Empress Elisabeth ("Sisi") | Beauty That Longed to Be Free
When I first began reading about Empress Elisabeth of Austria—known affectionately as "Sisi"—I expected to meet one of history's great beauties.
Instead, I met one of history's great free spirits.
And perhaps that is what made her truly beautiful.
Long before I learned about her famous waist, her ankle-length hair, or the portraits that captivated Europe, I learned one simple fact that made me smile.
The young Emperor Franz Joseph traveled to meet Elisabeth's older sister, who had been chosen as his intended bride.
Then he met sixteen-year-old Elisabeth.
And everything changed.
He fell in love with her instead.
Some call it love at first sight.
I don't know if love can truly happen in a single moment.
But I do believe something extraordinary can.
A face may catch our attention.
Beauty may invite us to look a little closer.
But beauty alone has never made anyone fall in love.
It is something deeper.
A warmth.
An energy.
A quiet confidence.
An unmistakable presence that cannot quite be explained.
Perhaps that was what Franz Joseph saw.
Not merely a beautiful young woman.
But Elisabeth.
The girl who would later become known simply as "Sisi."
I smiled when I learned that nickname.
It came from her childhood, long before she became Empress, when she was simply a daughter, a sister, and a spirited young girl.
I have to admit, I rather love it.
In fact, if someone ever asks me to help them choose a grandmother name, I just might suggest "Sisi."
It feels warm.
Joyful.
Approachable.
Exactly the opposite of the life she would eventually inherit.
Because becoming Empress was never really the fairy tale people imagined.
It became a life filled with expectations.
Rules.
Ceremony.
Endless public scrutiny.
Every movement observed.
Every appearance discussed.
Every wrinkle feared.
Every pound noticed.
Reading about Sisi, I couldn't help thinking that she was living with the pressures of social media...
More than a century before social media ever existed.
Her beauty became her identity.
Europe admired her extraordinary hair, which reportedly reached almost to her ankles.
It took hours to brush.
An entire day to wash.
I couldn't help wondering whether such magnificent hair ever became heavy.
Whether it caused headaches.
Whether she ever wished she could simply cut it to her shoulders and feel the breeze against her neck.
Beauty, after all, can become surprisingly heavy.
Her famous waist measured only about twenty inches.
She wore the corsets expected of women of her time, but historians believe she was naturally remarkably slender as well.
More heartbreaking than the number itself was the fact that she knew it.
She reportedly weighed herself frequently.
Restricted her food.
Measured herself.
Not because she wanted to be healthy.
Because she felt responsible for preserving the image the world expected her to maintain.
That makes me sad.
Not because she cared about her appearance.
There is nothing wrong with taking pride in ourselves.
I enjoy caring for my own health.
I weigh myself most mornings—not because my worth changes with the number on the scale, but because it is simply one piece of information among many.
Sisi's relationship with the scale seems to have been very different.
It measured far more than weight.
It measured expectation.
And expectation can become exhausting.
What surprised me most, however, was not her beauty.
It was her love of movement.
Long before fitness became fashionable, Sisi had gymnastic equipment installed inside her palace.
She practiced gymnastics.
She fenced.
She climbed.
She hiked.
She took extraordinarily long walks.
She became one of Europe's finest horsewomen.
As someone who grew up loving gymnastics myself—and even returned to it as an adult in my 20's—I smiled reading about that.
Movement wasn't punishment for Sisi.
It was freedom.
When she rode horseback across open countryside, I imagine she felt something she rarely experienced within palace walls.
She felt like herself.
That realization made me wish I could have known her.
Not the Empress.
Not Her Majesty.
Just Elisabeth.
I imagine the two of us taking a long walk together.
Talking about travel.
Books.
Poetry.
Horses.
Life.
Perhaps laughing more than protocol would have allowed.
Because beneath the crown, I suspect she had a wonderfully adventurous spirit.
She loved Greece.
She learned the Greek language.
She immersed herself in mythology.
Eventually she built the Achilleion Palace on the island of Corfu, overlooking the brilliant blue Ionian Sea.
Not because she wanted another palace.
Because she wanted a refuge.
A place where she could simply breathe.
The more I learned about Sisi, the more I found myself thinking of Princess Diana.
Two women separated by nearly a century.
Both breathtakingly beautiful.
Both beloved by the public.
Both trapped by royal expectations.
Both longing for ordinary freedom.
History has a curious way of repeating itself.
Reading Sisi's story also reminded me how dangerous it can be to judge a life by its appearance.
Beautiful people are not necessarily happy people.
Successful people are not necessarily fulfilled people.
Robin Williams made the world laugh while carrying profound sadness.
Anthony Bourdain inspired millions to travel while quietly battling his own inner struggles.
Sisi reminds us of the same truth.
Beauty has never protected anyone from loneliness.
Nor has wealth.
Nor fame.
Nor admiration.
She lost her young daughter Sophie and never fully recovered from that heartbreak.
She struggled beneath expectations impossible for any human being to sustain.
And in 1898, while walking beside Lake Geneva, she was assassinated by a man who hated royalty—not Elisabeth herself, but what he believed she represented.
How tragic.
To lose your life because someone never took the time to see the person behind the title.
Perhaps that is one of history's greatest lessons.
When we stop seeing individuals, we lose sight of our shared humanity.
As different as we all are, we usually have far more in common than we realize.
We all long to be loved.
To belong.
To feel understood.
To find peace.
Perhaps that is why Sisi's story has stayed with me.
She may have become a prisoner to her beauty.
But the beauty within her was always reaching toward freedom.
She found it on horseback.
In poetry.
In travel.
In Greece.
In long walks.
In movement.
In moments when she could simply be Elisabeth instead of Empress.
And perhaps that is the lesson she leaves us.
The world will always have opinions about how we should look.
Real freedom begins when we care more about how we feel than how we appear.
Helen teaches us that beauty can become a myth.
Cleopatra teaches us that beauty can become power.
Simonetta teaches us that beauty can become art.
Sisi teaches us something entirely different.
Beauty longs to be free.
May we care for ourselves because we love ourselves.
May we move because it brings us joy.
May we travel because it awakens our curiosity.
May we grow older with gratitude rather than fear.
And may we never become so consumed with preserving our image that we forget to truly live.
Because in the end, the most beautiful thing about Sisi was never her waist.
Or her hair.
Or the portraits that made Europe admire her.
It was the spirited woman inside who spent her life searching for freedom.
And I think... she was beautiful because of that.
May we all have the courage to care more about the freedom of our spirit than the reflection in our mirror.
Because the truest beauty has never been found in perfection.
It has always been found in living fully, loving deeply, and remaining wonderfully, authentically ourselves.
With love,
Honey (MaryNell)
Helen teaches us to seek understanding.
Cleopatra teaches us to seek grace.
Simonetta teaches us to seek beauty in others.
Sisi teaches us to seek freedom.
