The Elusive Elisabeth Trivia Quiz

Answer: 16

Sisi's older sister Helene was supposed to marry the Emperor, but Franz fell in love with Sisi immediately and proposed only a few days after meeting her. Franz Joseph was also King of Hungary and Bohemia, and she became those countries' queens.

Answer: Hair

She was considered the most beautiful woman in Europe at the time. Washing her hair, which reached the floor, took a whole day. If her hair wasn't ready to go out, neither was she.

Her teeth, on the other hand, were not the best; she tried not to speak much so that her bad teeth wouldn't show. This gave rise to the popular belief that, because Elisabeth didn't speak much, she was unintelligent.

Answer: Her reluctance to appear in public

She never liked being a public figure, having grown up in privacy and seclusion in the Bavarian countryside. She wrote of feeling imprisoned, as she lost her freedom and anonymity by marrying an emperor. She also detested the rigid Austrian court etiquette. Sometimes she'd have another woman stand in for her during public appearances while she went sightseeing alone. An archduchess would stand in for her at some functions, and she didn't visit the poor as much as the nobility thought that the empress should.

Answer: Valerie

Franz's mother, Archduchess Sophie, had the main role in raising Sisi's children, even keeping the nursery close to her own rooms so that Sisi couldn't see them much. The first child, Sophie, died young, while Gisela and Rudolf lived to adulthood. Valerie often felt smothered and sometimes appalled by her mother's behavior and beliefs.

Answer: Rowing

Sisi would march for hours in all kinds of weather across the country, including up and down mountains; her ladies-in-waiting understandably had a hard time keeping up with her. She was an outstanding rider, taking part in hunts that exhausted most people.

She also swam in the sea, did gymnastics, and fenced. This exercise, along with her starvation diets, hot and cold baths, and sleeping with hot towels around her, kept her weight very low; she weighed around 100 pounds when she died.

Answer: Poetry

She wrote poetry on a variety of subjects, including her distaste of the monarchical system and bemoaning her loss of freedom. She often referred to herself as Titania, Queen of the Fairies, and indulged in fantasies at odds with her real life. Much of her poetry was published in the 1950s, as she requested.

Answer: Ludwig

Sisi and Ludwig, with their eccentricities, were kindred spirits and shared a love of poetry. He never married, even though he was engaged to marry Sisi's sister Sophie. He liked Wagner's music, and theater in general. Sisi's nickname for him was "Eagle," but he was known by the populace as "Mad King Ludwig."

Answer: Traveling

Travel was one way that Sisi coped with being a public figure. She hunted in Britain, sailed during the coldest times of year, kept villas in Italy, and dropped in on other royals unannounced. In the early years of her marriage, she traveled to Italy and other warm locations for her health, as she was often sick.

Answer: He committed suicide after shooting his mistress dead

He and his lover Mary Vetsera were found shot in the head. Evidence, such as letters and Rudolf's behavior prior to the incident, indicated that Rudolf killed her, then shot himself. (The official inquiry glossed over the details). After this incident at Mayerling, Elisabeth lost her religious faith, much to her daughter Valerie's distress.

She turned to spiritualism and lost much of her interest in life. While Sisi and Rudolf were never close, they did share political views, namely that the old ways of the Austrian monarchy should not continue.

His death meant that the title of Crown Prince fell to Franz Ferdinand, whose assassination set off WWI.

Answer: Assassination by stabbing

Anarchist Luigi Luccheni killed her with a sharpened file. He was part of the "Regicide Squad," a group that hated aristocrats and royals. Killing her was more a symbolic matter (for him) than getting rid of a monarch he believed was damaging the country. Sisi actually talked and walked after being stabbed in the heart, only collapsing when when she returned to her boat.

She died shortly afterwards.