusion, imbued the whole scene with a jungle quality. The clear mountain air and dazzling Bavarian sunlight added an ineffable splendor to this far from splendid picture.

Despite enervating influences at work to thwart her disciplinary measures, Duchess Ludovika strove constantly to establish order amid chaos. She liked a formal routine and insisted upon early breakfast with all her offspring properly brushed and appareled, sitting in a semicircle about her. No morning dip in the nearby lake was allowed to break this rigid rule. Even so, there were complications. Duke Max, who was an ardent fisherman, took to his oars at dawn. The children were obedient; they did not go along. But they gathered near the shore with buckets and spades—in their best bibs and tuckers they dug worms for their father. This spoiled many a breakfast.

By the time Nené, Sisi and their oldest brother Ludwig had out-grown the nursery and required schooling, a governess was engaged from Germany. This lady (born Baroness Luise Wulffen, later Countess von Hundt) shared Ludovika’s pedantry as well as her fatuous love of detail. Impressed by her professional connection with a ducal household, the young woman kept a diary and made careful notation of her experiences at Possi. The governess was also an industrious correspondent. To a former schoolmate in Dresden she sent descriptions of the children in her care. Nené, ran her observations, is morose and domineering in character, a bad influence over the others, especially over Sisi who is too tender-hearted and far too scrupulous. In regard to their physical appearance, the letters had not much flattery to offer. Ludwig is at the awkward stage of a growing Schnauzer puppy, whereas the girls have round pink faces like peasants. Sisi’s hair is bleached by the sun to a crisp yellow straw. In short, the aristocratic hireling found her charges not at all aristocratic to behold.

Fräulein Linda, the Dresden recipient of Baroness Wulffen’s letters, learned also about Possenhofen and its adult occupants. She visualized the ancient castle, shaken with bustle and commotion. She enjoyed a mental picture of earnest Ludovika bent upon enforcing the formalities of life and chiding her household for mumbling instead of speaking succinctly what there was to say.

"Sie schnuseln alle so!" complained the Duchess.

Similarly there appeared in the paragraphs penned by the chatty governess occasional masterful strokes delineating that rare personality, Ludovika’s husband. Duke Max, from all accounts, was thoroughly liebenswürdig (amiable). Many a time the writer had seen him sitting helpfully on his wife’s valise. Since Fräulein Linda was possessed to an unusual degree of that hoarding instinct—or plain human inertia—which causes papers to accumulate and survive the generations that inscribed them, posterity is able to recapture flashes of a lifelong past. On brittle pages lying now in the archives of the archducal palace at Wallsee a bit of dried ink lends shape to these Wittelsbachs who are no more.

The pigments of contemporary painters and portraitists corroborate Baroness Wulffen’s description of the little girls. Sisi in particular looked nondescript at nine. But the years were to bring a change. While Nené remained mouse-like and sallow, the younger sister began with the first signs of adolescence to blossom into loveliness. Slowly her hair darkened from blonde to glorious auburn and the round childish face lengthened into exquisite oval. At fifteen, Princess Elisabeth enchanted the eye.

And it was now that she would be taken as ballast on a journey to Ischl.

CHAPTER 2

FROM the outset the trip became a memorable one. This was primarily because of the plan.

The plan, palpable though not visible, rode in the stagecoach as its most important passenger. The Duchess wore it on her face in place of all expression, just as her upright posture proclaimed that the plan shrouded her with a vast dignity. Similarly, Nené was overwhelmed by it. She sat beside her mother in rigid composure, thinking severe young-lady thoughts and rehearsing her parlor manners.

Not so Elisabeth. As yet no one had bothered to explain this sudden excursion into the Austrian Alps. Sisi accepted it as one of the ever-recurring jaunts that lent variety to her parents’ temperamental scheme of living. At the last minute she herself had been included without warning; her ludicrously small canvas satchel contained only the most perfunctory necessities. But she was looking forward to a gay time. She adored travel. Her quick little tongue wagged incessantly while the heavy carriage rumbled over the post road that led from Munich to the border.

The Duchess was grateful for Sisi’s inexhaustible flow of conversation. Ordinarily a prompt stop would have been put to the younger daughter’s prattle but today this monologue served rather to distract than to annoy. Sisi’s chatter helped to keep Ludovika’s mind off Nené, who looked as if she were going to the dentist. Nené was scared. The knowledge that she would soon face a climax in her hitherto uneventful existence, a decisive moment which must determine her entire future, unnerved the homely Princess. She seemed even more peaked and hapless than usual.

Ludovika wondered. After one glimpse of this wan candidate could the young Emperor be persuaded to take her? There were rumors that he cared for that pretty and vivacious Magyar, the daughter of the Hungarian Palatine. Luckily Henriette had other suitors, among them Crown Prince Leopold of Belgium, whose troth she might accept before Franzi quite made up his mind. Duchess Ludovika wished the Belgian Crown Prince every sort of good fortune. Besides, Henriette had a wild Hungarian temper and she was said to incline toward plumpness. Duchess Ludovika hoped Franz Joseph had heard about that. At least no one could say that Nené inclined toward plumpness; her collarbone showed through the most determined disguise of passementerie and flouncing.

Far more dangerous than the giddy Henriette, however, was a coquettish Countess Elissa Ugarte in whom Franz Joseph had of late shown great interest. It was an open secret in court circles that the Ugarte was the Emperor’s favorite dancing partner. Measured beside this international beauty, what could be said for Nené’s sparing charms? Ludovika preferred to leave that question unanswered.

Yes, for the time being, the Duchess was glad to have Sisi along. But her joy did not last long, for soon after the Bavarian lake country had been left behind there was trouble. Whenever a stop was made to rest and feed the horses, Elisabeth could be found out in front exchanging confidential data with the attending grooms. She had a collection of pets at home: a deer, a lamb, innumerable rabbits, chickens and a family of guinea fowl. Besides this she had a riding horse of her own. Thus her interest in zoological matters amounted to virtuosity. She was naturally fascinated by the information to be gleaned from contact with burly coachmen and stableboys. In addition to their specific knowledge Sisi had already picked up a fluent mountain dialect. She commanded a richly flavored vocabulary that would have baffled the Duchess.

As it happened, the Duchess was already baffled. She had suddenly recalled the scantiness of Sisi’s wardrobe, the few schoolgirl frocks that had been snatched up during the last hurried minutes before departure. If the girl took part in watering the beasts and handling buckets of soaked barley there was no telling what she might look like before the end of the journey. Besides, and here Ludovika took up once more her cudgel against the insouciance of life at Possenhofen, one must teach this turbulent youngster to respect the social barriers. Sisi was cousin to emperors and kings. A princess! It was high time that she learned to behave like one.

A long pause had been made in Salzburg. After a nervous meal the anxious mother seized upon this opportunity to deliver her curtain lecture. It was most urgent, she boomed, that Elisabeth conduct herself in a manner more becoming to her station.

Bewildered, Sisi promised to reform. She would be a lady. She would refrain from taking Nandi, the old carriage attendant, by the hand and giving him a confidential punch in the ribs. What was more, she would henceforth call him by his proper name, Ferdinand.

Herr Ferdinand, mused the Duchess, will be better.

Sisi agreed. But once on the open road again, she forgot. Near Traunstein a busy inn beckoned from the wayside, its low drinking trough stretched out invitingly beside the gate. At sight of this the horses neighed and came to a sudden halt, snorting and tossing their heads in anticipation of the cool water. Again Elisabeth’s urge for collaboration became too much for her. In an instant she had jumped to the ground. Coaxing one of the animals to take a satisfying drink, she pulled its mane, slipped, fought for balance and fell backward into the shallow trough.

At first the damage did not appear serious, for with the help of Herr Ferdinand the back of Sisi’s dress had been speedily wrung out. But closer inspection left little hope for the front. Blouse and collar were spattered with foam from the horse’s bit and harness, while mud oozed squeakily over the tops of her scalloped boots.

Ludovika emitted a piping gasp that sounded like a flute. For a moment she considered returning to Possenhofen and dropping the Ischl expedition altogether. Next, she resolved to send back the dripping girl by the noon post with orders that she go to bed for a week. But finally her ire crystallized into a more practical measure. Of course Sisi must be punished, but this ought not to happen at the expense of Nené’s future. Sisi would suffer banishment from the comfortable coach in which traveled her mother and sister. For the remainder of the journey she must share a bench with Fräulein Rodi, the companion lady, who rode atop a luggage cart bringing up the rear of the ducal caravan.

Elisabeth did not mind. The luggage cart was open to the breeze like an English surrey and afforded no end of entertainment, in addition to which Fräulein Rodi welcomed her visitor with genuine enthusiasm since up to this point the lady’s maid had had a lonely time of it. From now on all went well. Far ahead in their carriage-and-four the Duchess and Nené rolled along in gloomy silence while behind them, enveloped by a cloud of dust and hilarity, Sisi and her companion held sway over the trunks.

It was late afternoon when the party arrived at Ischl, where the imperial family had already congregated. In addition to the large Hapsburg clan a number of Wittelsbach relatives were also spending their holiday at the famed resort. There was Sisi’s godmother, Queen Elisabeth (Auntie Prussia, wife of Friedrich Wilhelm IV of Hohenzollern), with her asthma and her favorite nephew Ludwig of Hesse. She had brought the Hessian lad so that he might make the acquaintance of his Danube and Isar kin.

From Vienna came the Archduchess Sophie with her husband, Franz Karl, who bore his wife’s lasting disapproval because he had declined the Austrian crown after his brother Ferdinand’s cheerful abdication. That was in 1848 when for a brief spell Europe considered democracy fashionable. But it would never be the fashion with Sophie. While Ferdinand and Franz Karl dipped a tasty cruller into their mild breakfast coffee at the Hradschin palace in Prague, she decided that the republic was a fraud. Austria needed an emperor—and her son Franz Joseph had just come of age. So she made him emperor with the aid of the counter-revolutionist leaders, Radetzky, Jellacic and Windischgrätz. Not in vain had it been whispered along the Ballplatz during those timorous days, The only person wearing pants at the Hofburg is the Archduchess Sophie! She wore a general’s helmet to boot.

Even so, her managerial prowess suffered an occasional setback in other quarters. For several years she had done battle with her second son, Ferdinand Maximilian, over his infatuation for a certain Countess Paula von Linden. Despite a cruise to the Orient, during which the enamored Archduke had been ordered to forget his giddy ballroom romance, his madness continued unabated. At the present moment Maxl was in Vienna searching in vain for the little Linden who, during his absence, had been spirited away to parts unknown. Even while the affairs at Ischl were uppermost in her mind, the Archduchess Sophie could not help wondering what manner of trouble her lovesick son might conjure up next. One could never tell about Maxi. It was a good thing that she had brought the two youngest boys, Karl Ludwig and Ludwig Viktor, with her. They were of no particular help during the pending business of urging a wife upon Franz Joseph, but as long as she kept them separated from Maxl she could be sure that they were also kept out of mischief.

Although Bad Ischl had long been a favorite playground of the Hapsburgs due to the fact that their ancestor, Archbishop-and-Duke Rudolph, owed his health to the miraculous springs, the imperial family held no property there. The Kaiser Villa was rented from one of the town’s leading burghers while plans for a more suitable residence eventually took shape. In the meantime there was little room for anyone but members of the immediate family circle to be quartered under the same roof. Duchess Ludovika and her daughters put up at the provincial hotel across the square. It was the same hostelry where a few seasons ago she had lodged with her younger children, Gackl and Spatz, only to be received by a doorman armed with a covered hamper and a bird cage. The well-meaning servant had misread her telegram and, unfamiliar with Wittelsbach nicknames, looked for the arrival of a gamecock and a canary.

The present occasion allowed for no such error. Rooms had been ordered well in advance by the imperial mistress of the household. No sooner had the travelers been led upstairs than the Dowager Sophie burst in upon them. Where was Nené? Could she be dusted off at once and sped over for a cup of tea? Franzi, the Emperor, was not in a happy mood. It seemed that he had come to Ischl under protest and that he showed little curiosity about meeting any sort of bride. In fact, things had become crucial; he was about to leave. It was of the utmost importance that Nené make a good impression, otherwise the unwilling bridegroom would be capable of abrogating his mother’s bargain.

Ludovika looked at her eldest daughter. Now, if ever, Nené should have been a vision of loveliness. But critical survey disclosed that she was not even presentable. Her straight dark hair, confined in the intricate web of a pompadour, hung here and there in dreary strands. Due to nervousness the girl’s hands were clammy with cold and the tip of her nose had turned red. There was a frightened quiver about the thin lips, where large teeth gnawed at the flesh in an effort to draw more of the same color. All this in combination with a wrinkled traveling dress would hardly