Weidenfeld & Nicolson first edition - 2025
I was delighted when I read about this dual-biography in the 15th March issue of The Spectator, as it concerned two of my favourite 19th century women! Readers - I immediately ordered it. Nancy Goldstone has produced a free-flowing, though detailed, 'popular' account of Eugénie of France and Elisabeth of Austria - although the former was Spanish and the latter Bavarian.
Goldstone's book is more than a dual biography - it is a wonderful gallop through the second half of the 19th century, focussing obviously on the French and Austrian Empires, but also bringing in the whirlwind of ever-changing relationships between the old-established and newly-emerging political entities. We read of how the wily Count Cavour draws Napoleon III into the enticing web of inter-state rivalry in what was to become Italy (ironically the same year that the Emperor lost his throne); of the doomed attempt of the last King of the Two Sicilies, Francis II, and his wife Maria Sophie of Bavaria (younger sister of Elisabeth) to hang on to their throne; the rampaging meteor that was Garibaldi, upsetting everyone's applecart; the so-called mad King Ludwig II of Bavaria (nicknamed the Swan King or Fairy Tale King), Elisabeth's cousin, who apparently took his own life; Count Gyula Andrassy of Hungary, a firm supporter of Elisabeth and both fervent believers in Hungary; Prosper Mérimée, the French dramatist and short story writer and confidant of Eugénie, who died in 1870, the same year the Third Empire collapsed; the wily and ruthless Bismarck and his near-puppet King of Prussia, soon to become Emperor of Germany (proclaimed at Versailles!). All these important figures are brought to life by the author, who shows a sure grasp of her source material. Queen Victoria hovers on the sidelines, ready finally to give refuge to Napoleon III and his family. All three are buried in England. Tragedy looms large throughout: the mad escapade of the Archduke Maximilian, sent to Mexico as Emperor, only to be executed, whilst his wife Charlotte returned to Europe to end her days in an asylum. The tragic episode of Mayerling, where Crown Prince Rudolph first shot his teenage lover, Mary Vetsera, and then himself. It marked the Empress Elisabeth for the rest of her life. The equal devastation for the Empress Eugénie, whose son, the Prince Imperial, was killed in a Zulu ambush in 1879.
Other biographies of Elisabeth, such as Brigitte Harman's The Reluctant Empress (1982) and Andrew Sinclair's Death by Fame (1998) are more measured in their approach, certainly on occasions more critical. Sinclair argued that the Empress never counted the costs of her caprice...she took for granted the subsidy of everything she wanted to do, even though it flouted the traditions of her paymaster. His forbearance was her good fortune and the condition of her rebellion. Elisabeth is portrayed as a narcissist, her 'beauty' condemning her to a lifetime of trying to stem the tide of aging. Her self-confidence increased in the 1860s due mainly from the circumstance of her increasingly more striking beauty. It turned her into a worldwide celebrity. At 5' 71/2", she was taller than the Emperor; her weight rarely varied throughout her life - 110 lbs; her waist was an incredibly tiny 191/2". In 1864, the American envoy to Vienna wrote home: The Empress is a wonder of beauty - tall, beautifully formed, with a profusion of bright brown hair, a low Greek forehead, gentle eyes, very red lips, a sweet smile, a low musical voice, a manner partly timid, partly gracious. Of course, this reputation became more burdensome the more it grew and, especially, as she aged.
Elisabeth simply refused to conform (hence Goldstone's title). She did not play the devoted wife; accept the need for the constant presence of a mother (she must share a portion of blame for her son Rudolph's suicide); nor the role of a principal figurehead in the Austrian Empire. She insisted on her rights as an individual - and she prevailed. That her self-realisation did not make her happy is the tragedy of her life. She was obsessed with her hair and the expense of caring for it huge. It took nearly three hours each day to achieve what she wanted. The older Elisabeth grew, the more strenuous became her struggle to keep her looks. Hours of daily exercise, constant diets; nightly face masks (raw veal, strawberries!) and warm olive-oil baths; damp cloths over her hips to maintain her slenderness; and drinking a mixture of five or six egg whites with salt; all were used to retain her beauty. She had an exercise room installed wherever she lived. She knew her beauty was her power and she used it to fulfil her wishes. It could not last - she was human!
By the late 1890s, Elisabeth was nearing sixty. Prince Alfons Clary-Aldrington, as a small boy, saw Elisabeth in 1896-7: ...this time the Empress did not open her fan! My sister curtseyed, and I made my best bow; she smiled at us in a friendly way - but I was stunned, for I saw a face full of wrinkles, looking as old as the hills.
A major flaw was her bad teeth. Archduchess Sophie had noted and criticised this defect even before Elisabeth's engagement to her son. Thus, from her first day in Vienna, Elisabeth parted her lips as little as possible and her enunciation was soft and indistinct. The actress Rosa Albach-Retty saw Elisabeth in 1898 in a small country inn in Bad Ischl. She was alone at a table. For seconds Elisabeth stared downward, then with her left hand she took out her dentures, held them sideways over the edge of the table, and rinsed them off by pouring a glass of water over them. Then she put them back in her mouth. All this was done with such graceful nonchalance, but most particularly at such lightning speed, that at first I could not believe my eyes.
On finishing Goldstone's account, I found myself having greater sympathy for the Empress Eugénie - reviled by so many of the French simply because she was Spanish but, by and large, doing her very best for her adopted country and would probably have made a better ruler than her husband. As for the Empress Elisabeth, more of a mixed feeling. She hadn't asked to be caught up in the stultifying atmosphere of the backward-looking Viennese court. Her mother-in-law was an absolute dragoon, controlling her daughter-in-law's children from the first; her rigid husband totally under the influence of that mother. In fact, Elisabeth seemingly would have preferred a Republic to an autocratic Empire.
Sic gloria transit mundi.
Other relevant books in my Library include:
Maurice Paléologue - The Tragic Empress (1928) : Harold Kurz - The Empress Eugénie (1964) : David Duff - Eugénie & Napoleon III (1978) : Desmond Seward - Eugénie. The Empress and her Empire (2004)
Brigitte Harman - The Reluctant Empress (1982) and Andrew Sinclair's Death by Fame (1998)
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