THE REBEL EMPRESSES

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 Eugénie (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 to project the image of an empress, not to be one.” Eugénie 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, Eugénie 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.