B008AITH44 EBOK (8 page)

It was still the time of crinolines, and Sisi had three. The hooped skirts went with a narrow waist, which even in such a slender young woman as little Sisi had to be emphasized by tight lacing and corsets; Sisi owned four of these, along with three special ones for riding, since a lady had to allow herself to be laced even for outdoor exercise.

Along with the gowns went appropriate “fancy trimmings,” such as twelve “headdresses” of feathers, rose petals, apple blossoms, lace, ribbon, and pearls, as well as floral adornments and wreaths of flowers, which the ladies carried to ornament and supplement their gowns. There were sixteen
hats: white and pink feathered hats, several lace and straw hats, even a garden hat with a garland of wild flowers. That last was the hat Sisi had worn in Bad Ischl, to the Emperor’s great delight.

Even the underwear is listed precisely: twelve dozen (that is, a hundred forty-four) camisoles, most of them of batiste with lace, and three dozen nightgowns. The fourteen dozen stockings were of silk, though a few were made of cotton. There were ten bed jackets of muslin and silk; twelve embroidered nightcaps; three negligee caps of embroidered muslin; twenty-four night neckerchiefs; six dozen petticoats of piqué, silk, and flannel; five dozen pantalettes; twenty-four combing coats; and three
bathing
shirts.

The number of shoes was considerable. Only six pairs, however, were leather ankle boots; all other shoes (a hundred thirteen pairs altogether) were of velvet, taffeta, silk, or “stuff—hardly suitable, therefore, to be worn for any length of time. It seems that it was particularly in the area of shoes that Sisi had been inadequately provided for. Hardly had she arrived in Vienna than new shoes had to be bought—for the unusually large sum of 700 guldens. The Empress of Austria was not allowed to wear a pair of shoes for more than a day. Then the shoes were given away—a custom to which young Elisabeth could not resign herself and which she later abolished.

The final grouping in the inventory was made up of “other objects.” These included two fans, two umbrellas, three large and three small
parasols,
three pairs of rubber galoshes. Even tortoise-shell combs, clothes brushes, hairbrushes, nailbrushes, toothbrushes, and shoehorns are
enumerated,
along with a box of straight pins and hairpins, ribbons, and buttons.

It is not difficult to see in this list the speed, even the excitement, with which this trousseau was assembled. Ludovika had long been preparing and planning for Helene’s expected great match. Improvisation would have to do for Sisi. There was no chance of falling back on previously acquired goods, one had to concentrate on the essential—and what was essential were the “fancy gowns” for gala occasions. Everything else was incidental.

To the sixteen-year-old girl, this provisioning represented luxury such as she had never known. In view of the modest style of life to which she was accustomed, her many new gowns must have made her feel immensely rich, and she never suspected that all her new worldly goods were as nothing by Viennese standards and that only too soon she would be ridiculed for her simple wardrobe. Even the enamored Emperor had written his mother from Munich in October, “With the trousseau, it seems
to me, things are not moving ahead well, and I have difficulty believing that it will be pretty.”
⁵⁷

It is only too understandable that clever Ludovika, who loved her children, feared for Sisi’s future. She knew her daughter and the girl’s flights into inwardness, her indifference to outward appearances; and she knew the Viennese court, which cared about nothing so much as outward appearances, rank, and wealth.

On the other hand, the family trusted in Elisabeth’s good star. She had been born one of fortune’s darlings: at Christmas time, on a Sunday; furthermore, at her birth she already had a tooth—a “lucky tooth,” as they said in Bavaria. Elisabeth: 

 

T
he danger that Austria would be actively involved in the
Crimean
War was acute. The summer of 1853 had seen a bad harvest. There were famine, unemployment, poverty to an
extent
unimaginable today, and a lack of political freedom. The glitter of an imperial wedding would allow all this misery to be forgotten for a brief moment and could nourish hopes for more lenient rule. Many of the commemorative pamphlets contain blatant appeals to the young Empress to mediate between the people and their Emperor; one such screed, for example, referring obviously to 1848, notes, “You are elected by Heaven to crown the reconciliation between a prince and his people and to link forever the parted lovers. What man, wielding the sword of justice, cannot accomplish, woman bearing the frond of mercy will bring about.” And
again: “In a confused, tempestuous time, you and your house shall become the beacon that rescues the shipwrecked from perdition, the altar at which we devotedly kneel, to which we look for aid.”
¹
The various national groups under the Austrian crown, equally afflicted by misery and poverty, hoped for a justice-loving, benevolent empress: “We believe that you will become the mediator between him and us, that you will say what we, timid, do not dare to admit, that by your gentle hand many a matter will be steered to the good.”
²