Noble Blood - Empress Sisi's Beating Heart

Episode Date: March 29, 2022

Elizabeth was Empress of Austria and Queen of Hungary. She was a beauty icon with long, chestnut brown hair that came down, allegedly to her ankles. But she also lived a life of quiet, lonely depression. She was a ghost, even before her assassination.Support Noble Blood:— Bonus episodes and scripts on Patreon— Merch!— Order Dana's book, Anatomy: A Love Story Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an I-heart podcast. Guaranteed Human. Readers, Katie's finalists, publicists. We have an incredible new episode this week for you guys. We have our girl Hillary Duff in here, and we can't wait for you to hear this episode. They put on Lizzie McGuire at 2 a.m. Video on Demand.

This guy's bobo-bubim. 2 a whatever time it is. Lizzie McGuire. And I'm like, the paper view. It was like a first closet moment from me where I was like, I don't feel like she's hot, like the rest of that. No, no, no. I was like, she's beautiful.

But I'm appreciating her. in a different way than these boys are. I'm not like, but listen to Los Coleristas on the Iheart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or whatever you get your podcast. Welcome to Noble Blood, a production of IHeart Radio and Grimm and Mild from Aaron Manky. Listener discretion is advised. On September 10, 1898, the streets of Geneva bustled with their normal Sunday fair. Families strolled down the waterfront along the.

western bank of Lake Geneva, ready to spend the afternoon lounging on park benches that overlooked the snowy caps of the Alps in the distance. Among the crowd, two women were walking down the Quad de Mont blanc to board a steamship set for the nearby Swiss city of Montreau. From afar, nothing about the pair was particularly remarkable. They were well-dressed, one in a light, modest dress, while the other was draped dramatically in black fabric from head to toe, the sole exception being the white parasol that she held low above her head. But as the two women ascended the gangplank, muffled whispers and subtle pointing fingers began pointing out the cracks in their otherwise unremarkable facade.

The taller of the two women, the one in black, her fan tight enough for her knuckles to strain against the fabric. Her dress, while undoubtedly expensive, was speckled with dust, only somewhat hastily wiped away. Her companion in the light-colored dress talked to her in hushed tones, scanning her body with an expression of deep concern. As the ship left the port, the whispers continued to spread across the deck, like smoke trapped under glass, tendrils slowly expanding until they clouded everything else in sight. Did you see what happened down there? That man came out of nowhere. He pushed that woman in the fancy black dress to the ground. Who would do such a thing? But all of the whisper stopped

when the woman in black collapsed on the ship's deck. A moment of deafening silence gave way to a flurry of panicked bodies, searching desperately for aid. But the ship had already cast off into the harbor, and there was no doctor on board. With shaking hands, the woman's companion in white quickly cut open the woman's corset to help her breathe, only to pull back in horror when she found a small brown stain spreading across the woman's chest. Forgoing any last attempts at anonymity, the woman in white, the Countess Zarae, called for the captain and demanded that he turned the ship back to port. When asked for a reason why,

the prominent noble lady told the captain, with all the remaining poise she had, that Elizabeth, the Empress of Austria, had been stabbed. Officially, the Empress was not in Geneva at all. She had been traveling under the pseudonym, Countess von Hoennims, during her excursions for the sake of privacy as well as safety.

There had been increased reports of assassinations, assassination attempts on European monarchs in recent years, and since the Empress refused to travel with a guard, a gnome de Guerre was necessary for her travels. However, just the previous day, a newspaper in Geneva had caught wind of the ruse and published the Empress's whereabouts in an article that found its way into the hands of an Italian anarchist named Luigi Luceni. The following day, the man sat stationed outside the Empress's. hotel, a needle file hidden in the right sleeve of his coat as he waited for his moment to strike. Back aboard the ship, the crew hastily scrambled to assemble a stretcher out of spare oars and sails, while the captain slowly turned the ship back to shore. On the deck floor, Elizabeth briefly breached through the surface of consciousness and reached

for her lady in waiting. Are you in pain, the countess asked. No, the Empress replied weakly. The attack had been so sudden, the assailant vanishing so quickly, that Elizabeth had been unaware that she had been stabbed at all. The autopsy would later reveal Luceni's weapon had pierced clear through the Empress's heart, and although her famously tight corset had staunched the bleeding long enough for the Empress to board the ship, Without constant pressure on the wound, her heart began pumping blood freely into her chest.

From where she lay, Elizabeth stared up at the sky. The same sky she used to spend hours playing under as a child. The sky she so often wished she could run under instead of being trapped behind palace walls. And as her heart beat its way ever closer to death, she used her last moments of consciousness to ask a simple question, a question she had no doubt asked herself countless times throughout her life. What has happened? I'm Dana Schwartz, and this is Noble Blood. One quick warning just before we begin, this episode does delve into a discussion about eating disorders,

and so if you're specifically sensitive to that sort of content, this might not be the episode for you. Empress Elizabeth of Austria, who was known to her. to her friends and family as Cece never wanted to make history. She was born Elizabeth Amelais Eugenie on Christmas Eve 1837. To her parents, Princess Ludvica of Bavaria and Duke Maximilian Joseph, Princess Ludvica was the sixth child of her father, the King of Bavaria's second marriage, while Duke Maximilian was only a member of a junior branch of the Royal House of Vosophila. Wittlesbach, and so Cece was born as a child into a family with no formal ties to daily court life. That normally would have allowed her to live a life without the pressures of court,

but her father took that casualness one step further. In history texts, the characterizations of Duke Maximilian range from childlike to eccentric, but to summarize him in the simplest of terms, the Duke liked to play the part of the pool dad. He had a love of circuses and Bavarian folk music, and according to a self-published account of his time traveling in Egypt, he had apparently ordered his servants to yodel while climbing the great pyramids, as if they were traversing through the Swiss Alps. When the Duke was home, he would often sneak his children out of their lessons so they could play with the local peasant children around Posenhofenhof in Castle. And so Cece and her siblings spent their summer

riding horses, swimming, and hiking across the Bavarian countryside like a troop of von Trapp children, minus the Nazis and Liederhausen made of curtains. Unfortunately, though, this is about the time I should remind you that this is a podcast called Noble Blood, and from here, Cece's life begins to take some dark turns. But to fully appreciate Cece's story, we need to zoom out a little bit and understand the context for what Europe was going through in the middle of the 19th century. Now, it would be impossible for me to summarize the events leading up to the mass political upheavals in 1848 all across Europe,

a series of collective and individual events on a dozen different fronts that are often lumped together in encyclopedia entries under the revolutions of 1848. But for the purposes of this episode, here is what you need to know. In the wake of the Industrial Revolution, most of the jobs of the peasant working classes became obsolete. Artisans were replaced with machinery and poverty, combined with urbanization, made tensions between the upper class who wanted to preserve their power and didn't want to be reminded that poor people still existed. And the lower class, who wanted to be given basic human rights and be represented by a government who actually cared for their well-being, rose to a boiling point. All of this was occurring in a climate in which the old

ideas of the divine rights of the monarchy were beginning to seem a little obsolete. The legal and symbolic power of kings across Europe was dwindling. Naturally, in response to the demands of the working class, the Austrian government restricted freedom of speech, gatherings of university fraternities, then demanded absolute loyalty to the Austrian government. As you can probably imagine, this didn't go well with the working class, and after a series of appointments and resignations following the resignation of the foreign minister, Prince Metternich, Emperor Ferdinand I of Austria was forced to abdicate the throne. The next in line for the throne was a man named Archduke Franz Karl, who, at the urging of his wife,

would renounce his claim to the throne so that their son, Franz Joseph, would become the new emperor of Austria. Let me say that one more time. Archduke Franz Karl gave up the opportunity to be the emperor of Austria because his wife, Archduchess Sophie, told him that he should take a step back

and let their son ascend to the throne. Convincing her husband to renounce his title maybe the easiest way to characterize what type of person the archduchess was. Sophie knew that her husband would be a poor ruler, but more than that, she knew that even though she would technically be the empress, she would be giving up all of the power that she actually had over the empire, in exchange for a symbolic crown. But if her son were appointed, she would miss out on the title of empress,

but behind the scenes, her 18-year-old emperor's son, would be asking for her counsel on all of the important government matters. Sophie would hold more power pulling the strings than being the party-throwing marionette. And so the young emperor and his mother ascended the Austrian throne. By 1853, five years later, the 1848 Hungarian uprisings had been long since quelled, thanks to assistance from Russia, but the approval of the young emperor remained staggeringly low.

His indecision and ultimate refusal to offer aid to Russia amidst the outbreak of the Crimean War left him in murky territory internationally. And on the home front, the working people of Hungary had not forgotten their grievances against the emperor

just because a few years had passed. All in all, it was obvious that Emperor Franz Karl needed a PR makeover. And given that the young emperor was 23 years old and still single, the easiest way to fix his image would be turning to an answer that still bolsters royal approval ratings today. They would have a royal wedding.

After careful consideration, the Archduchess Sophie decided that aligning Austria with another connection to Bavaria was the right step forward for the empire. That connection in question would take the form of her sister, Ludovica, and Ludvica's eldest daughter, Helene. And this is how we find our way back to Cece, who in August 1853 found herself packed into a carriage between her older sister and her mother en route

to Austria's imperial summer residence in Bad Acheel to confirm the engagement between Helene and Emperor Franz Karl. With her older sister engaged to the man in charge, the young Elizabeth, then 15 years old, was being brought along to be presented as a possible match for the Emperor's younger brother, Archduke Carl Ludwig. After all, why not try to marry two of your daughters into royalty instead of just the one?

But that plan would quickly dissolve into chaos, the moment that Emperor Franz Joseph caught a sight of young Cece. From here, historians have a few differing opinions as to what exactly happened next. Some historians describe the meeting of Franz Joseph and the young Duchess Elizabeth as an almost Disney-esque fairy tale romance. The way this version goes, the young emperor spot a beautiful young woman, running freely in a meadow, having stopped her carriage to pick wildflowers.

The emperor sees this girl, her long, dark, blonde hair running in soft waves down past her shoulders, and he falls instantly in love, only to then come to realize later that the young woman was actually the younger

sister of his would-be betrothed all along. In another telling, Princess Ludvica suffered from a terrible migraine that delayed their journey, a headache made worse by the fact that when they did finally arrive in Friends Joseph's court, albeit a bit tardy, their luggage had not, meaning that they had to meet the emperor wearing what they had traveled in.

That would have been bad enough, but the trio was dressed all in mourning for an aunt who had recently passed away. And so the three women met the emperor while wearing black conservative dresses, certainly not the gowns that were specifically made to impress royalty. And while the black made Helene with her dark brown hair look pale almost to the point of being sickly, Elizabeth's dark blonde hair and youthful complexion was said to have glowed in comparison. But regardless of which of the versions of the first meeting between Franz Joseph and Cece actually happened, the results were indisputable.

Elizabeth, the younger sister, was the emperor's clear choice for a bride. Sophie, the emperor's mother, recounted an exchange with her son in her diary. She had asked, don't you think that Helene is clever, that she has a beautiful and slender figure? Obviously, she was desperately trying to salvage what was left of the planned engagement. Well, yes, a little grave and quiet, certainly pleasant and nice. nice, yes, but Cece, the emperors' tone brightened after just speaking her name. Cece! Such loveliness, such exuberance, like a little girl's, and yet so sweet. Predictably, Archduchess Sophie was livid.

She had arranged a perfectly suitable marriage with Helene, the obedient daughter of her timid sister, who was almost guaranteed to do anything the Archduchess asked of her. But Elizabeth. Elizabeth was young. Only 15, she had not been given the proper schooling to be an empress. She was a headstrong, free-thinking young woman who wrote horses instead of attending lessons. She did not fit into the carefully carved space Sophie had whittled into her master plan for her son's reign. In the years to come, Cece and the Archduchess would rarely agree on anything, but in this decision, they were both equally troubled. Elizabeth could not imagine what the emperor had seen in her

that would make him choose her over her sister. But beyond that, she could see the writing on the wall. Ironically, the same thing Archduchess Sophie herself had realized when she convinced her husband to cede the throne to their son. Becoming an empress was in honor, to be sure, but not the life that a smart woman would choose for herself if her goal was happiness. To her aunt and future mother-in-law, Sophie, Cece lamented, quote, I love the emperor so much, if only he were not the emperor. The young Elizabeth knew that in accepting Franz Joseph's proposal, she was accepting an entirely new way of life, one without the anonymity or freedom that she had been allowed during her childhood in Posenhofen. But ultimately, there was

no choice. In the words of her mother, who I imagine, was just relieved that one of her daughters had proved suitable, one does not send the Emperor of Austria packing. If there was a honeymoon phase for the happy couple, it didn't last long. Almost immediately, Elizabeth was put into lessons. Each second of her day meticulously planned and accounted for, as she was quickly brought into the fold of Austrian aristocracy. In the movie version, this would be the moment that we get a quick montage sequence, cutting between her awkwardly balancing books on her head and earning a light slap on her wrist for using the wrong spoon during a salad course. But unfortunately for Elizabeth, her life was not a coming-of-age romantic comedy. Instead, her lessons consisted of unlearning the

parts of her childhood that she'd valued the most. She was not. no longer allowed to associate with peasants or servants, no longer allowed to ride freely across the grounds, she was taught the latest dances in court, and, after a not-so-suttle remark made by the archduchess, her new mother-in-law, a tutorial on how to properly brush her teeth. Franz Joseph, her new husband, remained head over heels for his new bride, but he had an empire to run, and Elizabeth found herself increasingly alone in a palace that felt more like a museum than a home. The archduchess hounded her every move, forbidding her to confide in anyone about her homesickness or her growing depression. After all, no one could know that the sovereign was unhappy.

In a poem dated just weeks after their wedding, 17-year-old Elizabeth wrote, quote, oh had I but never left the path that would have led me to freedom, I have awakened in a dungeon with chains on my hands. She became resentful of her new family. She was treated more like a child than a spouse when it came to diplomatic matters. She was otherwise ignored unless she needed to be paraded around court. Cici's depression only worsened upon the realization of another complication, barely a month after the wedding. She was pregnant. The country was overjoyed, a new heir, a new hope for Austria. But as Elizabeth's stomach grew, the light inside her diminished. As difficult as the early months of pregnancy typically are for any new mother,

Cece had the compounded stress of representing a nation to add to the morning sickness. The more she began to show, the more Archduchess Sophie forcibly paraded Elizabeth to the public. Having seemingly lost the freedom even to control her own body, Elizabeth grew exasperated with her mother-in-law, complaining to a lady in waiting, quote, she dragged me out into the garden and declared that it was my duty to show off my stomach so that people could see that I really was pregnant. It was awful. Instead, it seemed to me a blessing to be alone and able to weep. The commoners continued to love the humble young empress, but among the aristocracy, Austria's shining star was losing her lustre. What they had once thought of as

charming, devolved into ill-mannered or even simple-minded, as the court lost patience with each of Elizabeth's social blunders. Producing an heir to the throne may have given Elizabeth some political sway over those in court, but in March 1855, Cece gave birth to a daughter. The child had barely left her body before Elizabeth was cast aside again. Elizabeth was even denied the right to name her own child. The responsibility was instead taken up by Archduchess Sophie, who, after careful consideration, named the little baby Sophie. To absolutely no one's surprise, the Archduchess didn't end her control there.

Before Little Sophie was even born, Elizabeth's mother-in-law had arranged for the nursery to be placed directly adjacent to her apartments, so that if the empress wanted to visit her own daughter, she would have to do so through her mother-in-law. Just a little over a year later, Elizabeth gave birth to her second daughter, Gisela. And for the second time, the heads at court saw a daughter, and turned away in disappointment.

The desperation for an heir to the Austrian throne was great, and Elizabeth was feeling the burden tenfold. It's rumored that after the birth of Gisela, a pamphlet mysteriously made it onto Cece's bedside table, outlining the importance of providing an heir to the nation and the perilous position that she would be in if she were unable to perform her duty. It was never confirmed where the pamphlet came from,

but all signs pointed to a certain mother-in-law, the woman who held the key to Cece's children's nursery. Emperor Franz Joseph, being accustomed to his mother's specific breed of tyranny, didn't see any issues in any of Elizabeth's grievances. Cece had been brought up in a world where status had remained an abstract concept, but to Franz Joseph, whose mother had raised him to be ready to lead a nation by the age of 18, titles and power were an all too real part of his world. They were his world, the very structure that held his reality aloft.

Cece's complaints were as abstract to him as wanting to spend childhood summers befriending local peasant children around Posenhofenhof and Castle. So rather than offer any real solutions, Emperor Franz Joseph reminded his wife of duties that she could be fulfilling for the country. In one letter he wrote, quote, I beg you, for the love you bear me, pull yourself together, show yourself in the city sometimes, visit institutions. You have no idea what a great help you can be to me in this way. It will put heart into the people in Vienna and keep up the good spirit I require, so urgently. And so Cece did. The Austrian public fell more in love with their empress, as she used her free time to visit the hospitals of wounded soldiers and donate to institutions for the mentally ill. The court quietly disapproved of her new social ventures, as they all but eliminated

her distance from the peasant classes, but their scrutiny did not burn as badly as it had from within the palace walls. It was also during this period, though, that Elizabeth's obsession over her appearance would begin to take a clear hold over her life. Cece had always been slender, accentuated further by her height, 5'8, especially tall for a woman at the time.

But after the birth of her first child, Elizabeth began to regularly practice what she called, quote, starvation cures, to bring her weight down to what she considered a normal, quote-unquote, 110 pounds. In addition to her extreme diet and exercise, during the periods in between her pregnancies, Elizabeth also took up the practice of tight-lacing, which, as it sounds, consisted of tying the laces of her corset so tightly that the empress would be short of breath. The term anorexia, as we know it, would not be coined until 1873, but Elizabeth's consistent fasting and almost compulsive need to exercise has often led to posthumous diagnoses that would indirectly come to similar conclusions.

In one instance, her, quote, starvation diet exacerbated her already declining health until she was diagnosed with, quote, green sickness. otherwise known as anemia, which left her constantly exhausted. One physician would note, quote, in the otherwise healthy woman, I found fairly pronounced swelling, especially in the ankles. He would go on to describe her condition as something rare for a woman of her position, as it had not become, quote, regrettably notorious until the war. He called it edema of hunger. From such a young age, Cece face.

scrutiny of her body on a global scale. After all, at the age of 15, her life was forever changed after the Emperor of Austria was moved more by her beauty than that of her sister. As soon as she moved into the Imperial Palace in Vienna, all of the freedoms Cece had grown up enjoying were suddenly taken away from her, and she was reinforced over and over again by those around her with the idea that she served the nation not with her thoughts or ideas, but with her beauty, how she appeared to the people. And again, not to provide a posthumous diagnosis or psychoanalysis because I find that largely unhelpful, but personally, I can imagine that the empress found small comfort in her ability to control

one tiny piece of her existence when she was so powerless everywhere else in her life. Elizabeth's obsession with, quote, health and beauty would unfortunately only compound over time, but after it became evident that she was pregnant with her third child, she was forced to stop her excessive diets and tightlacing, at least for the time being. To her family, this pregnancy was welcome in more ways than one. In a letter from Cece's mother to the Archduches, Ludvica confided that, in regards to Cece's tight-lacing, quote,

Cici has now become so reasonable and conscientious about lacing and tight clothes, a matter that always worried and bothered me. I myself believe that it can have an effect on one's mood, for an uncomfortable feeling like constant embarrassment, may truly put one out of sorts. In 1858, Elizabeth finally gave the empire and her mother-in-law the heir they had,

had so long desired, Prince Rudolf of Austria, and although the child was born healthy, the birth took a difficult toll on the Empress's body. Deprived of the opportunity to breastfeed, thanks to the Archduchess who insisted that it was only suitable for royalty to use wet nurses, Elizabeth suffered from terrible fevers that caused chronic headaches and fatigue. The recovery from the birth was so traumatic that the royal doctors discouraged Elizabeth from having any more children for the sake of her own health. Following the death of her first daughter who succumbed to a fever at the age of two and the subsequent postpartum illness after the birth of Prince Rudolph, Elizabeth's mental and physical health began to deteriorate rapidly. Her refusal to eat only exacerbated

her illness and after exhausting all of the other options, Cece was sent to Madeira as a last Hail Mary attempt to alleviate her symptoms. Though to almost everyone's shock, upon landing on foreign soil, the Empress's condition actually began to improve. The fever stopped, her color returned, and Elizabeth's general demeanor was brighter than it had been in years. She spent her free time reading and writing, learning to play new instruments, and taking up more than one new language. She also wrote frequently to her family, including to the ex-fiancee of her younger sister. That man, King Ludwig II, you might remember from our episode The Swan King. Even though the marriage had fallen through between Ludwig and Elizabeth's sister,

most likely because of Ludwig's interest exclusively in the opposite sex, Ludwig and Elizabeth remained close friends throughout their lives, cousins who shared a love of beauty and who felt comfortable with one another, commiserating in their desires for a more romantic and artistic way of life, and talking about the ways they felt trapped within the walls of their palaces. Perhaps it had been the warm air or the proximity to the ocean, or the distance from a certain mother-in-law that had caused the turnaround. in Elizabeth's health when she was in Madeira,

but as soon as she returned to Vienna in 1861, she almost immediately fell ill again. The root cause of her ailments was becoming harder to ignore. The years away in Madeira had changed her, she was no longer the timid teenager who had silently watched her life slip through her grasps and into the hands of her mother-in-law. When she returned to Vienna,

Elizabeth knew that there was a power that she held. Even the archduchess could not argue with that. Elizabeth had performed her duty and provided an heir to the Austrian throne. Now the crown needed Elizabeth as a symbol for the nation, one that was bright, youthful, but most importantly, beautiful. Elizabeth could not perform her duties while quite literally withering away in Vienna. Her intense shyness wanted anything but to be put up. on public display, but her image was also her one ticket out of the walls of Viennese court.

And so, with a passing regret at the thought of leaving her children, the Empress turned her back on Vienna, never to call it home again. If Elizabeth's fixation on beauty had begun as a simple snowball, she had by this point escalated it to the point of bringing down an avalanche. The Empress had an endless list of exceedingly intricate beauty regimes that make today's capitalist regimen of beauty bloggers look like child's play. The hours of daily exercise never ceased, even at the behest of multiple doctors who examined her throughout her life. In each of her residences, she had the staff-filled gymnasiums so she would be able to exercise without interruption. As the empress grew older, she would require new ladies-in-waiting, ones that were younger, for the ones that grew older with her

could no longer keep up with her rigorous training. Her extreme dieting was equally grueling. To maintain her emaciated figure, the empress took to only eating dairy products and inspecting each of the cows she received milk from, requiring them to travel with her wherever she went. Elizabeth would use nightly face masks of raw veal and strawberries and take baths in warm olive oil to keep her skin smooth and without wrinkles. Elizabeth's niece, Marie LaRiche, described the process by saying, quote, Once the oil was almost boiling and she barely escaped the dreadful death of many a Christian martyr, often she slept with damp clothes over her hips to maintain her slenderness,

and for the same reason, she often drank a dreadful mixture of five or six egg whites with salt. Cezies' hair, which had grown over time from a dark blonde to a rich chestnut, was the crowning glory of the empress's appearance, pun intended. It fell in thick waves, said to have reached all the way down to her ankles. She took the idea of a wash day and truly ran with it. she had a full day scheduled every month solely dedicated to washing her hair, not to mention the daily three hours of brushing and styling necessary, just to maintain it in between those days.

Elizabeth was so obsessive that she would have her hairdressers show her the brush that they used after they completed their task, and she would inspect how much hair she lost each session. One hairdresser took to hiding a strip of adhesive. to the inside of her clothes so that she could hide any rogue hairs that fell out as she went. One of Elizabeth's hired scholars once commented,

quote, Your Majesty wears her hair like a crown instead of the crown. To this, Elizabeth replied, except that any other crown is more easily laid aside. Elizabeth's beauty routines took up substantial portions of every day,

but she didn't simply sit there and watch the time pass. Instead, she used the time to educate herself, hiring scholars and readers to teach her several new languages, including Hungarian, which proved especially useful after Austria was defeated by Prussia in the seven weeks' war. The loss had reawakened Hungary's desire for independence, and Emperor Franz Joseph saw that the unrest would not be quite as easily quilled,

as it had been when he had begun to rule. However, this time, though, he had one thing in his arsenal that was new. Sisi. If there was one thing that the Hungarian people felt more passionately about than their disdain for the emperor, it was their love for the empress. And the feeling was mutual. In the early years of their marriage, the couple had visited Hungary during peacetime.

The empress had fallen completely in love with the Hungarian people and their way of life. Unlike life in the conservative Viennese court, the Hungarian aristocracy was bold, confident in their diamond-studded couture in a way that would have been shunned back in Austria. Elizabeth was smitten. After that early trip,

Cece would ask for a Hungarian lady in waiting to accompany her on her travels. She would also make an effort to learn the language, culture, and history of the Hungarian people. and in return, the people of Hungary were more amenable to the compromises that would eventually give birth to the Austro-Hungarian Empire. In 1867, it was decided that Hungary would no longer be ruled by Austria. It would be an independent kingdom, albeit a kingdom where the king and queen were Franz Joseph and Elizabeth.

After their coronations, Elizabeth allowed herself to become pregnant for the final time. to solidify the compromise and establish their joint rule securely over both nations. In 1868, C.C. gave birth to her fourth child, Marie Valerie, on Hungarian soil. Now 30 years old, Elizabeth was no longer beholden to her overbearing mother-in-law, and she was finally allowed to raise the child herself, far away from the Viennese court. predictably Elizabeth nearly smothered the child with all of the love and affection that she had never been able to give her three older children. The two living elder children of the empress grew resentful of their younger sister,

who was the obvious favorite of their mother. Rudolph, especially, would start to show extreme jealousy toward his sister until the young Marie Valerie became afraid of her older brother altogether. Elizabeth, predictably sided with her youngest, making her elder son hate his little sister all the more. Despite her lacking relationship with Gisela and Rudolph in Budapest, Elizabeth was finally getting everything she had always wanted with Marie Valerie. Unfortunately for her, the hardest was still yet to come. If you're a frequent listener of this podcast, the name Prince Rudolf.

might sound a little familiar. He was the subject of an episode we did on the Maryland incident, a murder-suicide between Prince Rudolph and his 17-year-old mistress, Mary Vitz-Sara. If you want to learn more, I highly suggest going back to that episode for a listen. For Elizabeth, the tragedy would forever alter the course of her life. The days following the tragedy,

the Empress held herself together as best she could, she kept her emotions buried under careful lock and key, a practice that had been fortified by years of royal trained repression. But once the tears began to fall, there was no stopping them. The Archduchess, her mother-in-law, had long since died by this point, but her talons were still visible in Elizabeth's spiraling depression. After watching her only son be interred in the imperial crypt, she remarked, to her favorite daughter, quote, After now, all these people who, from the hour of my arrival here, have said so many bad things about me,

will have the satisfaction after all of seeing me pass on without leaving a mark on Austria. Unsurprisingly, the Viennese court found reason to blame Elizabeth for the tragic suicide of her son. Some, like Elizabeth herself, blamed the madness of the Vittlesbach line. while others sought to scapegoat Elizabeth's travels and her dissociation from court for they neglected Rudolph to suffer enough to drive him to suicide. In the end, the reason didn't matter to Elizabeth. As soon as her

youngest daughter was married, Elizabeth, free from any more familial responsibility, boarded a ship and spent the rest of her days attempting to sail herself away from a life she no longer wanted to live. The empress would spend the next nine years traveling from port to port, her worsening depression making her impulsive and borderline self-destructive. In her travels, there were multiple reported incidents of her attempting to break into random people's homes, prompting the emperor to write to his wife after an especially hostile B&E and niece, where she was almost chased from the establishment by the old woman who lived there, quote, I am glad that your niece indigestion has passed so quickly, and that you did not also get a beating from the old witch.

But sooner or later, that is exactly what will happen, for one does not simply push one's way uninvited into people's houses. The empress's behavior didn't end there. When the weather would shift at sea, Elizabeth would demand to be tied to a chair on the deck amidst the harsh wind, rain, and thunder. I do this like Odysseus, she would say, because the waves tempt me. Her erratic behavior pushed the limits of what even royalty could feasibly get away with. But that had probably been her aim. For so long, Elizabeth had been told how to dress, how to behave, how to simply exist in a world that she had never wanted to be a part of. Now she had no son, no future for her in Austria.

She was a woman with nothing to gain, no one to please, but more importantly, nothing to lose. Who would stop her? The answer would come nine years later on the Croix de Montblanc in Geneva, Switzerland, as Luigi Luceni sat outside the Hotel Beaurevage with a heavy weight in his right sleeve, waiting for his target to emerge. At 1.35 p.m. on September 10, 1898, the Empress left the Hotel Beaurevage dressed in all black, as she had every day since her son's death. She began walking with her lady in waiting, the Countess Stare, down toward the docks to board their ship to Montreau. Despite the desperate pleas from the Swiss police, Elizabeth refused to travel with a guard.

her persistent shyness made her wary of causing a commotion with added security. But even so, some historians remark that she simply felt she had nothing to lose. The former Empress Eugenie of France perhaps best described Cece's final years. Quote,

it was as if one were going, driving with a ghost, for her spirit seemed to dwell in another world. Spotting the two women Luceni pushed his way through the crowd. Once within reach of the empress, he wasted no time pushing her parasol away to confirm her identity.

Then he plunged his makeshift dagger directly into Elizabeth's heart. A collective shock rippled through the crowd as the empress fell to the ground. Onlookers attempted to help the women. The porter from their hotel even came out to check on them, urging the women to return to their room, so the empress could be examined by a doctor.

But by this time, Cece had already managed to get back to her feet. She had assumed a madman had just shoved her to the ground, and desperate to minimize the amount of people who could recognize her, Elizabeth simply thanked the scattered bystanders and let the countess lead her back down towards the docks. It wouldn't be until Elizabeth collapsed on the deck of the steamship that the countess would realize the severity, the severity of the Empress's injuries. By the time the crew managed to assemble their makeshift

stretcher and carry her back to the hotel, it was already too late. When the doctor slid her vein, there was no blood. Elizabeth, the Empress of Austria and Queen of Hungary, was dead. How can you kill a woman who has never hurt anyone? Those were the words Franz Joseph would repeat to himself in the days following his wife's murder. The emperor's first reaction to Elizabeth's death had been grief. He sat stunned as the news washed over him. AIDS attempted to relay the information. There was a telegram from her lady in waiting.

Details on the transport of the body, an autopsy. And that is when grief morphed into confusion. That confusion then morphed into bitter relief. for in the years since their son's death, Franz Joseph was no stranger to Elizabeth's despondent view on life, which is why he was so surprised to learn that his wife had not taken her own life, but rather that someone had taken it from her. His empress, his Cece, had been assassinated.

That brief relief that his wife was free now from the pain and torture that she felt boiled off quickly. Anger was all that was left. How can you kill a woman who has never hurt anyone? Only 48 hours prior, the young anarchist Luceni had not planned to kill the Empress at all. In fact, he had only traveled to Geneva because he had planned on killing the Duke of Orleans, only to find that the Duke had left before Luceni had even arrived. It was only after newspapers picked up on the Empress's whereabouts, in Geneva, that he decided to alter his plans. The man was caught quickly after fleeing the scenes, showing no remorse for his actions. I am an anarchist by conviction, he told the Swiss police.

I came to Geneva to kill a sovereign with the abject of giving an example to those who suffer and those who do nothing to improve their social position. It did not matter to me who the sovereign was whom I should kill. It was not a woman, I struck, but an empress. it was a crown that I had in view. He had requested the death penalty at his sentencing, but Switzerland, having outlawed capital punishment, sentenced Luceni instead to life in prison.

He would hang himself in his cell 11 years later. He spared no thought for the woman behind the title, nor had he seen the frail ghost drifting beneath the parasol, but then again, neither had Austria. When the Empress's body arrived in Vienna five days later, arguments immediately followed over the inscription on the coffin. The original text read, Elizabeth, Empress of Austria, which caused an outcry from the citizens of Hungary until the plaque was changed to read Elizabeth, Empress of Austria and Queen of Hungary. Even in death, her life was still measured in the ways it affected others.

Before her death, Elizabeth had told Murray Valerie, Quote, And when it came time for me to die, lay me down at the ocean's shore. Of course, this last wish was never carried out. Her body was laid to rest in the Imperial Crypt, just as her sons had been nine years earlier. In December 1898, Franz Joseph celebrated the 50-year Jubilee of his reign, though, celebrate, might be the wrong word.

The country was still mourning the loss of their empress, but their grief was also reserved for what her death meant for Austria itself. The death of Prince Rudolf marked the beginning of the end of the Austria-Hungarian Empire. The country was left without an heir, and after the assassination of Elizabeth, their unshakable emperor, was left with another crack in his all-wark. the already crumbling foundation. The end of the empire was within their sights,

and Elizabeth's death was just another nail in its coffin. The actual woman inside the crypt was of little import. In the years to come, Elizabeth's death would be used as fuel to fire propaganda during World War I. In a piece published under the headline, Revenge for Elizabeth, the author writes to the Austrian forces, being sent to the Italian front, quote,

Austria's warriors feel the strength within them to defeat and smash with iron hand, the raised hand of the murderer. It is Luceni's spirit, which leads the army of our enemy. May Elizabeth spirit lead our spirit. From war propaganda to Hollywood blockbusters, portrayals of Elizabeth typically fall in one of two categories.

The first is the emperor, Empress as a regal sovereign, unfairly taken before her time, after giving nothing but love and tolerance in her rule. This version of the Empress found its way into war propaganda, but also into government affairs, such as the Order of Elizabeth, which Franz Joseph created following her death to award women for acts of religious and charitable work. The second version of Empress Elizabeth is the legacy of Cece. It's more a mythologized version of her life than an accurate historical account, people portraying her as a victim of circumstance, the tragic byproduct of a system that took a bright young woman and tried to shape her into what the crown wanted.

In that way, people often equate Elizabeth with Princess Diana, the People's Princess of the 20th century. I think it's a fair comparison. but I also think that maybe people don't realize that those comparisons also hinge on the most easily consumable narrative versions of who those people actually were. The simple fact is that most portrayals of Empress Cece emphasize just how much the myth relies on portraying her as an innocent victim. The name Cece itself evokes this idea of a young girl full of hopes and dreams, a girl who's surprised. when she wins the heart of an emperor who's meant to marry her sister. The name Elizabeth just doesn't elicit the same emotional response. But then again, Elizabeth did not exist for the entertainment of others.

Her life can't be wrapped up in a neat little bow because she wasn't the perfect sovereign, nor was she the humble, compassionate woman of the people that she's often painted as. The truth is, Elizabeth was a complex woman. She married an emperor at 16 and had three kids before the age of 21. She was alone in a strange and overbearing, restrictive formal court. She lost two of her children. But she also had a genuine love for nature, for the places she visited, and for the languages and cultures she immersed herself in.

In the final years of her life, she existed more than she lived. She was drifting from port to port chasing. the open air as it found her. After her death, her daughter, Marie Valerie, found a small comfort amidst the cruel chaos, saying, quote, now it has happened as she always wished it to happen, quickly, painlessly, without medical treatment, without long, fearful days of worry for her dear loved ones. On the deck of the steamship on Lake Geneva, Elizabeth spent her final conscious moments, staring at the open expanse of the bright blue sky above her. But even as the sky began to fade, the sound of waves, which she had long associated with

home, lulled her to sleep. That's the tragic story of Empress Elizabeth of Austria, but keep listening after a brief sponsor break to hear a little bit more about how Cece's legacy continues to persist today. In the 120 years since Elizabeth's death, there have been countless adaptations of the Empress's story across stage and screen, but perhaps none quite as peculiar as the 2014 short film for Chanel by Carl Lagerfeld titled Reincarnation. Lagerfeld, who coincidentally was born on September 10, 1933, exactly 35 years after Elizabeth's assassination, is, of course, the famous designer and fashion icon associated with Shepard. Chanel, Fendi, and strangely detachable collars.

The short film centers around the most famous portrait of Empress Cece, painted by Xavier Winterhauter in 1865. It's a painting where diamond stars adorned the empress's intricately plated brown hair and her voluminous star-adorned white ballgown. Lagerfeld uses this portrait of Cece and the matching Winterhalter portrait of Franz Joseph with his eyes. iconic imperial beard and in full military regalia, as vehicles to tell the origin story of one of Coco Chanel's designs through the lens of a lowly bellhop and bar maiden employed in an Austrian hotel in the early 1950s. The opening shots of the film have the portraits hanging in the lobby of the hotel.

Only inside the frames, the faces are actually Pharrell Williams and Kara Delavine, who are dressed and posed. identically as their historical counterparts. As the hotel bustles to life, we see Kara, quote, reincarnated as a mischievous 1950s bar maiden, and Farrell reincarnated as a much more subdued bellhop who spends the majority of the first act of the movie

pressing an elevator button and not showing emotion. It's only when the film reaches its second act that we see the characters inside the portrait come to life. As the clock strikes midnight, the portraits themselves suddenly lose their subjects to the hotel lobby. The film proceeds to waltz around the room, Cici's flowing white gown fanning out from her frame with each twirl, as shots cut to Farel singing along to this song he wrote especially for the film, titled C.C. The World. Get it? C.C. Coco Chanel. The lyrics are a play, on Chanel's iconic logo with the interlocking seas.

He sings, Could she be the girl to help me see? See the world. While a blonde child in the background chants, slightly menacingly, in my opinion, C.C. Over and over again in rhythm with the music. What's interesting about the film, in my opinion,

is Lagerfeld's use of C.C. in an almost manic-pixie dream girl way, reducing her down to a character that exists solely to push Farrell's character toward the story. Even when Kara gets a turn to sing her verse, it's still in the third person, and she's singing the same lines. Could she be the girl to help you see, see the world?

Not could I, but could she? If you want to find out how the rest of the film ends, you can find it for free on YouTube, but I think in the context, of telling Cece's story and the continuation of her legacy, I'll leave you with this parting thought, even as the child chants C.C. in the background, even as Kara Delavine's presence on-screen

physically dwarfs Ferelles by the sheer size of her gown, in the end, Cece's name and image are, once again, being used to fit someone else's narrative. It's enough to make you wonder, would they even notice if the right real CeC wasn't there at all. Noble Blood is a production of IHeart Radio and Grimm and Mild from Aaron Manky. The show is written and hosted by Dana Schwartz.

Executive producers include Aaron Manky, Alex Williams, and Matt Frederick. The show is produced by Rima Ilkeali and Trevor Young. Noble Blood is on social media at Noble Blood Tales, and you can learn more about the show over at Noble Blood Tales.com. For more podcasts from IHeartRadio, visit the IHeartRadio. app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.