`Sissi" made sure that people talked about her in her lifetime for her beauty, style, unapproachability and svelte figure, and she remains good copy long after her death. Her virtues as a private person were genuine, her qualities as Austro-Hungarian Empress were a good deal more dubious, and obviously she hated the role anyway.
Married as a teenage bride to Franz Josef, she remained a typical Wittelsbach - wilful, intelligent, self-centred and bored with protocol. After her children were born, she spent long periods away from her patient, workaholic husband, usually horseriding in Hungary or Ireland, both of which she loved. Sissi survived the suicide of her son Rudolf to die by the hand of an Italian anarchist in 1898.
