Vienna Hofburg - Imperial Apartments, Sisi Museum, Silver Collection

Elisabeth increasingly makes deliberate use of the power of her beauty to achieve her own ends. She has little interest in active politics and interferes in her husband’s affairs of state only once, in aid of the Hungarian cause. Elisabeth feels a great affection for the proud and temperamental Hungarian people, who have been subject to absolutist rule since the suppression of the revolution in 1849. She becomes the fervent champion of Hungarian interests and has close contact with leading Hungarian representatives. It is without doubt due chiefly to her efforts that Franz Joseph eventually signed the Compromise of 1866 which recognised Hungary’s historical rights and established the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy. In 1867 the coronation of Franz Joseph and Elisabeth as King and Queen of Hungary takes place in the Cathedral of St Matthew in Budapest.www.hofburg-wien.at | Download Tour-Guide (PDF)© by Schloß Schönbrunn Kultur- und Betriebsges.m.b.H.