The unfairytale life of two European princesses

The Rebel Empresses: Elisabeth of Austria and Eugénie of France: Power and Glamour in the Struggle for Europe Nancy Goldstone

Weidenfeld, pp.640, 30

This hefty book is more about context – the turbulent years of mid-19th-century Europe – than it is about its two protagonists. Details of the many popular uprisings of the time, plus the jockeying for position of the main players and the battles and intrigues involved, are so packed into its pages that teasing out the stories of the two empresses is not always easy.

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Tagged19th-century European history, Austria, Baron Haussman, Bismarck, Cavour, court protocol, Fontainebleau, France, Franz Joseph, Garibaldi, Louis-Napoleon, Sisi

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The unfairytale life of two European princesses

Wounded by their husbands’ infidelity and shattered by the deaths of their only sons, Elisabeth of Austria and Eugénie of France defied court protocol in a bid for independence

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