Elizabeth the Queen of Austria

Elizabeth the Queen of Austria pages: 151 author:Darry Deneberg During her young childhood Elizabeth had good and peacfull childhood with her mother and father and her siblings, although in the book it says how elizabeth was the favorite child from the mother Dutchess Ludovika and Duke Maximillian elizabeths father. She was the fourth child. Her father Duke Maximillian was considered to be rather peculiar he had a childish love of circuses and traveled the Bavarian countryside to escape his duties. The family home was at Possenhofen Castle, far from the protocols of court. "Sisi" and her brothers and sisters grew up in a very unrestrained and unstructured environment, she often skipped her lessons to go riding about the countryside. In 1853, Princess Sophie of Bavaria, the mother of 23-year-old Emperor Franz Joseph, preferring to have a niece as a daughter-in-law rather than a stranger, arranged a marriage between her son and her sister Ludovika's eldest daughter, Helene. Although the couple had never met, Franz Joseph's obedience was taken for granted by the archduchess, who once was described as "the only man in the Hofburg".