A Marriage is Arranged

 The young Archduke Franz Josef was destined to be Emperor of Austria from the moment he was born, on 18 August 1830, and he was brought up and educated accordingly. Meantime, however, a princess was growing up in Bavaria. One of Archduchess Sophie's sisters, Ludovika, had married Duke Maximilian in Bavaria (his exact title), another member of the royal Bavarian Wittelsbach dynasty. Their eldest children, Ludwig and Helene, were born in Munich. Then, on Christmas Eve 1837, Ludovika again gave birth to a girl, who was baptised Elisabeth Amalia Eugenie.

Duke Max let his eight children grow up naturally. They spent the winters in Munich and the summers in Possenhofen Castle beside Lake Starnberg, where they mixed and played with the peasant children with no class inhibitions. They could ride like circus acrobats almost as soon as they could walk. To the end of her life Elisabeth looked back on her youth - on the freedom and closeness to nature she had enjoyed in her childhood - as a paradise lost. This affected her whole attitude to her future status as Empress of Austria. She never became reconciled to the protocol-ridden formality of life at the imperial court in Vienna. Only in the family atmosphere of the Imperial Villa in Ischl did she feel at home.

Franz Josef succeeded to the throne of Austria in 1848, at the age of 18, after his uncle Ferdinand had abdicated in the wake of the revolutions in Austria and Hungary during that year. Franz Josef's father, Archduke Franz Karl, the next in line, had waived his own claim to the throne in favour of his son. And then, after Franz Josef  had been five years on the throne, the future of the dynasty made it necessary for him to acquire a wife and consort.

In 1853 the matter was taken in hand by his mother, who preferred to see one of her own Wittelsbach nieces on the Austrian throne rather than any stranger. She arranged with her sister Ludovika that the 23-year-old Franz Josef – the world’s most eligible bachelor - would marry his 18-year-old cousin Helene, called “Néné” within the family. The meeting to close the deal took place in Ischl where, as always, Franz Josef was due to celebrate his 23rd birthday on 18 August.

Duchess Ludovika, all set to make the match of the century, also brought along Helene's younger sister, the 15-year-old Elisabeth, affectionately known as “Sisi” (as she herself spelled it). Despite extensive inquiries, no suitable match had been found for Elisabeth in the European aristocratic houses. Her mother was hoping that, as a by-product of her sister's betrothal to the Austrian Emperor, Sisi could maybe obtain the hand of his younger brother Karl Ludwig.

Franz Josef met his cousins at afternoon tea in Mayor Seeauer’s house beside the River Traun, and saw them for the first time since they had last met in Innsbruck five years previously, when Helene had been thirteen years old and Elisabeth almost eleven. From the very first moment he was interested only in little Elisabeth who, all unsuspecting and unabashed, sat at the table watching Helene and the Emperor with curiosity. The consternation of the mothers grew by the minute when they saw that Franz Josef was paying only the most formal courtesies to his intended bride, while all of his attention was concentrated on the younger sister. 

When Sisi did become aware of her cousin's interest in her, she reacted with shyness and embarrassment. But the die was cast. She accepted Franz Josef’s hand in marriage during a romantic trip to the picturesque and historic village of Hallstatt, perched on the sheer side of the lake of the same name.

And so the best-laid matchmaking schemes of the mothers suffered shipwreck. From the moment he set eyes on Sisi, Franz Josef had no intention of marrying anyone else. All the protests of his mother that Elisabeth was still only a child fell on deaf ears. She was indeed still an unsophisticated child, with a natural grace and unselfconscious innocence which swept the young Emperor off his feet. At the ball the next evening Franz Josef danced the cotillion with Sisi, and the situation was clear to every onlooker. He was the Emperor, and he would make up his own mind on whom he was to marry.

The following day, Sunday, all the citizens of Ischl lining the streets leading to the town parish church of St. Nicholas knew it too. They saw Franz Josef walking to the church door, and next to him his mother, with the guests following. Then came the famous moment. On reaching the church door, Archduchess Sophie stepped aside and motioned to little Sisi to enter the church ahead of her. 

With this unmistakable gesture of precedence by the haughty and protocol-conscious Archduchess it was clear to all those watching that Elisabeth was to be the new Empress of Austria and the first lady of the land. Inside the church, the imperial anthem Gott erhalte... was sung by the congregation to Josef Haydn’s famous music, then Franz Josef took Sisi by the hand, led her to the priest and said "Give us your blessing, father; this is my bride."

The wedding of the century took place the following year in Vienna. On 20 April 1854 the now 16-year-old Duchess Elisabeth in Bavaria tearfully said farewell to her father's household in Munich, where she had a personal gift for every one of the servants. The King of Bavaria arrived in person to see her off, and a huge crowd gathered outside the family mansion.

Sisi left Munich in a coach drawn by six horses. Her family accompanied her to Straubing on the River Danube, where the bride-to-be and her mother boarded the paddle steamer Franz Josef, the largest and most luxurious passenger vessel ever to have sailed on the river, and now so decorated with flowers that it resembled a garden afloat. The journey was a triumph for the new Empress of Austria. All the towns and villages along the great river were festively decorated, bands played, and cheering crowds lined the banks.

Elisabeth's arrival in Vienna was marked by all the pomp and circumstance of the capital city of one of the world's great empires. The marriage took place at 7 o'clock in the evening of 24 April 1854 in St. Augustine's Church, adjacent to the Hofburg Palace. Elisabeth, Empress of Austria, the most famous beauty of the 19th century, was never out of the public eye thereafter. A legend during her own lifetime, she remains to this day a source of endless fascination around the entire world.