The Emperor and Me

I think I could get used to being the emperor. They made it sound hard, but really, how hard could it be? I mean, sure, his wife as assassinated by an Italian anarchist and his son Rudolf killed himself and after shooting his own lover in a murder-suicide, and there was the whole thing about loosing the Empire after 600 years of Hapsburg rule, so there were some downsides but you should see what they ate off of! To the left is a small example. Franz Joseph was the last emperor in the Hapsburg dynasty and we visited his old digs today. The entire first 45 minutes was spent touring his dining ware which had its own museum. You think I’m making this up? I’m not. And the weird thing was that it was interesting. Case after case of silver settings, porcelain dinner settings, gold center pieces, of such intricate beauty that even Nathan and Emily were not bored. Yes we looked at 45 minutes worth of place settings. But they were really nice ones. The Hapsburgs knew how to eat in style.

Every night the family would gather with Franz Joseph in the center. They had ten forks and seven glasses for seven kinds of wine (remember this was nightly). The emperor was served first and the eating continued until he placed his knife on the plate. Then it was over for everyone—even the teenagers. You were only allowed apparently to talk to the people next to you and you were seated by rank with sexes alternating. Servants took care of everything so you didn’t need to ask people too far away to pass the potatoes. Everyone had their own salt and pepper shakers, which to me was the ultimate sign of power and affluence. Imagine! Your own salt and pepper shaker!

The coolest bit of crockery was the footwashing gift mugs. Once a year the emperor and empress would wash twelve old poor men’s feet (who had better have gotten their feet meticulously cleansed before showing up). After, as a commemoration they were give a stein of a dark, forest-green shade that seemed earthly and wild. I found it the most surprising and awesome pieces in the collection. They were beautiful. The lucky peasants also got a silver cup with the date of the washing engraved on its side and thirty silver coins (I think all the New Testament symbolism in all this is obvious). On display was the washing tub, the mugs, cups and other things. I found this intriguing and thought what it must have meant to these commoners to have their feet washed by the royal couple and to receive these gifts. I suspect these implements were handed down as the greatest of treasures to their descendants generation after generation (until the age of Ebay where they were sold of quickly and went for a lot of money!).

Upstairs we toured through the tragic life of Empress Elizabeth of Bohemia. Married away from her youth of country living, horseback riding and fun, she became a morose recluse, who hated her older children, wrote dark poetry, traveled to escape her inner demons (among which included opium and cocaine) extensively suffering panic attacks when she stayed anywhere too long, and had her life taken by an assassin while on one her trips. After, she became an icon that the world loved. She was known as Sisi (Franz Joeseph’s nickname for her) and was reimaged as the perfect monarch (echo’s of Princess Di). We saw her death mask. She really wasn’t a bad poet.

Her dressing room was telling. She spent four hours a day doing her ankle length-hair (unless of course it was hair washing day, in which case it took all day). You think she was wasting her time, don’t you. Wrong! She looks absolutely gorgeous in all her portraits. But beyond that she spent the four hours in language study. She was fluent in English, French, Hungarian and Greek (and German of course). Often she had someone reading to her Homer’s Odyssey in Greek while her hair was done. It was one of her favorite books. At my barber’s back home they at least have it tuned to the discovery channel (and I do usually spend about four hours there except 3h 45m are spent waiting in a chair to be the next number called—next time I’m bringing Greek literature).

Franz himself was a likable chap. Lost the empire though, but there was a lot of that going around (China, Russia, Britain etc.). Many call it the great age of empire loosing. Me, I would have tried a little harder to hold on to it—if just for the place settings.