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Queen Marie of Saxony wrote to a friend, “You can have no idea of the enthusiasm aroused here by the Empress’s beauty and graciousness; never before have I seen my Saxons
so
excited! They thought, spoke, heard only her praises.”
¹²

During this time, Franz Winterhalter painted the three famous portraits of the Empress. Countless reproductions, especially of the painting
depicting
her in a ballgown, with the diamond stars in her hair, spread the news of Sisi’s beauty throughout the world. Many, many letters by visitors to Vienna mention Sisi. Hardly any other tale from Vienna was as interesting as learning from an eyewitness whether the Empress was truly as beautiful as it was said.

In 1864, for example, the American envoy to Vienna wrote to his mother at home, “The Empress, as I have often told you before, 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, and a manner partly timid, partly gracious.”
¹³

And a year later, having sat next to Sisi at table during a court dinner, he wrote:

The reputation of her extraordinary looks became more burdensome the more it grew. For, as many eyewitnesses reveal, Sisi had to stand her ground against the curious and critical glances of the people at every public appearance, not unlike an actress, to whom she was frequently compared. Her clothing, her jewelry, her hair: Everything furnished endless matter for discussion. Every flaw, even the slightest, in her looks or her dress was noted and commented on. Every second, Elisabeth had to live up to her reputation as the greatest beauty of the monarchy. But there is not the least indication that she enjoyed the splash she made, as others in her situation would have done. Quite the contrary: Her innate timidity and
unsociability
were not relieved by these public appearances; instead, they were reinforced to such a degree that she developed a virtual terror of strangers.

Anxious and tense, she made efforts to conceal such flaws in her beauty as her bad teeth. Archduchess Sophie had noted and criticized this defect even before the engagement in Bad Ischl. Nor could it be corrected by the most expensive dentists throughout her life. Elisabeth’s self-consciousness because of this blemish was so great that, from her first day in Vienna, she parted her lips as little as possible whenever she spoke. Her enunciation was therefore extremely indistinct, almost unintelligible, and she spoke so softly that, as many contemporaries complained, she was given more to whispering than to speaking. This habit made conversation in the salon extremely difficult; for hardly anyone could understand the Empress’s words.

Her lack of gregariousness at public functions was cause for many a piece of gossip in society. The Prussian Crown Princess Victoria, for example, in 1863 wrote her mother, Queen Victoria, “The Empress of Austria speaks very softly, since she is quite shy. Recently she said to a gentleman who was very hard of hearing: ‘Are you married?’ The gentleman answered: ‘Sometimes.’ The Empress said: ‘Do you have any children?’ and the unfortunate man bellowed: ‘From time to time.’”
¹⁵

Finally, Sisi abandoned her pitiful attempts at conversation and contented herself with appearing with her lips resolutely closed. Her silence was judged to express lack of intelligence, bolstering her reputation of being “beautiful but dumb.” Sisi, for her part, in her extreme sensibility, felt this criticism acutely and turned even more from the real or imagined hostility of her surroundings into her self-chosen isolation. Even ten years after the fact, the wife of the Belgian envoy wrote about the time she had been presented to the Empress. “She is extremely pretty: wonderful figure and hair which, they say, reaches to her heels. Her conversation is not as brilliant as her shape.”
¹⁶

The people believed that they had a right to stare in wonder at this marvel. The awareness of owning, as it were, a “fairy Empress” famous the world over swelled feelings of nationalist pride. The excessively shy Elisabeth withdrew from this possessive thinking. She cultivated her beauty exclusively for herself, to keep up her self-assurance. She was not vain in the sense that she needed, let alone enjoyed, the admiration of the masses. She viewed her body as a work of art too precious to be exhibited to all the world, all the curious lookers and gapers.

Her beauty gave her a sense of being one of the elect, of being different. Her aestheticism, directed at her physical appearance, made her the
foremost
admirer of her own beauty. Her narcissism was as evident as her shyness. She flatly refused to be “merely a spectacle for the Viennese theater audiences,” as Marie Festetics wrote. When the Countess assured the
Empress
“how happy the people are when they see Your Majesty,” Elisabeth, unmoved, replied, “Oh, yes, they’re curious—whenever there’s something to see, they come running, for the monkey dancing at the hurdy-gurdy just as much as for me. That is their love!”
¹⁷

*

Sisi was obsessed with her hair, which over the years changed color from dark blond to chestnut brown and grew down to her heels. To manage this mass, to keep it healthy and to arrange it in artful styles, required immense skill on the part of the hairdresser. Sisi’s complicated crown of hair, with long braids twisted on top of her head, was repeatedly—and almost always vainly—imitated. Hardly any other woman had such healthy, strong hair, so much time and patience to care for it, and such an artist for a hairdresser as did Elisabeth. The expense was huge. Washing it every three weeks (with always newer precious essences, until eventually cognac and egg became the preferred mixture) took up a whole day, leaving the Empress unavailable for any other concerns. The daily regimen of hair care could not be accomplished in much less than three hours.

The hairdresser became an important person at court; Elisabeth’s mood depended in large part on her skills. For nothing could put the Empress out of sorts more easily than strands of hair falling out, having it poorly styled, or dealing with a hairdresser she did not like.

She found her favorite hairdresser, Fanny Angerer, at the Burgtheater. During a comedy she noticed the unusually handsome coiffure of the leading actress, Helene Gabillon. She asked for the name of the artist. It was the very young Fanny, “a girl of striking appearance” and “lively wit.” She was the daughter of a hairdresser recently employed at the Hofburgtheater.
¹⁸
There were long discussions pro and con concerning her appointment at court. These disputes reached the outside world. Finally, in April 1863, in the “News of the Day” column, the
Morgen-Post
carried the following item.

The yearly salary of 2,000 guldens was very high, corresponding roughly to that of a university professor. The highest salary paid at the imperial theater to such stars as Joseph Lewinsky and Charlotte Wolter was an annual 3,000 guldens. Archduchess Sophie was incensed at the smug tone of the newspaper item and in her diary grumbled about “impertinent court news.”
²⁰

Henceforth, Fanny Angerer was the most famous hairdresser of the monarchy; her part in Sisi’s beauty was not to be underestimated. The ladies of high society virtually sued for Fanny’s favor, so that they, too, might, on special occasions, obtain her services. (These engagements brought Fanny the “other artistic earnings” the
Morgen-Post
had mockingly mentioned.)

But Fanny Angerer knew not only how to concoct the most tasteful and artfully braided hairstyles in Vienna, but also how to treat the
notoriously
difficult Empress with the utmost tact. She also employed tricks; for example, she cunningly secreted the combed-out hairs under her apron on
a piece of adhesive tape—and could therefore often show the Empress a clean comb at the end of the day’s work. Soon Sisi let no one but Fanny Angerer touch her hair; she even refused to appear at an official function if Fanny was ill and unavailable.

Fanny kept the Empress in a kind of thrall. If she was annoyed for any reason, she pleaded illness and sent a different hairdresser to the Empress, or a chambermaid took over the task. Whenever this happened, the
Empress
was devastated. Elisabeth to Christomanos: “After several such days of hairdressing, I am quite worn down. She knows that and waits for a capitulation. I am a slave to my hair.”
²¹

Elisabeth also took a strong personal interest in young Fanny, and when it came to her marriage, Elisabeth took a very active role. The hairdresser fell in love with a middle-class bank official but could not marry him because to do so would have gone against court rules. She would therefore have had to leave, something Sisi wanted to prevent at any cost. Only Elisabeth’s personal intervention with her husband the Emperor managed to get the exception granted; Fanny was allowed to marry and still retain her position. Her groom was also given employment at court.

This move made Hugo Feifalik’s fortune. He advanced to be the
Empress’s
private secretary and then to the position of her Reisemarschall—travel supervisor, as it were—and of course Fanny was taken along on all of Elisabeth’s many trips. Next he served as Regierungsrat—something like a senior executive officer—then he became treasurer of the
Sternkreuzorden
(Order of the Star Cross) and court councillor. Finally, he had a knighthood conferred on him. The Feifaliks had a strong though subtle influence on the Empress for thirty years. It can be recognized mainly in the jealousy Feifalik aroused among the ladies of the court, especially Countess Festetics.

As the decades passed, the Empress’s “supreme” trust made Frau Feifalik not only conceited and arrogant, as Marie Festetics repeatedly complained, but also enormously genteel and stately—in any case, far more stately than the Empress herself. More than once, Elisabeth took advantage of Feifalik’s faultless bearing to use her as a double. In this way, she could disappear, unrecognized, among the crowd, while Fanny Feifalik officially accepted the jubilation; of course, this ruse could be practiced only abroad, where Elisabeth was not so easily recognized. Thus, in 1885, Elisabeth had her hairdresser ride around the harbor of Smyrna in the boat of honor,
accepting
the homage of the worthies of the city, while she herself went ashore by barge and took a sight-seeing tour of the town.
²²
As late as 1894, there
was another such deception, at the Marseilles railroad station. Many people crowded the platform to watch the departure of the Empress of Austria. Countess Irma Sztaray, a lady-in-waiting, reported

Elisabeth considered her hair her crowning glory. She was proud of nothing so much as the cascade that enveloped her like a cloak when it was loosened. To the end of her life, Elisabeth made the daily hairdressing a “sacred ritual,” as Christomanos floridly put it. (During the 1890s it was his job to engage the Empress in Greek conversation and translation practice during the hours her hair was being dressed.) Christomanos: