Vienna Hofburg - Imperial Apartments, Sisi Museum, Silver Collection

With time, Elisabeth learns to defend her interests at court and begins to lead a life in line with her own ideas. She now does exactly what she wants and increasingly refuses to fulfil her offical obligations as empress. Franz Joseph and Elisabeth have become estranged. Elisabeth finds the lure of the infinite ocean irresistible and dreams of soaring free like a seagull: I am a seagull, from no land... In order to distract herself Elisabeth goes on long journeys and seeks out refuges, places where she can live in freedom. These include the Hungarian chateau of Gödöllö near Budapest, the Hermesvilla in the Lainzer Tiergarten on the outskirts of Vienna as well as the Achilleion on the Greek island of Corfu. Here she has a magnificent villa built in Pompeian style and named after her favourite figure from Greek mythology, furnishing it with valuable antiques. But only a short time afterwards the increasingly restless empress loses interest in the Achilleion too and has it put up for sale. In the event, it remained unsold until afer her death.

Elisabeth, who has written poetry since her youth, increasingly uses her romantic versifying as a means of escape. She worships Homer, and writes numerous poems inspired by her great idol, the German poet Heinrich Heine, which reveal not only her disappointment, melancholy and longings but also her misanthropy and increasing isolation. She begins to identify with Titania, the fairy queen from Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. In order to please his wife, Franz Joseph even has her bedroom at the Hermes Villa in the Lainzer Tiergarten in Vienna, which she calls “Titania’s enchanted castle”, decorated with scenes from A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

“Never stay in one spot for long“, writes Elisabeth. Elisabeth’s wanderlust becomes increasingly intense – the further away she is from Vienna the more at ease she feels. With the excuse of seeking relief for her poor health, the empress goes on long journeys, eager to encounter foreign lands and cultures. Above all she loves travelling by ship, especially when the sea is rough, so she can feel close to the elements. On the deck of her yacht is a glass pavilion from where she has an unobstructed view of the ocean. Here she has herself bound to a chair when storms rage, when the crew fear for their lives, declaring: “This I do like Odysseus, because the waves lure me”.

This 63-piece medicine chest was part of the empress’s luggage. As well as numerous mustard plasters, bandages, salves and vials it also contains a syringe filled with cocaine. At that time opiates were used differently to the way they are now in modern medicine. Cocaine was valued for its antispasmodic and antidepressant effects, and it was administered intravenously in the case of menstrual pain and during the menopause.

In contrast to the simple living conditions on board ship, the saloon car built specially for her journeys across Europe is luxuriously appointed. You can enter and explore the reconstruction of the carriage here. The original imperial saloon car can be visited at the Technisches Museum Wien, the Austrian National Museum of Science and Technology.

“Destinations are only desirable because a journey lies in between. If I arrived somewhere and knew that I would never leave again, even a sojourn in a paradise would turn into hell for me”, wrote Elisabeth. Her restlessness increases, and family and confidantes grow ever more worried about the melancholic empress. In 1897 her daughter Marie Valerie writes in her diary: “Unfortunately Mama wants to be alone more than ever ... and only talks of sad things”. And an entry in May 1898 reads: “... the deep sadness that used to descend on Mama only for periods at a Englisch time now never leaves her. Today Mama said again that she often longs for death ...”

In September 1898 Elisabeth is taking a four-week health cure at Territet near Montreux. On 9 September, accompanied by her lady-in-waiting, the Countess Irma Sztáray, she makes an excursion to Pregny in order to visit Baroness Julie Rothschild. In the evening she travels on to Geneva, where she spends the night, intending to return to Montreux the next day. To keep her identity secret, she uses her usual incognito of the “Countess of Hohenembs” when registering at the Hotel Beau Rivage. Despite this precaution, the next morning a Geneva newspaper carries a report that the Empress of Austria is staying at the hotel. This report is also seen by Luigi Lucheni, an Italian anarchist who has come to Geneva intending to assassinate the Prince of Orléans. However, the prince has changed his itinerary at the last moment and will not be visiting Geneva. Lucheni is far from being disappointed – he now has a far more prominent victim in his sights. On the morning of 10th September Elisabeth goes shopping and pays a visit to her favourite patisserie, intending to take the ship back to Montreux in the early afternoon. On the way to the landing stage Luigi Luccheni is lying in wait for the empress. He rushes up to her, stabbing her in the breast with a file. Elisabeth falls to the ground, but believing she has simply been knocked over she gets to her feet in a daze and makes her way on board, not wanting to miss the boat. Shortly afterwards the empress collapses. When her bodice is opened a tiny, inconspicuous stab wound is discovered. The ship returns to shore immediately and the empress is carried back to the hotel, where she dies shortly afterwards. When Franz Joseph receives the news his only words are: “You do not know how much I loved this woman”.

From here you now enter the historic residential apartments of the imperial couple. First you will see the suite occupied by Emperor Franz Joseph which then leads into the private apartments of Elisabeth.

Emperor Franz Joseph chose the Imperial Chancellery Wing for his apartments, which contained both the official state rooms and his private suite, and which he used until his death in 1916. The emperor held audiences twice a week. The times were announced in the Wiener Zeitung, and after one had received an appointment, one climbed the magnificent Emperor’s Staircase and entered this room in which one waited to gain admittance to the Audience Chamber. The special feature of these audiences with Emperor Franz Joseph was that any of his subjects, irrespective of their birth or rank, could ask to speak to their sovereign. As there were only limited rules of dress, one would have seen national costumes alongside tailcoats and military uniforms decorated with orders and medals as well as the silk dresses with trains worn by the ladies present, giving a colourful illustration of the regional and ethnic variety of the Habsburg monarchy. The walls are decorated with three monumental mural paintings by Johann Peter Krafft. They were painted in 1832 and depict important events from the reign of Emperor Franz I, the grandfather of Emperor Franz Joseph.

Here the emperor stood to receive people who had sought an audience with him, and would initiate the conversation himself. On the standing desk lay the audience schedule which listed the people who had been given an appointment for an audience as well as the reason they had come. Here one could introduce oneself to the emperor, thank him for an honour, plead for clemency for oneself or one’s relatives, or present a private matter. Since Franz Joseph received up to a hundred persons in one morning these audiences usually lasted only a few minutes. The emperor ended the audience by inclining his head slightly.