Empress Elisabeth of Austria (Sisi) was a romantic, glamorous, deeply troubled figure—the Princess Diana of her era—whose self-absorption, mental health struggles, and physical obsessions left her a distant mother and a wandering, melancholy empress.

11:13continuity. Now, an emperor needs an empress. And this brings us to Rudolph's mother. Oh, yes. So, surely the most romantic, certainly the most romantic monarchical figure in central European history, Elizabeth of Bavaria. Now, people in the English-speaking world may not gauge just how popular she was in Central Europe. She was the focus of an absolutely intense cult, personality cult. Basically, if you think about Princess Diana in the 1980s and '90s,

11:46she's that on steroids. Her nickname was Cece, and she was a sex symbol. She was a fashion leader. She was an influencer. She was uh the personification of glamour. She was a romantic heroine. She was a sports woman. For a lot of people, she was basically a saint and a martyr. And her story really is bonkers. So, she was born in 1837 into a sort of minor

12:09branch of the Bavarian royal family. and her father was called Juke Maximleian and he was an absolute madman. He was obsessed with circuses and he he didn't give her a proper education because unusually he hoped that his daughter would grow up to join the circus, run away from a palace and join a circus. >> Exactly. [laughter] Exactly. >> So she's only sort of half educated. She's a bit of an autodiact.

12:34>> Well, do you know Dominic? I've always found that a very appealing aspect of her because she, you know, she had this enormously long hair. >> Yeah. Down to her ankles. >> Yeah. Down to her ankles. And And it was so heavy that she would complain that its weight gave her headaches. And so it took her maids kind of two or three hours every morning to to comb it and to

12:54brush it out and to adorn it and whatever. And while she's doing it, she sits there learning difficult languages. So she learned Hungarian. and she became hugely popular with Hungarians as we all find out. And then she learned ancient Greek and I had to learn ancient Greek and I unfortunately didn't have as long didn't have long hair and I didn't have attendance to uh to comb it. But I

13:14nevertheless at my ablutions I would try and and uh emulate Cece by learning regular Greek >> when you're combing your hair. >> Yeah. Okay. Well, that's impressive. >> So she's a role model still to this day is what I'm saying. >> She and France Joseph have an incredibly romantic um origin story as a couple. So when she was 15, she went with her mother and her older sister Ellen N she

13:36was called to the spa town of Bad Isel. Great to have a spa town. It is great. And the reason they were going there was they're going to meet France Joseph because the two mothers had agreed basically that France Joseph would marry Ellen. France Joseph was then 23 and his mother Sophie she was called had picked out as a sort of Germanspeaking Catholic you know ideal regal bride, imperial

14:00bride. When they met for tea, Len was very shy and serious and she was poor at small talk as was France Joseph. >> Yeah. Wouldn't it? I mean, he's shy and serious, isn't he? >> Exactly. But he was looking for something more. He didn't want another shy and serious person. He wanted a circus performer. >> He did. CeCe was there and she was only 15 and she was basically there for, you