Secret of an Empress

The Countess Zanardi Landi (1882 - 1935), writes of her relations with her mother, Empress Elizabeth of Austria and the Court of Vienna. "The Empress of Austria is constantly on a pedestal above the rest of the world, and her children are drilled to look upon her in that way. If she should wish to be present at their lessons, there is no such thing for her as going straight to the schoolroom. Her visit must be announced twenty-four hours in advance, teacher and pupils are dressed for the occasion, questions and answers are prepared, and at the end of the visit her Imperial Majesty graciously expresses her satisfaction to the teacher. "The Empress may not even select the persons who are to be about her children, nor the subjects which they are taught. She may never have a simple, informal meal with them nor indulge in a ramble with them out of doors. At all times they must remember that they are in the presence of the almost sacred person of the Empress. The inevitable result is that they are really hardly her children at all; neither has the natural affection of a child for its mother any opportunity for development."