The Accidental Empress (68 page)

XVI.

We, and not Hungary alone, but the monarchy, can still be saved. . . . For the last time, I beg you in the name of Rudolf, do not let the last opportunity slip by.

—Letter from Sisi to Franz Joseph

July 1866

Chapter Sixteen

HOFBURG PALACE, VIENNA

FEBRUARY 1867

Andrássy wasted no
time in making his first move, inviting Franz Joseph to Budapest for negotiations, and news of it reached Sisi shortly after the New Year. The court was installed at the winter palace. A prolonged period of cold had settled over the city, bringing with it a dusting of light snow and the promise of long, chilly nights.

One evening in late February, Sisi entered a state dinner on Franz’s arm, dressed in a heavy gown of rich crimson brocade. She did her duty, chatting throughout the meal with Beust, who had been asked by Franz to fill the position of foreign minister following the peace negotiations with Prussia. As the final dessert plates were cleared, she sought her opening to slip away and retire to her apartments.

As Sisi rose from the table, Beust followed. “Empress Elisabeth, do you intend to take your leave?”

Sisi turned, pausing. “Yes, Chancellor.” And then, so as not to appear abrupt, she offered her routine excuse. “Headache.”

“May I be so bold as to request the pleasure of escorting Your Imperial Highness out?” Beust offered his arm.

“All right, thank you.” Sisi stole a sideways glance, studying Beust beside her. He always had the air of being in a hurry. Tonight his eyelids hung heavy with fatigue. His hair, a combination of indistinguishable blond and gray, fell in unkempt disarray.

“I hope you enjoyed your dinner, Empress?” The chancellor’s eyes darted around the room, at the noblemen and ladies rising from the long dinner table and slowly splintering off into smaller parties to drink wine and exchange gossip.

“I did, thank you. And did you enjoy yours, Chancellor?”

“Hmm? Oh, yes, of course, Majesty.” Beust waved his hand as if to indicate that the question of his enjoyment held little importance compared to what he planned to say next. Sisi noted how the chancellor now angled his body to turn his back on the nearby guests, as if to gain privacy. “I was hoping, Empress, that I might be able to seek your advice on a certain matter.”

Sisi stood up straighter. Courtiers in Vienna seldom—if ever—consulted their empress on anything of substance. They looked to her for their fashion cues and hairstyles, perhaps. She resisted the urge to smile. “I’d be delighted if you would, Chancellor.”

Beust paused at the threshold of the dining room, leaning closer. “May I be quite frank, Empress?”

Sisi nodded.

“I hear that you are a friend”—again Beust glanced over his shoulder—“to the Hungarians.”

Sisi thought of Andrássy, gone from Vienna, with a pang of longing. But she kept her gaze steady, answering: “Go on.”

Now Beust threw a look in Franz’s direction. The emperor sat, smoking a cigar and sipping a glass of port in between his mother and the pretty duchess, the one named Elizabeth, from Modena.

“I was told, Empress, that I might count on you to help me make the Hungarian case to the emperor.”

Sisi was now intrigued; it had been years since she’d felt a part of the decisions considered by her husband. That Beust—clearly a shrewd and reasonable man—now came to her meant that he believed her to have some influence.

“What case is it that you wish to make, Chancellor?”

“The emperor must compromise with the Hungarians. And he must do it fast.”

Sisi considered this. Coming from Andrássy, a statement such as this would come as no surprise. But the chancellor was as loyal to the Habsburgs as any advisor in the court; Franz had, after all, invited Beust to Vienna after his own kingdom had been devastated by the Prussians. Beust would not advocate any course unless it favored Austria.

Beust seemed to intuit Sisi’s confusion. “Her Imperial Highness is surprised by my revelation.”

“I had not known you to be a champion of the Hungarians, Chancellor.”

“I am a champion of the emperor,” Beust declared, his expression serious. “And preserving his empire. At least, what little remains of it. It’s the only way to maintain the balance of power in Europe, to keep those Germans from pulling all of Europe into a great war.” He reined in his tone, throwing another look in the direction of the dinner table before whispering to Sisi, “They pulverized us in Prague.”

It was the Peace of Prague he spoke of, Sisi knew. The recent agreement to end the war with Prussia. Napoleon III had overseen the peace process and had made sure that Austria, as the losing party, had felt the consequences of its ill-advised declaration of war on Prussia. The old German Confederation, the union of dozens of Germanic kingdoms and principalities previously governed by the Austrian Empire, had been abolished. In its place, Prussia was seeking to form a newly imagined German Confederation, an alliance that would explicitly exclude Austria from its membership.

Beust nodded to a group of exiting courtiers before turning back to Sisi, speaking low so that only she could hear. “Venetia is lost, given to the Italians by that generous little Napoleon. We’re losing control of Bohemia and the smaller states to the north, and Italy in the south. The balance of power is shifting.” Now Beust leaned so close that Sisi could smell his breath, thick with residual cigarette smoke. “If we aren’t careful, Hungary will be next to go. It’s a crumbling house of cards.”

Sisi nodded, understanding the tenuous scenario from her earlier discussions with Andrássy.

“It was my understanding that you are well connected with the Hungarian side.” Beust’s darting eyes turned back on her. “And that your closest friend is Hungarian?”

Sisi felt a moment of discomfort. Was it so well known, her friendship with Andrássy, that even a newcomer such as Chancellor Beust had heard of it?

Beust raised his eyebrows. “Countess Festetics is Hungarian, is she not?”

“Marie. Oh, yes, Marie. Of course.” Sisi laughed, relieved. “Countess Festetics is my oldest friend at court, and a most faithful attendant.”

“Right.” Beust nodded, retrieving a cigarette from his pocket and lifting it to his lips. “May I?”

Sisi nodded.

“What do you make of that Andrássy fellow?” Beust exhaled two columns of smoke through flared nostrils. “I don’t know Deák well, but Andrássy has always struck me as reasonable.”

Sisi tempered her response. “Yes. I’ve drawn the same conclusion.”

Beust nodded, flicking loose a spray of ash.

Sisi continued, “I’ve had the opportunity to speak with Andrássy—Count Andrássy, on the topic, in fact.”

Beust cocked his head, intrigued. “Oh?”

Sisi hurried to add, “We first met when the emperor and I had a prolonged stay in Budapest, several years ago.”

“Yes, of course.” Beust nodded. “And what does Andrássy say?”

“I agree with your assessment that he is quite reasonable. In fact, he tells me that he and Deák have modified their objectives of late. It’s compromise they seek—their condition would not be outright independence. And in fact, they recognize there are certain benefits to maintaining the longtime union between Hungary and Austria.”

“Yes?” Beust was attentive, the cigarette hovering between his barely parted lips. “Then what would they ask for?”

“I can’t speak for them, of course,” Sisi answered. “But it’s my understanding that they seek a certain amount of autonomy. They would be willing to recognize Habsburg rule of Hungary if Austria would recognize them as a separate nation. Distinct and autonomous, rather than subjects.”

Beust knit his brows toward one another. “How would that work?”

“Franz promised them a constitution back in ’49, in exchange for his ascension to the throne. They still do not have one. And they’d also like a separate parliament, from what Count Andrássy has mentioned.”

“And what about prime minister? Would they recognize me as chancellor of the entire empire?”

“I fear that I cannot answer that,” Sisi answered. “I’ve relayed what I know.”

“And I’m impressed by how much that is.” Beust nodded, taking a long pull from his cigarette. “Very useful indeed, Your Majesty.”

“I am happy to help, Chancellor.” Sisi was ready to excuse herself, eager to return to her bedchamber and write to Andrássy about this exchange while it was still fresh in her mind. But Beust did not appear to be finished with the conversation.

“I might need you further, Empress.” He leaned toward her. “If you would be willing?”

Sisi stared at the chancellor but did not answer.

“There are some at this court who, even now, see no need for compromise or pragmatism.” Now Beust’s gaze flew to the far corner of the room, and Sisi followed it, her own eyes landing on Sophie’s reclining frame. There her mother-in-law sat, her legs propped up on an overstuffed ottoman. Face flushed, she stroked her little dog and sipped champagne as she railed to a small cluster of courtiers. Sisi could not hear the topic of her lecture, but she was certain from the expressions on the faces of the courtiers that none of them planned to interrupt the archduchess.

“We are the Habsburgs, after all.” Beust spoke in a quiet, mocking tone, and Sisi recognized how much trouble he would face if this conversation were overheard. She as well.

“
We need no one,
” Sisi said, her tone full of meaning as she repeated her aunt’s motto. “Isn’t that what she’s said for so long?”

Beust flicked his cigarette impatiently. “And, hence, we
have
no one.”

Sisi nodded. “It’s clear that now is the time to compromise rather than risk losing yet another ally, Chancellor.”

“But would he . . . can the Habsburgs be made to see it, Empress? The urgent need for compromise?”

“The case you’ve just laid out is very compelling. You don’t believe Franz . . . the emperor . . . would agree?”

Beust sighed. “We are all subjects to the chaos of this crazy world. I learned that all too well when I saw the Prussians overrun my homeland. There is no pride left for me, no delusion of divinely appointed kingship.”

Now Beust looked around, at the room scattered with half-drunk, giggly courtiers who swayed to the music of violins. At the gilded wall trimming that caught the glint of hundreds of fresh candles. At the line of impenetrable imperial guards stationed throughout. “But I fear that here, in the Habsburg halls, the illusion of infallibility may linger on.”

Sisi turned back to the chancellor. “What can I do?”

“You can speak candidly to him, can you not?”

“I suppose I can.”

“Good. Only you and one other person in this court would do so.” Again both of them looked to Sophie. “Perhaps you might present an alternative, a more realistic view of things. But would you be willing to oppose her?”

Sisi did not need long to consider her answer. “Quite.”

Sisi relished the opportunity to advocate for the Hungarians to her husband. Not simply because in doing so she was directly challenging the calamitous course charted by her mother-in-law, but also because it was a cause that she knew would benefit Andrássy and the people he—and she—loved.

Sisi had relayed the content of her discussion with Beust to Andrássy, and now the two of them were writing more regularly than ever. In order to remain discreet, Sisi did not send the letters directly to Andrássy, nor did he to her. Instead, they were written and signed by both Marie and Ida. Sisi maintained, at least publicly, an image of aloofness.

However, the truth was that their correspondence had taken on a new urgency. They were no longer just friends: they were allies. The Hungarian people had waited on their promised constitution since 1849. Sophie, enraged over their rebellion, had warned Franz against allowing them one. But the myth of Habsburg infallibility had crumbled in recent years. Austria was vulnerable. And many Hungarians were prepared—even eager—for war.

It was only their love for and trust in their national heroes, Andrássy and Deák, that had restrained the restless Hungarians thus far. And they heard, and believed, that the empress loved Hungary in a way that no Habsburg before her had. Surely she was championing their rights in Vienna? Andrássy wrote that he and Deák were putting forward the idea of compromise. Hungary appeared willing to accept a place in the Habsburg Empire, as long as they were recognized as an equal and autonomous partner. Anything less from Franz would force them to declare rebellion. It was Franz’s move.