5: Elisabeth Of Austria
Elisabeth of Austria was said to be convinced that her lineage was cursed by madness. However, it must have been difficult to pinpoint which family held the curse because her tree was so entangled.
Elisabeth’s mother, Ludovika of Bavaria (married to a cousin) was one of 13 children born to Prince Maximillian of Bavaria. Ludovika’s sister Sophie married Archduke Franz Karl of Austria, and they together had a son, Franz Joseph, later Emperor of Austria and King of Hungary. Ludovika groomed her other daughter Helene to marry the Emperor, but Franz Joseph fell in love at first sight with Elisabeth and quickly proposed marriage.
The marriage was a disaster. Elisabeth hated court life and had a contentious relationship with her aunt and mother-in-law, the Archduchess Sophie. Her health suffered, but this wasn’t because of the overlap of genes from incest. It was the Emperor’s affairs (he is rumored to have given her avenereal disease by cheating), and Elisabeth’s depression. She had anxious tendencies, was obsessed with her weight and diet, and suffered a nervous breakdown.
The family tree remained rather circular in subsequent generations. Elisabeth’s daughter married her second cousin, Leopold, and Sophie and Ludovika’s other sister, Karolina, married Francis II, the grandfather of Franz Joseph. In other words, Karolina was both aunt and step-grandmother to the Emperor, and sister and step-mother-in-law to Archduchess Sophie.
Discussion about this post