The Rebel Empresses

January 1, 2025

Royal biographer Goldstone (In the Shadow of the Empress) relates the dual lives of the empresses Elisabeth of Austria and Eug�nie of France. Goldstone argues that both women shirked the conventions and expectations of royal women during the 1800s. Eug�nie was named regent several times during her husband's reign. After living under the constraints of a disapproving Habsburg court, Elisabeth left to live in Hungary, where she behaved as she pleased. In alternating sections, the book examines momentous events in Elisabeth's and Eug�nie's lives and explores military campaigns, the Crimean War, France's intervention in Mexico, and the empresses' relationships with their families, imperial husbands, and subjects. Often, Elisabeth's and Eug�nie's life events ran in parallel, and Goldstone's wry commentary enhances the narrative. The book examines their legacies too, as Eug�nie assisted in making France an architectural and cultural center, and Elisabeth played a large role in the unification of Austria and Hungary. VERDICT Fascinating insight into the lives of two remarkable women who may be unfamiliar to readers in the United States. Especially recommended for readers interested in biographies about royals.--Rebekah Kati

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Starred review from January 15, 2025
Extraordinary women caught in the maelstrom of history. Goldstone, biographer of many European queens, turns her attention to two 19th-century empresses: Elisabeth (1837-1898), wife of Emperor Franz Joseph of Austria, and Eug�nie (1826-1920), wife of Napoleon III. Both women, in Goldstone's vibrant, wryly witty portraits, emerge as glamorous, strong-willed, and independent, refusing to be circumscribed by stultifying expectations. In alternating chapters, Goldstone traces each woman's family background and upbringing in the context of tumultuous, bloody political and social unrest, revolutions, invasions, and war. Each of them traveled a far different road to their elevated stations: Elisabeth, known as Sisi, was 15 when she met Franz Joseph, who was meant to marry her older sister. Instead, he was instantly besotted with the vivacious girl, and although she wanted to stay with her menagerie of pets rather than be sent from home to marry, she had no choice in the matter. Soon she found herself in a hostile court, under the surveillance of an overbearing, manipulative mother-in-law, and realizing quickly that her job "was merely toproject the image of an empress, not to be one." Eug�nie was 27 when she married Louis Napoleon, newly declared emperor after the French Republic was abolished and "imperial dignity" restored. Both wives were well aware that their duty was to produce a male heir. After several miscarriages, Eug�nie finally had a boy in 1856; the pregnancy was so difficult that she could not risk another. At 17, Sisi gave birth to a daughter; at 19, another girl; at 21, finally a son was born, at last raising her status at court. In a brisk, lively narrative, Goldstone seamlessly interweaves the women's trials, challenges, and betrayals with the world events that swirled incessantly around them. A richly detailed, entertaining dual biography.

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February 1, 2025
During much of the late nineteenth century, the Empresses of the French and Austrian Empires wielded influence both within their realms and throughout Europe. Goldstone (In the Shadow of the Empress, 2021) recounts the separate but parallel lives of Eug�nie of France and Elisabeth of Austria. The dual narratives parallel Eug�nie and Elisabeth's respective lives from childhood through old age and death. Both the Spanish-born Eug�nie and Bavarian native Elisabeth were unlikely Empresses, and both would spend most of their adult lives adjusting to the demands their positions imposed on them. At the same time, both utilized their beauty, charisma, and glamour to influence the politics of their realms, and to advocate for their respective notions of what a more enlightened empire of the nineteenth century should look like. Readers interested in the history of European aristocracy and geopolitics, as well as women's history, will be drawn to this book. So will students of empire, diplomacy, and the development of modern warfare. Eug�nie and Elisabeth lived through a tumultuous era that each of them also helped shape.

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