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Rumors were rife at court. For example, Therese again: “Yesterday, Aunt Marie visited the Empress; she brought along a large handkerchief, because she thought she would cry a lot; instead, the Empress was very merry, she is infinitely happy about going to Madeira. Aunt was so indignant that she gave the Empress a piece of her mind in a pretty blunt manner: ‘the Emperor is still in Ischl.’”
⁹
What is astonishing is that it was exactly during the days when Dr. Skoda diagnosed a life-threatening illness that Franz Joseph went hunting in Bad Ischl and left his wife in Vienna. He did not return until November 7.

During this marital crisis, obvious to the inner circle at court, all sympathies were unequivocally with the Emperor. Archduchess Therese: “I feel infinitely sorry for him for having a wife who prefers to leave her husband and her children for six months instead of leading a quiet life in Vienna, as the doctors ordered.” And after a meeting with the Emperor:
“it cuts me to the quick to see him so sad and weary. I hope that his children will give him much comfort and cheer this winter.”
¹⁰

Sisi successfully insisted that Countess Esterházy, her mother-in-law’s confidante, stay behind in Vienna rather than coming to Madeira. Therese: “Countess Esterházy is being pushed aside strangely. Instead of her, young Mathilde Windisch-Graetz is traveling to Madeira; it is also strange of the latter to leave her little child.” The behavior of the allegedly mortally ill woman was astonishing: “The Empress is fully occupied with her summer wardrobe for Madeira.”
¹¹

Nothing can be found in Archduchess Sophie’s diary concerning the nature of Sisi’s illness, only regret that the Empress was abandoning her husband and children for so long. “She will be separated from her husband for five months, and from her children, on whom she has such a beneficial influence and whom she really raises so well,” wrote Sophie of all people. “I was devastated at the news.”
¹²

Duchess Ludovika was also more inclined to be astonished at the bad news from Vienna than she was to believe in a potentially fatal illness. “Sisi’s trip worries me a great deal,” she wrote to Saxony, “and it was a great shock, for when she was here, one would not have foreseen such a necessity, although she always coughed a little, especially when she first arrived…. Sadly, she does not take enough care of herself and trusts too much in her strong constitution.” Strange too is Ludovika’s remark, “Since the stay in Madeira is said to be very quiet and, as she writes, very boring, I hope she will soon find opportunity to seek out some amusement.”
¹³

The Viennese court reacted with spiteful glee. It was noted with
gratification
that Archduchess Sophie and the Emperor grew closer again and that, for the time being, the Empress was not around to cause further annoyance. Archduchess Therese wrote, “Now the family dinners will always be at Aunt Sophie’s. I believe that much as she minds that the Emperor is so lonely since his wife left, secretly she is hoping that he will join her more often and perhaps devote most of his evenings to her.” Therese voiced the court position and her own view: “In Vienna, no one has any compassion for the Empress; I am sorry that she could not win the love of the people.”
¹⁴
This statement, however, refers mainly to the aristocracy and to court circles. Among the common people, the young Empress was still popular.

The news of the Austrian Empress’s serious illness created a sensation throughout the world in early November 1860. Offers of help came from the four corners of the earth. Since no suitable ship was available for the
journey to Madeira, Queen Victoria of England made her private yacht available. Ludovika wrote about seeing her daughter again in Munich. “Sisi has become thinner and looks, if not ill, nevertheless not as blooming as last summer; but what is remarkable is the coughing, which has increased a great deal, so that one comes to believe that a warmer climate could not help but be beneficial to her.”
¹⁵
These sentences are remarkably calm for the constantly excitable Ludovika and thus do not fit at all with the newspaper reports that mentioned the Austrian Empress’s imminent demise.

It was also astonishing that Sisi, who was known to despise official calls, used the few hours of her stopover in Munich on formal family visits.

From Munich, Sisi’s trip continued by way of Bamberg (where Franz Joseph took his leave of her) to Mainz. There she spent the night, and the following day she continued on to Antwerp, where she boarded the British royal yacht
Victoria
and
Albert.
Her servants and the luggage followed in the
Osborne.
It is remarkable that almost all the passengers (including the physicians) became seasick during heavy storms in the Bay of Biscay, while the allegedly fatally afflicted Empress was spared.

To this day, the strangest rumors are rife in Vienna concerning the Empress’s illness before her flight to Madeira. Time and again one hears the version of a supposed venereal disease with which the Emperor is said to have infected his young wife. If that were true, the Empress really would have had to be very ill indeed in November 1860. But according to all the reports from her closest family members, she was hardly that.

Corti, Elisabeth’s biographer, came closer to the mark when, discussing the difficulties of November 1860, he wrote, “the cover of illness will reduce all that, and she really is ill, her mental state also affects her body severely. And what would otherwise be a little anemia, an insignificant cough, under such circumstances, almost really an illness.” Nevertheless, out of excessive loyalty to the Imperial House, Corti did not dare to allow himself to publish these sentences and crossed them from the manuscript, as he did the following sentences regarding Archduchess Sophie. “She, however, is fully informed and is merely outraged at Elisabeth, who is unmindful of her obligations and who, in her opinion, was only shamming illness in order to escape winter and to be able to pursue her peculiar habits without constraint.”
¹⁶

Modern medicine would speak less of a mental than of an emotional illness. The Empress’s excessive drive to physical activity, her constant refusal to eat indicate (with all due reservations against such retrospective diagnoses) a neurotic anorexia nervosa, which is often coupled with (somewhat
pubertal) rejection of sexuality. This theory would also explain the fact that Sisi seemed to recover at once whenever she removed herself from Vienna and her husband.

*

In Madeira, Sisi lived a quiet solitary life in a rented villa by the sea. Now and again, the Emperor sent a courier who was to inform himself about her condition and convey letters. The first of these couriers was Joseph Latour. He brought to Munich and Vienna details of Sisi’s “quiet existence and the very calm, sensible suitable life she leads,” as Ludovika wrote to Saxony. Sisi’s mother, however, went on to mention the “very melancholy” letters from the young Empress, her unhappiness about “the great distance and long separation,” especially from her children. “She longs enormously for home, for the emperor and the children.”
¹⁷

Madeira offered little distraction. The Empress did what she had liked doing best in Possenhofen: She spent the major part of her days with her animals. There were ponies, parrots, but most especially large dogs. Card playing was another pastime—which became a further occasion for gossip in Vienna. Archduchess Therese: “The couriers returned from Madeira cannot say enough about how boring it is there. Everything is divided according to hours, even the card games. From 8–9 Old Maid, from 9–10 Half Past Eleven [another popular card game]. No one talks, even
loquacious
Helene Taxis has given it up.”

In Vienna, a photograph from Madeira was passed from hand to hand. Archduchess Therese: “The Empress is seated playing the mandolin, Helene Taxis crouches on the ground in front of her, holding the Doberman in her arms. Mathilde Windisch–Graetz stands with the horn in her hand; in the background stands Lily Hunyady, she looks thoughtfully at all the others. All the ladies in sailors’ blouses and sailor hats.”
¹⁸
Archduchess Sophie gave a detailed description of the same photograph in her diary. If we consider the difficult times the monarchy was passing through, the political problems weighing on the Emperor, we will understand the astonishment at this photograph, which Vienna felt to be an insult. The children were without their mother, the husband without his wife, the country without its Empress. And in Madeira, Elisabeth stared
thoughtfully
out to sea, complained about her situation, and played the mandolin and Old Maid. On the other hand, the doctors insisted that the Empress continue her stay on the island, postponing her return to May, when Vienna’s climate would be milder.

Thus, Elisabeth continued to be bored, endlessly operating her “
Werkel
”—an Austrian expression for a barrel organ—playing especially arias from
La
Traviata.
She read a great deal and passed some of the time in Hungarian lessons, given her by one of her “honorary escorts,” Count Imre Hunyady. Of course, it was not long before Hunyady, considered extremely dashing, fell in love with the young Empress and was promptly recalled to Vienna. The Austrian Empress’s entourage was so vast, with everyone watching everyone else, so many petty jealousies raged within this small society on Madeira, which was completely cut off from the outside world, that not even the slightest emotion could go unrecognized.

In Vienna, Elisabeth’s self-confidence was constantly undermined. She was treated as a pretty little fool and pushed aside whenever serious matters were discussed. Here on Madeira, it was not only her lungs that recovered, but more particularly her self-esteem. Here, she became aware of her beauty and her effect on practically every man. The handsome Count Hunyady’s infatuation contributed to this process, as did that of the officers of a Russian warship that was berthed at Madeira. The Empress invited them to a dinner followed by a dance—a welcome distraction for the chronically bored entourage and ladies-in-waiting. A Russian admiral, who mentioned this invitation some time later, noted that each of the invited officers, old and young alike, had fallen in love with the Empress.

The longer the stay on Madeira lasted, the more Sisi seemed to
forget
the disagreements in Vienna and to long to be back with her
children.
She complained to Grünne, “That would be something for you, to live here, I don’t think you could stand it for two weeks. If I’d known how it is here, I would sooner have chosen another place for such a long time, for even if the air leaves nothing to be desired, it takes more to live comfortably.”

Once again, wanderlust seized her. Sisi to Grünne: “Anyway, I want always to be on the move, every ship I see sailing away fills me with the greatest desire to be on it, whether it is going to Brazil, to Africa, or to the Cape, it doesn’t matter to me, only not to sit in one place for so long.”

But she also confided in Count Grünne her fear of Vienna. “To confess to you quite openly, if I didn’t have the children, the thought of having to resume the life I have led until now would be quite unendurable. Of A——[Archduchess Sophie] I think only with a shudder, and the distance only makes me detest her all the more.”

It was Grünne who supplied her with the political news in which she was so interested. Sisi:

Sisi closed this and other letters to Grünne with the childlike, “
Assurances
of my sincere friendship, with which I remain always, Your most fond Elisabeth.”
¹⁹

That Sisi was totally uninterested in politics, as was claimed in Vienna, was not true. Sisi to Grünne from Funchal: “It seems that no campaign will break out so soon really. I also hoped that it would look better in Hungary, but according to what you wrote me, this does not seem to be the case. In the end, it will start there sooner than in Italy.” (By which she meant the expected uprising in Venetia.)

“How strange it would seem to me to still be here at the time of a war, you can imagine. That is why I have pleaded with the Emperor to let me leave sooner, but since he assured me so firmly that there are no grounds for fear, I must believe him and try to remain calm.”
²⁰

Sisi had mixed feelings about returning to Vienna. She wrote Grünne, “I regret missing May in Vienna, especially the races. On the other hand, it is pleasant to be in the city as little as possible and be with, or at least close to, someone who has surely made good use of my absence to control and supervise the E.[mperor] and the children. The beginning will not be sweet, and it will take me a little while to get used to taking up the domestic cross again.”

But Sisi’s sense of humor broke through again at once. “How much I look forward to riding with you in the Prater for the first time, please have Forester made ready, and for the second time, Gypsy Girl, whom I’m looking forward to especially because I have a hat that’s just right for a black horse. I can see quite clearly how you’ll laugh at me when you read this.”
²¹