Reconciliation was at length effected over the new Hungarian constitution, when the Emperor and Empress travelled in state to Budapest, there to be crowned King and Queen of Hungary. The ceremonies were magnificent. All the various races of the dominions were represented, as the writer of The Martyrdom of an Empress, says:
The escort of one hundred and eighty-two aristocrats was an especially magnificent sight. Twelve pairs of cavaliers, whose horses were led by armour-bearers in Magyar dresses, were followed by eight mounted Magnates, each of whom carried a banner. The others all came in pairs, each horse being led by one or two armour-bearers. All the nobles wore the splendid dress of the Hungarian Magnate, adorned with gold embroidery and precious stones from the kalpak—or head-covering, which is surmounted with heron’s feathers—down to the high boots. The reins, gilt stirrups, and the shabracks and golden scabbards of the scimitars were covered with diamonds and jewels, many of them being worth a fortune.
The Emperor has always been personally greatly beloved by his subjects, and Prince Bismarck once said, “Whatever dissensions the different nationalities of Austria may have among themselves, as soon as the Emperor Francis Joseph gets on horseback they all follow him with enthusiasm.”
The Empress always got on better with the Magyars than with her Austrian subjects, and was more loved by them. Her wonderful skill as a horsewoman endeared her to the Magyars, every one of whom is born with the love of horses in his veins. After the coronation the Empress set herself to master the Hungarian language, and though it is notably difficult, she became so proficient in it that the patriot Deak told her she was the noblest Hungarian of them all. Her openly expressed sorrow at the death of Deak was another link between her and the Hungarians, who grew to love her as they had loved no queen since Maria Teresa. The Empress Elizabeth’s knowledge of foreign languages was something exceptional; she spoke and wrote German, Hungarian, Czech, Polish, Roumanian, Italian, Modern Greek, English, and French. She was very fond of Byron, who, after Heine, was her favourite poet.
The youngest child of the Imperial couple, the Archduchess Valerie, was born the following year.
In 1879 the Empress visited Great Britain, where her firm and graceful seat as a horsewoman attracted as much admiration as in Hungary; she returned many times in later years, and rode to hounds with the Pytchley, Royal Meath, and in Cheshire, and no mount was too spirited for her to manage. She stayed also at the Isle of Wight, which she greatly appreciated, and her clever feats of swimming were only second to her horsemanship.
The Emperor, meantime, having borne first the burden of internal dissensions, and then the trial and humiliation of the war with Germany, grew old before his time and became grave and quiet.
Prince Rudolph married the Princess Stephanie of Belgium in 1881, and in 1883 their only child, a daughter, was born to them. She was about six years old when the terrible death of Rudolph fell as a heavy blow on his parents. The hot-headed young man was mixed up in intrigues unsuitable to his responsible position, with the result that he took his own life by shooting himself, and was found dead in a shooting-box at the end of January 1889. It is said that the Empress was never known to laugh again.
In the following year her youngest daughter, the Archduchess Valerie, married, and from that time the unhappy Empress travelled about a great deal incognito on the Continent, and staying at her palace Achilleion on Corfu. On this she spent thousands of pounds. Since her death it has been purchased by the German Emperor.
The end came on Sunday September 11, 1898, at Geneva, whither she had gone over for a few days from Territet where she had been staying. Accompanied only by a lady-in-waiting the Empress was walking along the quay between one and two in the afternoon to rejoin the boat which was to take her back to Territet, when a man rushed forward and struck her violently over the heart. It was thought at first he had only stumbled against her and caused her to fall, and though he was secured no great apprehension was raised by his strange conduct. The Empress recovered herself and went on board, where she fainted. It was then discovered that he had pierced her heart with a triangular file resembling a stiletto, which had inflicted only a small wound but bled internally. Brought back to Geneva she died in half an hour. The assassin, who had been arrested, turned out to be an Italian anarchist named Luccheni, who seemed to have no special motive for his dastardly crime beyond a general vendetta against crowned heads. Thus died the Empress Elizabeth in her sixty-first year, adding one more heart-rending sorrow to her husband’s darkened life. There is hardly any grief in the range of human relationships that the Emperor has not known. It was in the very year of his wife’s death, in the month of December, that he was preparing to celebrate his jubilee. Up to the present time he has reigned longer than any other European sovereign of whom we have record, having even out-distanced Queen Victoria.