The following year, April 22, 1868, another daughter was born to the imperial pair at the royal castle at Ofen. It was the first time for a century that a child of the royal house had been born in Hungary, and the enthusiasm of the Magyars knew no bounds. All night the streets were filled with excited throngs shouting “Eljens” for the King and Queen and the new-born Princess.
The Archduchess Marie Valerie, as she was christened, became the Empress’ favorite child. The two older ones had been kept away from her so long that at first they were completely estranged and it required much patience and devotion on her part to gain their affection and confidence. The Crown Prince, who was ten years old at that time, was a most interesting child and already a universal favorite, but under his grandmother’s influence he had developed a mixture of wayward pride and vanity that troubled his mother greatly and which she strove hard to correct. Fortunately, however, Rudolf was tender-hearted and easily influenced, and she succeeded at last to a large extent in overcoming the evil effects of the adulation and flattery with which the little heir had been surrounded. With Valerie she determined it should be different, and from earliest babyhood her training and education became the Empress’ chief care. She was a delicate child, and the mother watched over her with a devotion that seemed almost like a reparation for what she had failed to give her other children. She was present at the lessons of the two elder ones whenever possible and took the greatest interest in their education, repeatedly impressing on their teachers that she did not want them favored or spoiled. She taught the little girls to dance, and the first dance that Valerie learned was the Hungarian Czardas. She tried to implant in them her own love for Hungary and urged their tutors and governesses “to make them as little German as possible.”
Christmas was the most joyful time in the year for the imperial family, and Christmas Eve, being also Elizabeth’s birthday, was celebrated as a double feast. There were always two trees, the smaller of which the Empress decorated with her own hands for the children. She spent days looking for appropriate gifts for them and the Emperor, as well as the various members of the court, whose individual tastes she always tried to gratify. One day, shortly before Christmas, Marie Valerie came to her mother with a beseeching air and begged that the presents intended for her might be given to some poor children. Much touched by the idea, Elizabeth consented, and from that time there was always another tree laden with gifts for the unfortunates.
The Empress adored flowers. During her rambles she would gather whole armfuls, and even when riding would often spring from her horse to pick wild flowers and fasten them to the pommel of her saddle. Her rooms were always filled with them, and if any choice blossom chanced to please her especially she would carry it at night into her own bedroom. “Mutzerl,” as Marie Valerie was called, inherited this passion of her mother’s, and almost as soon as she could walk she started little gardens of her own at the different places where the court stayed in turn. She was her mother’s constant companion and there was the most touching sympathy and devotion between them. “Valerie is not only a daughter to me,” Elizabeth once said, “but my best friend and companion.”
The Archduchess was remarkable for her simplicity and lack of self-consciousness, as well as for her dignity and kindness of heart. Elizabeth was a firm believer in the virtues of physical exercise and had her daughter taught to ride, fence, and shoot; but Valerie did not altogether share her love of long walks and rides. She had the Wittelsbach love of art and literature, was devoted to poetry and even as a child wrote verses of some merit. Remembering the mortifications her own lack of education had caused her in her early married life, the Empress took special interest in Valerie’s education. She had her taught Latin and Greek, besides several modern languages, and shared her studies as much as possible, often poring over some difficult passage in Greek Scripture with her or learning by heart the most beautiful verses. The young poetess looked upon her mother as her most valuable critic and showed her all her poems which filled several volumes, deferring always to the Empress’ judgment and finding in her praise her greatest reward. She was devoted to both her parents, but as time went on became almost a second self to her mother—the living token of the reconciliation between herself and the Emperor, and a consolation for all her loneliness and suffering.
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. But these long rides also served another purpose. On both sides of the house she had relatives whose lives were darkened by the fatal inheritance of the Wittelsbachs; so it was not strange that as she grew older her sensitive nature should have brooded over the fear of developing the family disorder. To banish these terrible fits of depression she would gallop for hours, insensible to weather or physical exhaustion, sometimes drenched to the skin, and it was only when she felt her horse quiver under her with fatigue that she would slacken her pace.
Immediately after the coronation the Hungarians presented to their Queen the castle of Gödöllö, situated in the depths of the forest, not far from Budapest, and for many years it was her favorite residence. Here there was nothing to break the peaceful seclusion but the plaintive notes of the Zingaris’ violins. Here she was her own mistress, spending long, happy, care-free days. She usually rose at four o’clock, and was in the saddle from five till eleven, when she breakfasted. It was an ideal country for riding, and she became familiar with every forest pathway for miles around, often stopping at some camp of the Czikos to chat with these half-savage Bedouins of the Hungarian Puszta, in whom she felt the greatest interest. She brought them gifts of tobacco, and was always welcomed with delight by these strange herdsmen.
But there were gay times also at Gödöllö in those days, when her husband and children were there and the castle was full of guests. Her stag hunts were famous, and the walls were covered with trophies of the chase. “There is a tree at Gödöllö,” she once said to a companion, “who is one of my best friends. He knows all my inmost thoughts, and whenever I go back there I tell him all that has happened to me since we parted.”