The Country Girl Empress Book Trailer

[close] It was THE romance of 19th century Europe! The young and dashingly handsome Emperor Franz Joseph I of Austria needed an Empress by his side according to his mother, Archduchess Sophie. The House of Habsburg was the most powerful ruling family in Europe, and the line of succession had to be maintained. For centuries, marriages had been arranged based on dynastic considerations and served the expansion of the Empire’s power and it was not going to be any different this time. Princess Elisabeth was born on the 24th of December 1837 at the Wittelsbach Palais in Munich. As a daughter of Duke Max in Bavaria and his wife Ludovika, Elisabeth called “Sisi”, grew up with her many siblings far away from all protocol at the small castle of Possenhofen on the shore of Lake Starnberg. More of a tomboy than a princess, she spent much of her childhood there. Sisi and her cousin Franz Joseph first met when she was 11 years old, and the girl promptly fell in love with the Emperor’s younger brother Karl Ludwig. Fran