1
00:00:00,560 --> 00:00:03,760
Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you missed in History Class from how

2
00:00:03,800 --> 00:00:13,880
Speaker 1: Stuff Works dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.

3
00:00:13,960 --> 00:00:16,800
Speaker 1: I'm Scared Dowdy and I'm Delaney Chocolate Boarding. And I'm

4
00:00:16,800 --> 00:00:19,640
Speaker 1: sure everyone who's listened to the podcast for a while

5
00:00:19,800 --> 00:00:24,000
Speaker 1: knows that one of my favorite subjects ever is Ludvig,

6
00:00:24,079 --> 00:00:27,200
Speaker 1: the second of Bavaria. He just to recap for you,

7
00:00:27,240 --> 00:00:30,080
Speaker 1: since I don't talk about him enough. He's a Wagner

8
00:00:30,200 --> 00:00:33,680
Speaker 1: super fan. He built all of those Disney castles, which

9
00:00:33,680 --> 00:00:36,920
Speaker 1: are really more the inspiration for Disney castles than anything.

10
00:00:37,320 --> 00:00:40,360
Speaker 1: And he died a very mysterious death, which is always

11
00:00:40,360 --> 00:00:43,800
Speaker 1: good for a podcast subject at least. But after that

12
00:00:43,880 --> 00:00:47,680
Speaker 1: episode on Livig aired, a lot of listeners started writing

13
00:00:47,720 --> 00:00:51,000
Speaker 1: in to suggest that we cover another member of the

14
00:00:51,240 --> 00:00:56,000
Speaker 1: Vittelsbach family, Ludvig's cousin and his best friend, the Empress

15
00:00:56,000 --> 00:01:00,160
Speaker 1: Elizabeth of Austria, who is better known as Empress c

16
00:01:00,840 --> 00:01:06,440
Speaker 1: And Cecy is really considered a prime example of Vittelsbach eccentricity,

17
00:01:06,440 --> 00:01:10,959
Speaker 1: but she's also considered, interestingly enough, a prime representative of

18
00:01:11,000 --> 00:01:14,360
Speaker 1: the family. She married into the Habsburgs, and that's pretty

19
00:01:14,400 --> 00:01:19,160
Speaker 1: ironic because Cecy wasn't really a very good Habsburg at all. No,

20
00:01:19,360 --> 00:01:23,040
Speaker 1: she wasn't. She was headstrong, introverted, and she preferred corefud

21
00:01:23,080 --> 00:01:27,040
Speaker 1: to Vienna. She believed monarchical government was obsolete, and worst

22
00:01:27,080 --> 00:01:30,360
Speaker 1: of all, for Habsburg matriarch, she was more interested in

23
00:01:30,440 --> 00:01:33,959
Speaker 1: tight laced corsets than having lots of babies. Yet she's

24
00:01:34,000 --> 00:01:37,920
Speaker 1: often considered the favorite Habsburg and even the original people's princess,

25
00:01:37,959 --> 00:01:40,560
Speaker 1: because she was so popular with her subjects. And you'll

26
00:01:40,600 --> 00:01:43,760
Speaker 1: notice a lot of Princess Diana similarities here. At the

27
00:01:43,800 --> 00:01:47,280
Speaker 1: one anniversary of her death, obviously a long time after

28
00:01:47,319 --> 00:01:50,440
Speaker 1: the end of the Austro Hungarian Empire, you could find

29
00:01:50,520 --> 00:01:54,080
Speaker 1: her lovely picture on mugs and kitchy souvenirs, and there's

30
00:01:54,120 --> 00:01:56,880
Speaker 1: even a CCI museum in Vienna. Mattel even made a

31
00:01:56,920 --> 00:02:00,240
Speaker 1: CC barbie for the European market. So we've got to ask,

32
00:02:00,320 --> 00:02:03,559
Speaker 1: what is it about this Habsburg empress, on this vittels

33
00:02:03,600 --> 00:02:08,040
Speaker 1: Buck odd ball essentially that continues to fascinate people enough

34
00:02:08,080 --> 00:02:10,880
Speaker 1: to make a barbie out of her. So Cecy's life

35
00:02:10,880 --> 00:02:14,120
Speaker 1: story is often told with this sort of fairy princess

36
00:02:14,200 --> 00:02:16,240
Speaker 1: kind of spin, and a lot of that started because

37
00:02:16,240 --> 00:02:18,519
Speaker 1: of these movies that came out in the nineteen fifties

38
00:02:18,560 --> 00:02:22,880
Speaker 1: that really presented her as the perfect fairy tale young

39
00:02:23,000 --> 00:02:26,840
Speaker 1: princess who has an idyllic childhood, meets her prince, lives

40
00:02:26,840 --> 00:02:31,880
Speaker 1: happily ever after. Um, but if you stop at age fifteen,

41
00:02:32,240 --> 00:02:35,480
Speaker 1: that really does kind of fit her her actual life story.

42
00:02:35,520 --> 00:02:39,120
Speaker 1: She was born Elizabeth amily Eugenie at a castle on

43
00:02:39,280 --> 00:02:43,080
Speaker 1: Lake Starnberg on Christmas Eve eighteen thirty seven, and she

44
00:02:43,280 --> 00:02:47,040
Speaker 1: was the daughter of the Bavarian Duke Maximilian Joseph and

45
00:02:47,440 --> 00:02:51,240
Speaker 1: Princess Lodovica, who was the vittels Buck, daughter of the

46
00:02:51,320 --> 00:02:54,520
Speaker 1: Bavarian King. And she I know that sounds like an

47
00:02:54,520 --> 00:02:57,960
Speaker 1: illustrious background, and it is, but she grew up in

48
00:02:58,000 --> 00:03:00,360
Speaker 1: a more rural setting than you'd expect. She grew up

49
00:03:00,360 --> 00:03:05,160
Speaker 1: horseback riding, hunting with her father, mountain climbing, doing charity

50
00:03:05,200 --> 00:03:08,239
Speaker 1: work like visiting peasants, all again kind of princess, the

51
00:03:08,560 --> 00:03:12,200
Speaker 1: sort of sounding things. And she really was a country

52
00:03:12,200 --> 00:03:15,880
Speaker 1: sort of princess, with this relaxed, loving family, a lot

53
00:03:15,919 --> 00:03:19,560
Speaker 1: of siblings and a very close environment she grew up in.

54
00:03:20,000 --> 00:03:22,640
Speaker 1: But she was also really pretty. She was considered to

55
00:03:22,639 --> 00:03:25,360
Speaker 1: be the most beautiful princess in Europe in fact, so

56
00:03:25,400 --> 00:03:28,480
Speaker 1: it's no surprise that in August eighteen fifty three, her

57
00:03:28,480 --> 00:03:30,919
Speaker 1: twenty three year old cousin, Franz Joseph, fell in love

58
00:03:30,960 --> 00:03:33,520
Speaker 1: with her. And now Franz Joseph had become Emperor of

59
00:03:33,560 --> 00:03:36,920
Speaker 1: Austria at age eighteen after his uncle abdicated and his

60
00:03:37,000 --> 00:03:39,680
Speaker 1: father was skipped over to reboot the monarchy with a

61
00:03:39,800 --> 00:03:43,560
Speaker 1: new youthful leader. But in eighteen fifty three assassination attempt

62
00:03:43,640 --> 00:03:46,440
Speaker 1: made it imperative that he get a family going, and

63
00:03:46,480 --> 00:03:49,560
Speaker 1: so his mother, Sophie, decided she wanted to keep things

64
00:03:49,600 --> 00:03:52,360
Speaker 1: in the family. She really wanted to set Franz Joseph

65
00:03:52,440 --> 00:03:56,240
Speaker 1: up with her sister Ludovika's daughter Helene, and invited the

66
00:03:56,280 --> 00:03:59,400
Speaker 1: ladies to summer getaway. It seemed like it would be

67
00:03:59,440 --> 00:04:03,000
Speaker 1: a good man. Helene was extremely religious, she was dutiful,

68
00:04:03,360 --> 00:04:05,720
Speaker 1: probably would have made a good match for hard working

69
00:04:05,760 --> 00:04:10,120
Speaker 1: Franz Joseph. But Ludovica fatefully brought along her younger daughter too,

70
00:04:10,760 --> 00:04:13,880
Speaker 1: so Elizabeth was there and Franz Joseph fell for her

71
00:04:14,000 --> 00:04:16,720
Speaker 1: instead of Helene. Yeah, and they ended up announcing their

72
00:04:16,760 --> 00:04:20,240
Speaker 1: engagement before they even left. The little country retreat, and

73
00:04:20,640 --> 00:04:23,560
Speaker 1: Ceci is supposed to have said at least some of

74
00:04:23,560 --> 00:04:26,200
Speaker 1: the following foreboding gems. I mean, you can, I guess,

75
00:04:26,240 --> 00:04:29,040
Speaker 1: pick whichever one you like the best. She is supposed

76
00:04:29,040 --> 00:04:31,960
Speaker 1: to have said, I'm so fond of the emperor. If

77
00:04:32,000 --> 00:04:36,000
Speaker 1: only he were not an emperor. That doesn't sound very good. Uh,

78
00:04:36,279 --> 00:04:40,600
Speaker 1: one doesn't turn down an emperor again, kind of scary

79
00:04:40,640 --> 00:04:44,520
Speaker 1: funding And oh, if only he were a tailor, which

80
00:04:44,720 --> 00:04:47,239
Speaker 1: that's just kind of funny. That one does sound pretty funny.

81
00:04:47,240 --> 00:04:49,360
Speaker 1: I don't know if we should dig it too lightly, though,

82
00:04:49,360 --> 00:04:52,200
Speaker 1: because cc did, of course later become one of the

83
00:04:52,240 --> 00:04:56,400
Speaker 1: most famous clients of the legendary couturier Charles Frederick Worth.

84
00:04:56,480 --> 00:04:58,800
Speaker 1: So she did like clothes. Maybe a tailor would have

85
00:04:58,839 --> 00:05:02,400
Speaker 1: been a good match. But whatever she's specifically said, it

86
00:05:02,440 --> 00:05:06,000
Speaker 1: seems likely that fifteen year old cecy knew that she

87
00:05:06,120 --> 00:05:09,719
Speaker 1: was going to have a really hard time being Empress

88
00:05:09,760 --> 00:05:13,920
Speaker 1: of Austria, and trouble really started almost immediately for them.

89
00:05:14,000 --> 00:05:17,560
Speaker 1: Even the couple's honeymoon was cut short since Franz Joseph

90
00:05:17,640 --> 00:05:19,919
Speaker 1: would have to ride back to Vienna every morning to

91
00:05:20,040 --> 00:05:22,279
Speaker 1: deal with the Crimean war, so it was sort of

92
00:05:22,279 --> 00:05:24,960
Speaker 1: a choppy honeymoon, I guess with him going back and forth.

93
00:05:25,480 --> 00:05:28,360
Speaker 1: Once installed at court, Cecy did her best to perform

94
00:05:28,400 --> 00:05:31,440
Speaker 1: her duties, but she found the formality they're compared to

95
00:05:31,440 --> 00:05:34,520
Speaker 1: Bavaria just terrible. At the time. To be in the

96
00:05:34,520 --> 00:05:38,080
Speaker 1: top tier at court, you had to prove unbroken descent

97
00:05:38,120 --> 00:05:41,800
Speaker 1: from sixteen ancestors in the upper nobility, eight paternal and

98
00:05:41,880 --> 00:05:46,240
Speaker 1: eight maternal lapses or marriages into the lesser nobility or

99
00:05:46,279 --> 00:05:49,359
Speaker 1: middle classes were only acceptable if they occurred before the

100
00:05:49,440 --> 00:05:52,200
Speaker 1: great great grandparents generation. So just to show you how

101
00:05:52,240 --> 00:05:55,680
Speaker 1: strict that's just getting into court, you can imagine the

102
00:05:55,760 --> 00:05:59,239
Speaker 1: kind of rules that regulate court once you're really there.

103
00:05:59,400 --> 00:06:03,200
Speaker 1: So Cecy did make attempts to loosen up the etiquette

104
00:06:03,200 --> 00:06:05,599
Speaker 1: a little bit, try to modernize it some, but she

105
00:06:05,680 --> 00:06:08,400
Speaker 1: was only met with disapproval from her mother in law,

106
00:06:08,720 --> 00:06:12,720
Speaker 1: the arch Duchess Sophie, who also started to censure her

107
00:06:12,800 --> 00:06:15,960
Speaker 1: daughter in law about her constant horseback riding. She would

108
00:06:16,000 --> 00:06:19,000
Speaker 1: take lots of horseback riding lessons and the fact that

109
00:06:19,040 --> 00:06:22,240
Speaker 1: she'd go out riding without chaperones, which her mother in

110
00:06:22,320 --> 00:06:25,000
Speaker 1: law thought was kind of unseemly but also a little

111
00:06:25,000 --> 00:06:28,480
Speaker 1: bit dangerous. So cc you know, this young teenager starts

112
00:06:28,520 --> 00:06:31,600
Speaker 1: to get pretty stressed out, not just from being away

113
00:06:31,640 --> 00:06:34,479
Speaker 1: from home now, but because of stressful court life in

114
00:06:34,600 --> 00:06:37,160
Speaker 1: Vienna and all this pressure from her mother in law

115
00:06:37,160 --> 00:06:39,960
Speaker 1: about how to act, and eventually she starts to get

116
00:06:40,040 --> 00:06:43,760
Speaker 1: sort of sick. She'd have these panics about going down long,

117
00:06:43,880 --> 00:06:48,040
Speaker 1: steep stairs, and she'd have coughing fits, and she'd suffer

118
00:06:48,200 --> 00:06:52,400
Speaker 1: from what people considered classic Little Spock melancholy. If you've

119
00:06:52,440 --> 00:06:55,039
Speaker 1: listened to the Ludwig episode, you know all about that.

120
00:06:55,560 --> 00:06:58,599
Speaker 1: And things really only got worse when her first baby

121
00:06:58,720 --> 00:07:02,720
Speaker 1: arrived only ten months after the wedding. She named her Sophie,

122
00:07:02,800 --> 00:07:07,080
Speaker 1: after friends Joseph's mother, and that was a name that

123
00:07:07,120 --> 00:07:10,880
Speaker 1: fit because the baby basically belonged to the Archduchess. Cec

124
00:07:11,600 --> 00:07:14,760
Speaker 1: was not allowed to play any part in its care

125
00:07:14,800 --> 00:07:18,560
Speaker 1: and education and was truly upset about that. And she

126
00:07:18,720 --> 00:07:22,440
Speaker 1: wasn't involved in the upbringing of her next daughter either, Gizella.

127
00:07:22,600 --> 00:07:26,440
Speaker 1: But she really fell into a new level of depression

128
00:07:26,560 --> 00:07:30,800
Speaker 1: when baby Sophie died in eighteen fifty seven, um Cec

129
00:07:31,120 --> 00:07:35,560
Speaker 1: stopped eating. She turned to these fasting cures where she'd

130
00:07:35,600 --> 00:07:39,200
Speaker 1: live on light meals of milk or eggs or what

131
00:07:39,280 --> 00:07:42,560
Speaker 1: sounds really terrible, raw beef juice served as a soup

132
00:07:43,200 --> 00:07:47,960
Speaker 1: um just trying to deal with her her depression in

133
00:07:47,960 --> 00:07:50,320
Speaker 1: in this way, and these mood related fast were just

134
00:07:50,400 --> 00:07:53,720
Speaker 1: the beginning for Cec. Today, many historians looking back at

135
00:07:53,760 --> 00:07:56,840
Speaker 1: her habits believe that she suffered from anorexia and also

136
00:07:56,920 --> 00:08:00,520
Speaker 1: exercise to excess. She'd ride for hours or in later

137
00:08:00,640 --> 00:08:03,480
Speaker 1: years ago on these long brisk walks. She took up

138
00:08:03,480 --> 00:08:06,720
Speaker 1: fencing and had gymnasiums installed in all of her palaces

139
00:08:06,720 --> 00:08:09,280
Speaker 1: so that she could work out whenever she wanted. If

140
00:08:09,280 --> 00:08:12,560
Speaker 1: her weight crept above fifty kilows or about one and

141
00:08:12,600 --> 00:08:15,200
Speaker 1: ten pounds, and she was five eight, so just keep

142
00:08:15,240 --> 00:08:17,760
Speaker 1: that she was really really tall for the time, she'd

143
00:08:17,800 --> 00:08:20,480
Speaker 1: start a hunger cure until she lost the weight, and

144
00:08:20,520 --> 00:08:23,240
Speaker 1: she'd weigh herself as many as three times a day.

145
00:08:23,360 --> 00:08:26,400
Speaker 1: Occasionally she'd eat a lot, but that was rare. In

146
00:08:26,560 --> 00:08:29,080
Speaker 1: eighteen seventy eight, for example, she was reported to have

147
00:08:29,160 --> 00:08:32,080
Speaker 1: feasted on a meal of a hen An Italian salad,

148
00:08:32,480 --> 00:08:36,840
Speaker 1: champagne and cake. In eight one, she bought an English

149
00:08:36,880 --> 00:08:39,480
Speaker 1: country house and had a spiral staircase put in from

150
00:08:39,559 --> 00:08:42,319
Speaker 1: her living room to the kitchen I guess, presumably to

151
00:08:42,760 --> 00:08:46,040
Speaker 1: sneak down at snap down again. Yeah, And I mean,

152
00:08:46,080 --> 00:08:48,640
Speaker 1: I just think that the fact that these two events

153
00:08:48,640 --> 00:08:52,079
Speaker 1: are actually of note in her dietary history gives this

154
00:08:52,200 --> 00:08:54,439
Speaker 1: a real sense of her her daily meals. I mean,

155
00:08:54,760 --> 00:08:57,320
Speaker 1: hand the salad, champagne and cake. That doesn't sound like

156
00:08:57,360 --> 00:09:01,280
Speaker 1: that much through fasting, how of her wasn't nearly as

157
00:09:01,320 --> 00:09:04,880
Speaker 1: traveling to her family as her habit of tight lacing corsets.

158
00:09:04,920 --> 00:09:07,720
Speaker 1: And of course that was the style for the time,

159
00:09:08,120 --> 00:09:12,079
Speaker 1: but CC really took it beyond the style into really

160
00:09:12,200 --> 00:09:15,880
Speaker 1: kind of outrageous territory. Her goal waste was fifty centimeters

161
00:09:16,000 --> 00:09:21,600
Speaker 1: that's nineteen inches. Again, she is five ft eight, so

162
00:09:21,800 --> 00:09:26,559
Speaker 1: super tiny, and her pregnancies really really bothered her because

163
00:09:26,600 --> 00:09:31,080
Speaker 1: obviously nineteen inch waste is exact opposite of being pregnant.

164
00:09:31,120 --> 00:09:34,240
Speaker 1: And after a third pregnancy, which she really spent trying

165
00:09:34,320 --> 00:09:38,040
Speaker 1: to hide her figure, which she saw as kind of grotesque,

166
00:09:38,400 --> 00:09:42,000
Speaker 1: she finally had a son and heir named Rudolph, which

167
00:09:42,040 --> 00:09:45,319
Speaker 1: meant that she could stop having kids. She had done

168
00:09:45,360 --> 00:09:48,040
Speaker 1: her her wifely duty at last. Yeah, and she didn't

169
00:09:48,040 --> 00:09:50,400
Speaker 1: just stop having kids, she also really stopped trying to

170
00:09:50,440 --> 00:09:52,600
Speaker 1: be the empress that her mother in law had wanted

171
00:09:52,600 --> 00:09:55,280
Speaker 1: her to be. She'd sleep only a few hours and

172
00:09:55,360 --> 00:09:58,760
Speaker 1: stay up all night reading and writing romantic poetry. There's

173
00:09:58,760 --> 00:10:02,319
Speaker 1: an article in History today by Walter Vandreiken and Ron

174
00:10:02,400 --> 00:10:05,240
Speaker 1: Vandeth and they call this her secret diary that she

175
00:10:05,240 --> 00:10:07,680
Speaker 1: would write in. She also took up smoking, and she

176
00:10:07,760 --> 00:10:12,080
Speaker 1: eventually learned English, French, Hungarian, and modern Greek. She has

177
00:10:12,120 --> 00:10:13,679
Speaker 1: a lot of time to study, as we're going to

178
00:10:13,760 --> 00:10:16,640
Speaker 1: talk about in a little bit. By eighteen sixty she

179
00:10:16,720 --> 00:10:19,120
Speaker 1: also got an easy way out of her official role.

180
00:10:19,600 --> 00:10:23,400
Speaker 1: Suffering from anemia, exhaustion, and a lung complaints, Cecy's doctor

181
00:10:23,480 --> 00:10:26,440
Speaker 1: prescribed a curative trip to Madeira. This meant that she

182
00:10:26,440 --> 00:10:29,679
Speaker 1: could leave Vienna with a good reason, so sweet, it's

183
00:10:29,720 --> 00:10:32,960
Speaker 1: an excuse to get out of town. And after six

184
00:10:33,000 --> 00:10:36,920
Speaker 1: months in Madeira she was entirely recovered and returned home,

185
00:10:37,400 --> 00:10:39,920
Speaker 1: only to have all of the symptoms, all of the

186
00:10:39,960 --> 00:10:43,600
Speaker 1: bad health come back after just four days in Vienna.

187
00:10:43,760 --> 00:10:47,960
Speaker 1: So I think we're seeing some psychosomatic things going on here.

188
00:10:48,440 --> 00:10:51,319
Speaker 1: Um And this really started a pattern of leaving for

189
00:10:51,800 --> 00:10:56,480
Speaker 1: exotic locales like Greece or Venice or home or Spotsina

190
00:10:56,559 --> 00:10:59,080
Speaker 1: going and seeing her family in Bavaria are going to

191
00:10:59,200 --> 00:11:03,439
Speaker 1: austrians Os and then popping back into Vienna only occasionally.

192
00:11:03,640 --> 00:11:07,559
Speaker 1: She was away for almost two entire years between eighteen

193
00:11:07,600 --> 00:11:10,680
Speaker 1: sixty two and eighteen sixty four, and on her way

194
00:11:10,679 --> 00:11:14,199
Speaker 1: back to Vienna an unannounced trip back to Vienna, she

195
00:11:14,400 --> 00:11:18,120
Speaker 1: threw up in her carriage four times. So she did

196
00:11:18,160 --> 00:11:20,120
Speaker 1: not like living in the capital city. I think it's

197
00:11:20,160 --> 00:11:22,480
Speaker 1: safe to assume no, she did, but she liked keeping

198
00:11:22,520 --> 00:11:25,079
Speaker 1: her lifestyle the way it was. In order to get

199
00:11:25,320 --> 00:11:29,079
Speaker 1: fresh dairy products on her rambles, which she loved, she'd

200
00:11:29,320 --> 00:11:32,559
Speaker 1: only drink milk from her own animals. She would essentially

201
00:11:32,640 --> 00:11:36,280
Speaker 1: she'd bring along goats and sheep with her, so essentially

202
00:11:36,520 --> 00:11:41,240
Speaker 1: travel sized cows, you know, I mean basically. I think

203
00:11:41,240 --> 00:11:43,960
Speaker 1: her her dairy obsession is kind of interesting. I read

204
00:11:43,960 --> 00:11:47,200
Speaker 1: one thing about how at some of her estates in

205
00:11:47,280 --> 00:11:52,600
Speaker 1: Vienna she had full ranges of cow breeds to choose from,

206
00:11:52,679 --> 00:11:56,360
Speaker 1: and the cook at the confectionery would actually specify which

207
00:11:56,440 --> 00:12:00,360
Speaker 1: cow he wanted milk or cream or butter from, because

208
00:12:00,400 --> 00:12:03,880
Speaker 1: they had different flavors and different tastes. Um. But anyway,

209
00:12:03,960 --> 00:12:06,600
Speaker 1: moving on from that, we have to wonder what Franz

210
00:12:06,760 --> 00:12:09,680
Speaker 1: Joseph thought of his wife being gone all the time.

211
00:12:09,840 --> 00:12:12,800
Speaker 1: I mean, after all, this was a love match, so

212
00:12:12,920 --> 00:12:15,840
Speaker 1: presumably he had some affection for her. Not to mention,

213
00:12:16,000 --> 00:12:18,880
Speaker 1: she's the consort, so she has a lot of official

214
00:12:19,280 --> 00:12:22,720
Speaker 1: roles um, even though they were frequently separated from the

215
00:12:22,760 --> 00:12:27,040
Speaker 1: eighteen sixties onward fronts too. If really did stay deeply

216
00:12:27,120 --> 00:12:29,160
Speaker 1: in love with his wife, they write a lot of

217
00:12:29,240 --> 00:12:32,720
Speaker 1: letters to each other. He would build these palaces for

218
00:12:32,880 --> 00:12:36,520
Speaker 1: her and her far off vacation spots or sometimes close

219
00:12:36,559 --> 00:12:40,080
Speaker 1: to home, Um trying to trying to urge her to

220
00:12:40,200 --> 00:12:42,640
Speaker 1: at least be near him in Vienna or make it

221
00:12:42,679 --> 00:12:46,160
Speaker 1: easier for him to visit. He built a Pompey inspired

222
00:12:46,200 --> 00:12:51,000
Speaker 1: palace and Crafu and this forest villa outside of Vienna

223
00:12:51,040 --> 00:12:53,479
Speaker 1: to give her a lot of privacy, had it decorated

224
00:12:53,520 --> 00:12:57,440
Speaker 1: with frescoes from Elizabeth's favorite play, which was A Midsummer

225
00:12:57,559 --> 00:13:01,560
Speaker 1: Night's Dream and It's funny. She acknowledged the Midsummer Night's

226
00:13:01,600 --> 00:13:04,520
Speaker 1: Dream reference, but she didn't stay there very much, and

227
00:13:04,559 --> 00:13:07,280
Speaker 1: when she did, she'd sleep on a mattress on the

228
00:13:07,320 --> 00:13:09,920
Speaker 1: floor near windows so she could see the sky out

229
00:13:09,960 --> 00:13:13,760
Speaker 1: the window. Franz Joseph wasn't totally selfless in this, though

230
00:13:13,800 --> 00:13:16,439
Speaker 1: he did want a second son to secure his line,

231
00:13:16,720 --> 00:13:19,400
Speaker 1: though Cecy's doctors said that her health couldn't permit a

232
00:13:19,400 --> 00:13:22,880
Speaker 1: fourth pregnancy. Oddly enough, it was her growing interest in

233
00:13:22,920 --> 00:13:25,560
Speaker 1: politics that finally convinced her to have a fourth child.

234
00:13:25,920 --> 00:13:29,760
Speaker 1: As we mentioned, Cecy wasn't the best representative of monarchy,

235
00:13:29,800 --> 00:13:32,680
Speaker 1: at least from the Habsburg perspective. She thought that it

236
00:13:32,720 --> 00:13:36,240
Speaker 1: was an outdated institution, but she was really interested in

237
00:13:36,320 --> 00:13:39,679
Speaker 1: Hungarian politics, an interest that might have been stoked by

238
00:13:39,679 --> 00:13:44,000
Speaker 1: her possible lover, Count you La and Rassi eventually prime

239
00:13:44,040 --> 00:13:46,840
Speaker 1: Minister of Hungary and Um, We're not going to go

240
00:13:46,880 --> 00:13:49,320
Speaker 1: into that too much because there's just not that much

241
00:13:49,360 --> 00:13:52,800
Speaker 1: information on them except that they were good friends and

242
00:13:52,800 --> 00:13:55,840
Speaker 1: they both obviously had a strong interest in Hungary. But

243
00:13:56,240 --> 00:14:00,920
Speaker 1: in eighteen sixty seven, the Austro Hungarian Compromise made Franz

244
00:14:01,040 --> 00:14:04,280
Speaker 1: Joseph the Emperor of Austria and the King of Hungary,

245
00:14:04,280 --> 00:14:08,480
Speaker 1: and by extension, Elizabeth the Empress Um. And it divided

246
00:14:08,480 --> 00:14:11,120
Speaker 1: the monarchy into two halves, and each half had its

247
00:14:11,120 --> 00:14:15,200
Speaker 1: own constitution in parliament, but they were ruled by one

248
00:14:15,320 --> 00:14:18,920
Speaker 1: leader in one ministry, and because of her interest in

249
00:14:19,160 --> 00:14:22,080
Speaker 1: Hungary and its culture, she had another villa built there.

250
00:14:22,120 --> 00:14:24,920
Speaker 1: She'd take her kids to Budapest all the time. Cecy

251
00:14:25,040 --> 00:14:31,120
Speaker 1: became immensely popular in Hungary. She decided to eventually repay

252
00:14:31,160 --> 00:14:35,440
Speaker 1: that love of the people by having a patriotic Hungarian baby,

253
00:14:35,560 --> 00:14:38,640
Speaker 1: so one that would be born in Hungary, one that

254
00:14:38,720 --> 00:14:43,000
Speaker 1: would symbolize the alliance between the two countries. So Cecie

255
00:14:43,120 --> 00:14:46,240
Speaker 1: and Franz Joseph one had and had one more child,

256
00:14:46,400 --> 00:14:50,120
Speaker 1: Murray Valerie, and she was born in Budapest April eighteen

257
00:14:50,200 --> 00:14:53,360
Speaker 1: sixty eight. And this time I mean she she was

258
00:14:53,400 --> 00:14:56,640
Speaker 1: the Hungarian baby, but she was also finally Cecy's baby.

259
00:14:56,720 --> 00:14:59,240
Speaker 1: She got to raise her and be in charge of

260
00:14:59,280 --> 00:15:02,640
Speaker 1: her her bringing in her education. The death of the

261
00:15:02,720 --> 00:15:05,920
Speaker 1: Archduchess Sophie in eighteen seventy two gave cc even more

262
00:15:05,960 --> 00:15:08,960
Speaker 1: freedom to do as she pleased. She started entering writing

263
00:15:09,000 --> 00:15:12,400
Speaker 1: competitions as far off as England and Ireland, and she'd

264
00:15:12,440 --> 00:15:15,240
Speaker 1: be seen in public for only the biggest events, like

265
00:15:15,400 --> 00:15:18,280
Speaker 1: the World Exhibition in Vienna and the wedding of her

266
00:15:18,360 --> 00:15:22,040
Speaker 1: daughter Gizella or Franz Joseph Silver Jubilee, So things like

267
00:15:22,080 --> 00:15:26,280
Speaker 1: that barely ever in Vienna. Right when she'd travel, she'd

268
00:15:26,320 --> 00:15:30,840
Speaker 1: go incognito. So it's probably strange, then, for someone who's

269
00:15:30,840 --> 00:15:34,240
Speaker 1: so interested in being unknown to simultaneously be so interested

270
00:15:34,240 --> 00:15:37,600
Speaker 1: in her looks. We've already talked about CC's extreme dieting

271
00:15:37,680 --> 00:15:40,880
Speaker 1: and her exercising, but she's also associated with something that's

272
00:15:40,920 --> 00:15:44,280
Speaker 1: become known as her cult of beauty. She almost idolized

273
00:15:44,280 --> 00:15:46,880
Speaker 1: her own beauty, or at least became a slave to it.

274
00:15:47,000 --> 00:15:50,120
Speaker 1: Trying to live up to her own reputation. She'd be

275
00:15:50,200 --> 00:15:53,200
Speaker 1: sewn into those figure hugging clothes that we talked about

276
00:15:53,240 --> 00:15:56,080
Speaker 1: to show off her tiny waist. She'd take icy cold

277
00:15:56,080 --> 00:15:59,440
Speaker 1: showers in the morning and warm olive oil baths every evening,

278
00:15:59,720 --> 00:16:03,080
Speaker 1: and you'd wear night masks of raw veal and strawberries

279
00:16:03,120 --> 00:16:06,680
Speaker 1: for her skin, which again sounds kind of strawberry sounds nice,

280
00:16:06,840 --> 00:16:10,440
Speaker 1: raw veal not so much. She also had a lot

281
00:16:10,720 --> 00:16:13,280
Speaker 1: of hair. It was dark blonde when she was younger,

282
00:16:14,000 --> 00:16:17,480
Speaker 1: chestnut colored when she was older, and it was not

283
00:16:17,560 --> 00:16:19,960
Speaker 1: only really long, but really thick. If you look at

284
00:16:20,000 --> 00:16:23,600
Speaker 1: any portraits of her, pictures of her, you'll see her

285
00:16:23,680 --> 00:16:27,680
Speaker 1: with this particular hairstyle kind of curled in the front

286
00:16:27,720 --> 00:16:31,040
Speaker 1: and then just piles and piles and piles of braids,

287
00:16:31,200 --> 00:16:34,560
Speaker 1: and all of that hair took three hours of attention

288
00:16:34,680 --> 00:16:38,400
Speaker 1: every single day. This is when she would study languages

289
00:16:38,480 --> 00:16:42,160
Speaker 1: and philosophy and literature and history. And her hairdresser, who

290
00:16:42,160 --> 00:16:44,400
Speaker 1: would come on all of those travels, just like the

291
00:16:44,440 --> 00:16:47,840
Speaker 1: goats and the sheep, would wash her hair in what

292
00:16:47,960 --> 00:16:52,640
Speaker 1: we're called essences every three weeks, and that day was

293
00:16:52,720 --> 00:16:56,040
Speaker 1: just totally set aside for hair care, so she really

294
00:16:56,040 --> 00:16:58,280
Speaker 1: could say, I'm sorry, I can't go out and washing

295
00:16:58,320 --> 00:17:03,880
Speaker 1: my hair. UM. For special occasions, she would really adorn

296
00:17:03,960 --> 00:17:07,000
Speaker 1: herself and try to draw even more attention to her

297
00:17:07,160 --> 00:17:11,400
Speaker 1: beautiful hair. She'd wear the set of twenty seven specially

298
00:17:11,400 --> 00:17:15,439
Speaker 1: made diamond and pearl stars, and um, those kind of

299
00:17:15,480 --> 00:17:19,879
Speaker 1: became associated with Elizabeth to CC's stars they're sometimes called.

300
00:17:20,160 --> 00:17:24,040
Speaker 1: She'd give them as tokens to family members and ladies

301
00:17:24,040 --> 00:17:27,359
Speaker 1: in waiting, kind of like a calling card almost, And

302
00:17:27,400 --> 00:17:29,880
Speaker 1: even her minimal use of makeup played into her own

303
00:17:29,920 --> 00:17:33,280
Speaker 1: cult of beauty. She wanted to differentiate herself her own

304
00:17:33,359 --> 00:17:35,960
Speaker 1: natural looks, that is, from the painted ladies that she

305
00:17:36,000 --> 00:17:39,320
Speaker 1: saw around her from the eighteen sixties onwards. She started

306
00:17:39,359 --> 00:17:42,639
Speaker 1: to collect photos in Venice. In eighteen sixty two she

307
00:17:42,720 --> 00:17:46,280
Speaker 1: started an album specifically about beauties and broke it up

308
00:17:46,280 --> 00:17:50,280
Speaker 1: into different collections like Beauties from the East, historical beauties,

309
00:17:50,520 --> 00:17:54,000
Speaker 1: dancers and skimpy outfits. Things like that. It's hard to

310
00:17:54,040 --> 00:17:56,679
Speaker 1: think of CC as entirely vain, though she took a

311
00:17:56,720 --> 00:18:00,200
Speaker 1: strong interest in the poor and in particular the mentally ill,

312
00:18:00,480 --> 00:18:04,120
Speaker 1: just like her cousin Ludwig the Second. In eighteen seventy one,

313
00:18:04,200 --> 00:18:06,399
Speaker 1: her husband actually asked her what she'd like for her

314
00:18:06,440 --> 00:18:08,919
Speaker 1: Saint's Day and she said she wanted a tiger cub

315
00:18:09,000 --> 00:18:13,200
Speaker 1: and a medallion, but quote, a fully equipped lunatic asylum

316
00:18:13,280 --> 00:18:17,000
Speaker 1: would please me most. Yeah, I mean, the sounding so strange,

317
00:18:17,119 --> 00:18:20,400
Speaker 1: And it's important to remember, you know, when we when

318
00:18:20,440 --> 00:18:23,000
Speaker 1: we talk about all these sort of eccentric things that

319
00:18:23,040 --> 00:18:26,040
Speaker 1: she does and her own cult of beauty, just how

320
00:18:26,160 --> 00:18:29,639
Speaker 1: popular she really was. I mean, people loved her. We

321
00:18:29,720 --> 00:18:32,080
Speaker 1: talked a little bit about how much the Hungarians loved

322
00:18:32,080 --> 00:18:34,800
Speaker 1: her because she was interested in their culture and their cause,

323
00:18:34,920 --> 00:18:37,520
Speaker 1: but the Austrians really came around to her two when

324
00:18:37,560 --> 00:18:40,960
Speaker 1: she took care of the wounded during or after a battle,

325
00:18:41,119 --> 00:18:45,600
Speaker 1: and people just really gravitated toward her. But Cecy's life

326
00:18:45,800 --> 00:18:50,560
Speaker 1: of eccentric rambling took a dark turn when in January nine,

327
00:18:50,720 --> 00:18:54,840
Speaker 1: her son, crowned Prince Rudolph killed himself in this bizarre

328
00:18:54,960 --> 00:18:58,440
Speaker 1: murder suicide with his seventeen year old mistress. And we

329
00:18:58,760 --> 00:19:01,239
Speaker 1: got to talk about Rudolph just a minute here. He

330
00:19:01,320 --> 00:19:04,280
Speaker 1: was also kind of an odd ball. He believed that

331
00:19:04,400 --> 00:19:07,800
Speaker 1: his father's views were really old fashioned, and like his

332
00:19:07,880 --> 00:19:10,439
Speaker 1: mother CC, he wanted a looser court, kind of a

333
00:19:10,480 --> 00:19:14,040
Speaker 1: more liberal government. And he actually went as far as

334
00:19:14,160 --> 00:19:18,400
Speaker 1: to write articles for a leading liberal newspaper under a pseudonym,

335
00:19:18,480 --> 00:19:22,280
Speaker 1: which sounds pretty I mean, I wonder how he got

336
00:19:22,320 --> 00:19:24,680
Speaker 1: that role if he admitted who he was and then

337
00:19:24,720 --> 00:19:27,280
Speaker 1: said you can't use my name. But um, that's a

338
00:19:27,320 --> 00:19:29,680
Speaker 1: pretty radical thing for the crown prince to be doing.

339
00:19:29,760 --> 00:19:32,880
Speaker 1: And he also socialized with people. We we talked about

340
00:19:32,960 --> 00:19:36,040
Speaker 1: how strict that court etiquette was. He socialized with people

341
00:19:36,080 --> 00:19:38,719
Speaker 1: who were outside of his class. He had a lot

342
00:19:38,800 --> 00:19:42,680
Speaker 1: of Jewish intellectual friends, and all of this, instead of

343
00:19:42,720 --> 00:19:45,919
Speaker 1: making him kind of the new Guard, maybe as he

344
00:19:46,000 --> 00:19:49,240
Speaker 1: was hoping, really made him an outcast with his father

345
00:19:49,480 --> 00:19:52,159
Speaker 1: and with the aristocracy as a whole, and as a

346
00:19:52,160 --> 00:19:55,040
Speaker 1: result he was allowed no part in government and married

347
00:19:55,040 --> 00:19:59,280
Speaker 1: off to a Belgian princess and clearly deeply unhappy and disturbed,

348
00:19:59,800 --> 00:20:02,439
Speaker 1: and so he entered into a suicidal pact with the

349
00:20:02,480 --> 00:20:06,359
Speaker 1: teenage Baroness Marie Vetstra, And it's possible that he first

350
00:20:06,400 --> 00:20:08,520
Speaker 1: asked one of his other mistresses to take part in

351
00:20:08,560 --> 00:20:12,040
Speaker 1: the pact but was refused. So yeah, just don't get

352
00:20:12,040 --> 00:20:15,359
Speaker 1: any ideas that they were some kind of star cross lovers.

353
00:20:15,840 --> 00:20:18,280
Speaker 1: It seems like he really just wanted to be just

354
00:20:18,320 --> 00:20:21,359
Speaker 1: the one who agreed. Yeah, exactly. So the resulting deaths

355
00:20:21,359 --> 00:20:24,200
Speaker 1: were called the Marling incident, and they were a huge scandal,

356
00:20:24,320 --> 00:20:26,840
Speaker 1: and the emperor tried to cover up all the facts

357
00:20:26,880 --> 00:20:30,000
Speaker 1: of the case. And there was some conspiracy theory surrounding this, right, yeah,

358
00:20:30,040 --> 00:20:34,119
Speaker 1: I mean, the main one is that Rudolf didn't first

359
00:20:34,200 --> 00:20:36,959
Speaker 1: kill his lover and then commit suicide, but was in

360
00:20:37,040 --> 00:20:41,640
Speaker 1: fact murdered, and the young baroness was murdered as well

361
00:20:41,720 --> 00:20:43,919
Speaker 1: to make it look like it was a murder suicide.

362
00:20:44,280 --> 00:20:46,840
Speaker 1: That's the main theory, but there are lots of them,

363
00:20:46,920 --> 00:20:49,800
Speaker 1: so regardless of how it happened. C. C. Was truly

364
00:20:49,840 --> 00:20:53,359
Speaker 1: devastated by her son's staff. She took to wearing mourning

365
00:20:53,760 --> 00:20:56,120
Speaker 1: for the rest of her life. And just to give

366
00:20:56,119 --> 00:21:00,760
Speaker 1: you some context to Rudo's death wasn't just an unhappy

367
00:21:00,800 --> 00:21:03,040
Speaker 1: event in her life. It came right in the middle

368
00:21:03,200 --> 00:21:06,920
Speaker 1: of a string of family tragedies. And the first you're

369
00:21:06,920 --> 00:21:09,479
Speaker 1: familiar with because we talked about it pretty recently in

370
00:21:09,560 --> 00:21:13,800
Speaker 1: our Emperor Maximilian of Mexico episode. He was of course

371
00:21:14,119 --> 00:21:17,600
Speaker 1: her brother in law and was executed in eighteen sixty seven.

372
00:21:18,000 --> 00:21:22,439
Speaker 1: After that, his wife, Carlo Cha, was driven mad. Another

373
00:21:22,480 --> 00:21:26,679
Speaker 1: one we've talked about before. In eighteen six, CC's beloved cousin,

374
00:21:26,760 --> 00:21:29,840
Speaker 1: Ludwig the Second drown or died under some kind of

375
00:21:29,880 --> 00:21:35,400
Speaker 1: mysterious circumstances. Then in eighteen ninety six another brother in law,

376
00:21:35,520 --> 00:21:38,960
Speaker 1: Carl Ludwig, died from a parasite after drinking from the

377
00:21:39,040 --> 00:21:42,040
Speaker 1: River Jordans. And then the last blow really came in

378
00:21:42,119 --> 00:21:46,399
Speaker 1: eighteen ninety seven when Cecy's sister Sophie, who was once

379
00:21:46,440 --> 00:21:50,560
Speaker 1: a fiance of Ludvig's, died in a fire at um

380
00:21:50,600 --> 00:21:55,280
Speaker 1: a Paris charity bazaar. So even before some of those

381
00:21:55,359 --> 00:21:58,080
Speaker 1: later events happened, even after the death of Rudolph, Cecy

382
00:21:58,240 --> 00:22:00,800
Speaker 1: was afraid that she was going to go crazy from

383
00:22:00,840 --> 00:22:04,040
Speaker 1: all of the grief in her life, go mad, and

384
00:22:04,119 --> 00:22:08,240
Speaker 1: according to that History Today article we mentioned, she stopped

385
00:22:08,240 --> 00:22:12,080
Speaker 1: writing poetry. She kind of encouraged her husband in his

386
00:22:12,160 --> 00:22:16,560
Speaker 1: relationship with the actress Katerina Schrot and uh she went

387
00:22:16,600 --> 00:22:19,440
Speaker 1: on to become his main companion really for the rest

388
00:22:19,480 --> 00:22:22,680
Speaker 1: of his life. Um and Cecy kept on traveling to

389
00:22:23,040 --> 00:22:27,639
Speaker 1: going to all of those spots far away near visiting Bavaria,

390
00:22:28,160 --> 00:22:31,200
Speaker 1: just constantly on the move. As we mentioned, Cecy would

391
00:22:31,240 --> 00:22:34,760
Speaker 1: usually go incognito on these travels, staying under an assumed name.

392
00:22:35,200 --> 00:22:37,800
Speaker 1: But in while she was on a trip to Geneva

393
00:22:37,840 --> 00:22:41,879
Speaker 1: to visit the Baroness Julie Rothschild, the hotel owner recognized

394
00:22:41,920 --> 00:22:44,000
Speaker 1: her and so news that she was in town wound

395
00:22:44,080 --> 00:22:46,840
Speaker 1: up in the paper. This was perfect timing for a

396
00:22:46,880 --> 00:22:50,280
Speaker 1: twenty year old anarchist named Luigi Luccini who was looking

397
00:22:50,320 --> 00:22:53,840
Speaker 1: to kill someone important. His original target had been Prince

398
00:22:53,840 --> 00:22:56,880
Speaker 1: Henri di or Leone, who was supposed to visit Geneva,

399
00:22:56,960 --> 00:22:59,400
Speaker 1: but the prince never showed up, and so when Luccini

400
00:22:59,480 --> 00:23:03,040
Speaker 1: saw the Austro Hungarian Impress was in town. He decided

401
00:23:03,280 --> 00:23:07,400
Speaker 1: she'd make a suitable replacement, especially since she wore all

402
00:23:07,400 --> 00:23:09,760
Speaker 1: black and would be easy to spot. So in September

403
00:23:09,880 --> 00:23:13,399
Speaker 1: tenth he approached CC and her lady in waiting on

404
00:23:13,400 --> 00:23:16,840
Speaker 1: the street and stabbed her with a homemade file, And

405
00:23:17,160 --> 00:23:20,760
Speaker 1: initially CC didn't even realize that she had been stabbed,

406
00:23:20,800 --> 00:23:23,440
Speaker 1: because she wore such thick course that she thought she'd

407
00:23:23,480 --> 00:23:25,880
Speaker 1: just been pushed to the ground, so she got up.

408
00:23:26,040 --> 00:23:28,639
Speaker 1: She quickly walked to the ship on Lake Geneva that

409
00:23:28,680 --> 00:23:31,199
Speaker 1: she had been bound for, and at that point she

410
00:23:31,440 --> 00:23:34,760
Speaker 1: collapsed and died soon after. The file turned out to

411
00:23:34,840 --> 00:23:39,800
Speaker 1: have barely struck her heart, so the assassin was easily

412
00:23:39,880 --> 00:23:43,200
Speaker 1: arrested taken in and he explained how he had wanted

413
00:23:43,200 --> 00:23:46,760
Speaker 1: to kill somebody powerful and said quote, only he who

414
00:23:46,800 --> 00:23:49,320
Speaker 1: works may eat, which turned out to be a really

415
00:23:49,359 --> 00:23:53,600
Speaker 1: peculiar statement in light of CC's eating disorders. But he

416
00:23:53,680 --> 00:23:56,720
Speaker 1: also admitted that he really didn't know who she was.

417
00:23:56,840 --> 00:23:59,360
Speaker 1: He just knew that she was somebody important. He had

418
00:23:59,560 --> 00:24:02,960
Speaker 1: no no knowledge of all of her charitable deeds, her

419
00:24:03,280 --> 00:24:06,720
Speaker 1: trying to help mentally ill people and um the poor,

420
00:24:07,920 --> 00:24:10,240
Speaker 1: all the things that made her such a popular figure

421
00:24:10,240 --> 00:24:13,880
Speaker 1: with a lot of Europe, and Luccini wanted to be

422
00:24:13,960 --> 00:24:18,000
Speaker 1: executed as a martyr for his crime. He asked to

423
00:24:18,000 --> 00:24:20,560
Speaker 1: be killed, but he really should have picked the place

424
00:24:20,600 --> 00:24:22,879
Speaker 1: where he committed his murder a little better because the

425
00:24:22,880 --> 00:24:26,480
Speaker 1: death penalty had by that point been outlawed in Switzerland.

426
00:24:26,520 --> 00:24:30,080
Speaker 1: So instead he got life in prison, and he hanged

427
00:24:30,119 --> 00:24:33,639
Speaker 1: himself with a belt um many years later in nineteen ten,

428
00:24:33,760 --> 00:24:37,920
Speaker 1: supposedly after his memoirs had been confiscated, and of course

429
00:24:37,960 --> 00:24:40,960
Speaker 1: Franz Joseph was deeply upset by what had happened. When

430
00:24:40,960 --> 00:24:44,280
Speaker 1: he heard that Cec had been killed, He's supposed to

431
00:24:44,280 --> 00:24:46,800
Speaker 1: have said, quote, you have no idea how much I

432
00:24:46,840 --> 00:24:49,880
Speaker 1: loved this woman, And in light of all his family tragedy,

433
00:24:50,200 --> 00:24:53,080
Speaker 1: he said, quote, nothing has been spared me in this world.

434
00:24:53,920 --> 00:24:58,159
Speaker 1: So a sad end to the love story of Phronsie

435
00:24:58,240 --> 00:25:02,359
Speaker 1: and Cecy here, but 's a very mccub twist to

436
00:25:02,440 --> 00:25:04,520
Speaker 1: this story too, And he knew Da Bolina is gonna

437
00:25:04,560 --> 00:25:08,280
Speaker 1: like it because there is a preserved head waiting at

438
00:25:08,280 --> 00:25:10,240
Speaker 1: the end of this podcast for all of us. So

439
00:25:10,640 --> 00:25:15,879
Speaker 1: for eighty seven years after Elizabeth's death, Geneva's morgue contained

440
00:25:16,000 --> 00:25:20,720
Speaker 1: the decapitated head of the assassin Luigi Luccini, and in

441
00:25:20,760 --> 00:25:24,720
Speaker 1: the nineteen eighties the head, which was preserved in formaldehyde,

442
00:25:25,160 --> 00:25:28,159
Speaker 1: was sent to Austria. And there's a dot the New

443
00:25:28,240 --> 00:25:31,919
Speaker 1: York Times article from the eighties UM that quotes a

444
00:25:32,000 --> 00:25:35,800
Speaker 1: doctor old Rich Freik, who was the chief of Geneva's

445
00:25:35,840 --> 00:25:39,760
Speaker 1: Institute of Legal Medicine. He said, quote, personally, I am

446
00:25:39,800 --> 00:25:41,960
Speaker 1: happy we are rid of it. You could keep it

447
00:25:42,040 --> 00:25:45,199
Speaker 1: for two hundred or three hundred years like that. I

448
00:25:45,240 --> 00:25:48,119
Speaker 1: had wanted to dispose of it, perhaps make a mass

449
00:25:48,160 --> 00:25:51,960
Speaker 1: casting of the faith, but the Austrians wanted it, perhaps

450
00:25:52,000 --> 00:25:55,680
Speaker 1: to see a piece of history of the Austro Hungarian Empire.

451
00:25:56,320 --> 00:25:59,800
Speaker 1: Gets weirder than that, though, because just a few years

452
00:26:00,000 --> 00:26:02,800
Speaker 1: after the swap, it seemed like everybody had forgotten how

453
00:26:02,920 --> 00:26:06,760
Speaker 1: the head got from Geneva to Austria in the first place.

454
00:26:07,040 --> 00:26:10,040
Speaker 1: There's an article I found from the Lancet in the

455
00:26:10,119 --> 00:26:13,360
Speaker 1: late nineties, and the head was by that point at

456
00:26:13,359 --> 00:26:15,960
Speaker 1: the Museum of Pathology, and it was just a total

457
00:26:16,000 --> 00:26:19,879
Speaker 1: puzzle to everyone how it had gotten there. UM. Carl Hlobar,

458
00:26:20,000 --> 00:26:22,800
Speaker 1: who was the chairman of the Institute for the History

459
00:26:22,800 --> 00:26:27,040
Speaker 1: of Medicine, figured quote the Swiss probably thought, my god,

460
00:26:27,359 --> 00:26:29,960
Speaker 1: what do we do with this? We'll give it to Austria,

461
00:26:30,040 --> 00:26:33,280
Speaker 1: So I like that. Um, they kind of assumed that

462
00:26:33,600 --> 00:26:37,080
Speaker 1: the Swiss didn't want the head and figured Austria would,

463
00:26:37,119 --> 00:26:41,440
Speaker 1: And really Austria did want the head. And I would

464
00:26:41,480 --> 00:26:43,120
Speaker 1: just like to point out that I'm not the only

465
00:26:43,119 --> 00:26:46,000
Speaker 1: one in the studio who was interested in head. I know,

466
00:26:46,280 --> 00:26:49,840
Speaker 1: I think you started, you started the trend there. So

467
00:26:50,080 --> 00:26:54,040
Speaker 1: unlike Ned Kelly's head that we discussed a few episodes ago,

468
00:26:54,400 --> 00:26:57,720
Speaker 1: no one wanted this creepy experimented on head of Luccini.

469
00:26:58,320 --> 00:27:01,320
Speaker 1: The Pathology Museum direct after at the time or curator

470
00:27:01,359 --> 00:27:03,520
Speaker 1: at the time even said that the head was quote

471
00:27:03,800 --> 00:27:06,400
Speaker 1: of no scientific worth and they've been trying to get

472
00:27:06,440 --> 00:27:08,919
Speaker 1: permission to have it intern for years and that finally

473
00:27:08,960 --> 00:27:11,360
Speaker 1: happened in two thousands. And you know why it happened.

474
00:27:11,640 --> 00:27:15,120
Speaker 1: Why because people kept on coming to the museum because

475
00:27:15,160 --> 00:27:18,520
Speaker 1: Emperor cc is still so popular. People would come, like

476
00:27:18,560 --> 00:27:21,400
Speaker 1: on the day she was assassinated and try to see

477
00:27:21,440 --> 00:27:24,280
Speaker 1: the head. And one of the stipulations of the head

478
00:27:24,320 --> 00:27:27,280
Speaker 1: being transferred to Austria was that it would not be

479
00:27:27,440 --> 00:27:30,680
Speaker 1: on public view because that's just too gross and creepy.

480
00:27:30,800 --> 00:27:33,040
Speaker 1: It's it's I mean a head and formaldehyde come on

481
00:27:33,480 --> 00:27:35,280
Speaker 1: with that in the stipulation that this, I mean, this

482
00:27:35,440 --> 00:27:37,560
Speaker 1: is gross and creepy and you can't do it. Those

483
00:27:37,560 --> 00:27:42,120
Speaker 1: are That's my interpretation of the transfer. So I think

484
00:27:42,280 --> 00:27:45,679
Speaker 1: closing with that head pretty much wraps up the story

485
00:27:45,880 --> 00:27:50,760
Speaker 1: of um CC's murderer's death. But um I mean I

486
00:27:51,119 --> 00:27:54,320
Speaker 1: wanted to talk a little bit more about who she

487
00:27:54,480 --> 00:27:57,159
Speaker 1: was and the things that made her so unusual for

488
00:27:57,240 --> 00:28:00,000
Speaker 1: her time. How strange it is that those things are

489
00:27:59,840 --> 00:28:04,000
Speaker 1: are common now or or not unusual at all. The

490
00:28:04,040 --> 00:28:07,880
Speaker 1: extreme dieting, the exercising, the being obsessed with her hair

491
00:28:08,000 --> 00:28:11,920
Speaker 1: and aging and losing her beauty, all things that just

492
00:28:12,160 --> 00:28:16,000
Speaker 1: a few decades later really wouldn't make her stand out

493
00:28:16,040 --> 00:28:17,800
Speaker 1: at all, wouldn't have been a big deal. And yeah,

494
00:28:17,800 --> 00:28:20,600
Speaker 1: that's a good point. She once wrote to her daughter

495
00:28:20,720 --> 00:28:25,359
Speaker 1: Marie Valerie quote, marriage is a nonsensical institution. One is

496
00:28:25,440 --> 00:28:28,399
Speaker 1: sold off as a fifteen year old child, taking an

497
00:28:28,440 --> 00:28:31,920
Speaker 1: oath that one does not understand, cannot revoke, and then

498
00:28:32,040 --> 00:28:35,560
Speaker 1: regrets for thirty years or more. I just thought that

499
00:28:35,600 --> 00:28:38,560
Speaker 1: was an interesting quote to end on, because you know,

500
00:28:38,680 --> 00:28:40,600
Speaker 1: after we told this whole story about the love story

501
00:28:40,600 --> 00:28:42,840
Speaker 1: with Franz Joseph. It gives you a different idea of

502
00:28:42,880 --> 00:28:45,200
Speaker 1: how she felt when she got married. Yeah, that they

503
00:28:45,240 --> 00:28:50,240
Speaker 1: had very different opinions of their relationship together. So Ceci

504
00:28:50,400 --> 00:28:52,520
Speaker 1: ended up kind of being the poster girl for the

505
00:28:52,520 --> 00:28:57,080
Speaker 1: Habsburgs weirdly enough, even though she is almost totally counter

506
00:28:57,200 --> 00:28:59,560
Speaker 1: to what the family is about. But if you want

507
00:28:59,560 --> 00:29:03,400
Speaker 1: to sit st any other Hatsburg family members were game.

508
00:29:03,480 --> 00:29:05,840
Speaker 1: I think we got a pretty positive response for covering

509
00:29:05,960 --> 00:29:10,120
Speaker 1: Maximilian another famous passport. So yeah, go ahead and write

510
00:29:10,160 --> 00:29:13,520
Speaker 1: us were at history podcast at how stuff works dot com.

511
00:29:13,600 --> 00:29:16,640
Speaker 1: You can also find us on Twitter at mist in history,

512
00:29:16,760 --> 00:29:19,600
Speaker 1: and we are on Facebook too. And if you want

513
00:29:19,600 --> 00:29:21,440
Speaker 1: to find out a little bit more about one of

514
00:29:21,600 --> 00:29:25,760
Speaker 1: CC's favorite garments or undergarments, I should say, you can

515
00:29:25,920 --> 00:29:28,440
Speaker 1: look up an article on our website called how Corselet's

516
00:29:28,480 --> 00:29:30,440
Speaker 1: work and you can find that by visiting our homepage

517
00:29:30,440 --> 00:29:37,000
Speaker 1: at www dot how stuff works dot com. Be sure

518
00:29:37,040 --> 00:29:39,960
Speaker 1: to check out our new video podcast, Stuff from the Future.

519
00:29:40,280 --> 00:29:42,600
Speaker 1: Join how Stuff Work staff as we explore the most

520
00:29:42,600 --> 00:29:47,200
Speaker 1: promising and perplexing possibilities of tomorrow. The how Stuff Works

521
00:29:47,200 --> 00:29:50,440
Speaker 1: iPhone app has a Rise Download it today on iTunes,