Elizabeth, Empress of Austria and Queen of Hungary by Carl Küchler

Author:Carl Küchler [Küchler, Carl]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Classics, Nonfiction, Reference & Language, Reference, Fiction & Literature
ISBN: 4066338066954
Publisher: Good Press
Published: 2021-11-05T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter XII

The Castle of Gödöllö

Not long after their wedding the Emperor and Empress visited an exhibition of paintings in Vienna. Franz Joseph was anxious to purchase some of them, but left the choice entirely to his wife, who went back accordingly a few days later with one of her ladies and selected twenty-four, every one of which when sent to the palace proved to be of horses. Both at the Hofburg and at Schönbrunn her chief interest was in the imperial stables, where she spent most of her mornings trying different mounts. She loved exercise of all kinds, but riding was her greatest delight and her skill and daring as a horsewoman were remarkable. Authorities in these matters have declared that she outshone any rider of her own sex, for she had a singular, almost hypnotic power over horses, and even the most vicious ones would allow her to approach and stroke them. Her slender wrists were like steel, and there was no horse she could not ride when once she had made up her mind to do so. Fear and fatigue were alike unknown to her, and she used often to terrify the director of the riding-school in Vienna by asking him to send her one or two of his wildest specimens to try. A cavalry officer once expressed his surprise to the Emperor at his allowing the Empress of Austria to spend so much time in the stables and make companions of jockeys and circus riders. “Ah, my young friend,” replied the Emperor kindly, “it is evident you do not know women. They usually do as they please without waiting for our permission.”

Elizabeth never appeared to better advantage than when on horseback. Her habit, which seemed as if moulded to her figure, was usually dark blue, trimmed with fur. She also wore a low round hat and heavy riding-gloves, but never a flower or bow or anything superfluous except a black fan, which she carried in her hand or hung by a strap to her saddle. Strangers generally supposed this was to protect her complexion, but her friends were well aware that it was merely to guard herself from the inevitable photographers who pursued her everywhere. “I hate being photographed,” she once declared: “every time in my life that I have been, something dreadful has happened to me.” She liked to attend to her horses personally and visited them every morning, taking sugar and carrots in her pocket for them, sometimes even going into their stalls to pet or rub them down. At Schönbrunn she had a room the walls of which were completely covered with pictures of horses. “Look,” she once said to her Greek teacher when showing him this room, “all these are friends I have lost. Many of them have died for me, which is more than I can say of any human being. People would far rather have me killed.” She was never so happy as when in the saddle, dashing through the forests of Austria or the wide Hungarian plains.

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