[2] In 1853, Archduchess Sophie, the domineering mother of 23-year-old Emperor Franz Joseph I, preferring a niece to a stranger for her daughter-in-law, arranged a meeting between her son and her sister Princess Ludovika's eldest daughter, Duchess Helene ("Néné").

On their way to Bad Ischl, they visited Leopoldskron Palace where Theresa, the Queen Dowager of Bavaria was in mourning for her brother Georg, so they were dressed in black and unable to don more suitable clothing before meeting the young Emperor.

[6] After enjoying an informal, unstructured childhood, Elisabeth, who was shy and introverted by nature, and more so among the stifling formality of Habsburg court life, had difficulty adapting to the Hofburg and its rigid protocols and strict etiquette.

Due to her nervous attacks, fasting cures, severe exercise regime, and frequent fits of coughing, the state of her health had become so alarming that in October 1860, she was reported to suffer not only from green-sickness, but also from physical exhaustion.

She returned in August 1862, shortly before her husband's birthday, but immediately suffered from a violent migraine and vomited four times en route, which might support a theory that some of her complaints were stress-related and psychosomatic.

Elisabeth fell into her old pattern of escaping boredom and dull court protocol through frequent walking and riding, using her health as an excuse to avoid both official obligations and sexual intimacy.

Her decision was at once a deliberate personal choice and a political negotiation: by returning to the marriage, she ensured that Hungary, with which she felt an intense emotional alliance, would gain an equal footing with Austria.

In the next year, Elisabeth lived primarily there, leaving her neglected and resentful Austrian subjects to trade rumors that if the infant she was expecting were a son, she would name him Stephen, after the patron saint and first king of Hungary.

He was a stolid and sober man, a political conservative who was still guided by his mother and her adherence to the strict Spanish Court ceremony regarding both his public and domestic life, whereas Elisabeth inhabited a different world altogether.

She had a special interest in history, philosophy, and literature, and developed a profound reverence for the German lyric poet and radical political thinker Heinrich Heine, whose letters she collected.

Referring to herself as Titania, William Shakespeare's Fairy Queen, Elisabeth expressed her intimate thoughts and desires in a large number of romantic poems, which served as a type of secret diary.

During the peak period of 1859–60, which coincided with Franz-Joseph's political and military defeats in Italy, her sexual withdrawal from her husband after three pregnancies in rapid succession, and her losing battle with her mother-in-law for dominance in rearing her children, she reduced her waist to 40 cm (16 inches) in circumference.

Corsets of the time were split-busk types, fastening up the front with hooks and eyes, but Elisabeth had more rigid, solid-front ones made in Paris out of leather, "like those of Parisian courtesans", probably to hold up under the stress of such strenuous lacing, "a proceeding which sometimes took quite an hour".

[citation needed] Although on her return to Vienna in August 1862, a lady-in-waiting reported that "she eats properly, sleeps well, and does not tight-lace anymore",[24] her clothing from this time until her death still measured only 47–49.5 cm (18 ½–19 ½ inches) around the waist, which prompted the Prince of Hesse to describe her as "almost inhumanly slender".

Every castle she lived in was equipped with a gymnasium; the Knights' Hall of the Hofburg was converted into one, mats and balance beams were installed in her bedchamber so that she could practise on them each morning, and the Imperial Villa at Bad Ischl was fitted with gigantic mirrors so that she could correct every movement and position.

[6] On one occasion in 1878, the Empress astonished her travelling companions when she unexpectedly visited a restaurant incognito, where she drank champagne, ate a broiled chicken and an Italian salad, and finished with a "considerable quantity of cake".

Walter Vandereycken, a professor of psychology, has stated that: "numerous documents repeatedly describe her considerable fear of weight gain and the psychopathological changes specific for anorexia nervosa.

Elisabeth slept without a pillow on a metal bedstead, which she believed was better for retaining and maintaining her upright posture; either raw veal or crushed strawberries lined her nightly leather facial mask.

Countess Irma Sztáray, her last lady-in-waiting, describes the reclusive and highly sensitive Empress as a natural, liberal and modest character, as a good listener and keen observer with great intellect.

The others were the lawyer Nikos Thermoyanis, Roussos Roussopoulos, who thanks to Elisabeth became an honorary consul in Budapest, Constantin Manos, who became a resistance fighter against the Turks in Crete, and Marinos Marinaky, a future sportsman and co-founder of the famous Greek football club Panathinaikos.

Because of the sharpness and thinness of the file, the wound was very narrow and, due to pressure from Elisabeth's extremely tight corseting, the hemorrhage of blood into the pericardial sac around the heart was slowed to mere drops.

[45] Franz Joseph remarked to Prince Liechtenstein, who was the couple's devoted equerry, "That a man could be found to attack such a woman, whose whole life was spent in doing good and who never injured any person, is to me incomprehensible".

One set of 27 diamond stars was kept in the Imperial family and it is seen in a photograph that shows the dowry of Rudolf's daughter, Archduchess Elisabeth, known as "Erzsi", on the occasion of her wedding to Prince Otto of Windisch-Graetz in 1902.

Sisi und der Kaiserkuss) starred French actress Vanessa Wagner as Elisabeth, Nils Tavernier as Franz Joseph and Sonja Kirchberger as Helene.

[citation needed] In 2007, German comedian and director Michael Herbig released an animated parody film based on Elisabeth under the title Lissi und der wilde Kaiser.

[citation needed] In 2014, to coincide with the presentation of the Pre-Fall 2015 "Metier d'arts" collection by luxury fashion house Chanel, shown in Leopoldskron Palace, creative director Karl Lagerfeld directed a short film featuring Cara Delevingne as Empress Elisabeth accompanied by Pharrell Williams.

During a dream sequence, the duo sing a song written by Williams entitled CC the World, playing on the iconic interlocking logo of the fashion house, the initials of its founder Coco Chanel, as well as the Empress's nickname "Sisi".

[citation needed] In 2009, Sisi, a two-part mini-series, premiered on European television, produced by a German, Austrian and Italian partnership, starring Cristiana Capotondi as Elisabeth and David Rott as Franz Joseph.

[70] Constantin Christomanos [de] (1867–1911), who served as Elisabeth's modern Greek language tutor from 1891 to 1893 and escorted her during her stay in Corfu, published his memoirs of her shortly after her death, in his 1899 Tagebuchblätter (Diary Pages).

[71] Although he portrayed Elisabeth in an idealistic favourable manner, as a fairytale princess come to life, his book greatly displeased the Imperial Court that declared him persona non grata and forced him to resign his university teaching position in Vienna and leave Austria.