“I was more than ever enraptured when I saw her again. Elizabeth was sitting at breakfast, whilst her hair-dresser arranged her hair. She was too beautiful for words, at least I thought so, and indeed the Empress, then in the height of her beauty, was a lovely picture. A négligee of exquisite lace enveloped her slender figure, and her wonderful hair, which I saw for the first time unbound, flowed around her in heavy chestnut waves. Her inscrutable eyes were of a deep amber flecked with gold, and the searching daylight discovered no flaw in her. Elizabeth seemed a daughter of sun and fire as she sat there in the golden glow which intensified her loveliness and her strange ethereal look.”
— Sisi as described by Marie Larisch in her autobiography “My Past”.
I can’t be a Habsburg historian because I can’t be objective about Franz Josef I no matter what shit he actually did in politics and in private he’s just a sweet old man, please treat him kindly
Franz Joseph surrounded by his suite (note the presence of Andrassy, 5th from the left, first row) in front of Dolmabahçe palace in Constantinople in 1869, during his oriental trip for the opening of the Suez Canal.
Photography of Archduchess Sophie of Bavaria with her youngest son Ludwig Viktor (second from right) and other unknown persons by Hermann Norden, 1865.
July 1892 Archduke Karl Ludwig of Austria, Duke Karl Theodor in Bavaria, King Albert of Saxony, Emperor Franz Joseph of Austria and King Francisco II of Naples in Tegernsee, where Karl Theodor’s eldest daughter Amalie, married Duke Wilhelm of Urach. The photos were taken by Archduchess Maria Theresia of Austria, wife of Karl Ludwig.
