Empress Elisabeth died on 10 September 1898 in Geneva at the hand of an assassin.
In the last years of her life, Elisabeth was, in a sense, already dead to the world. Her legendary beauty had faded, her long and unhappy marriage, together with the loss of her only son Crown Prince Rudolf, had shattered her will to live. Severe diets and exhausting exercise regimes damaged her physical health, while her dabbling in spiritualism and superstition raised concerns about her mental state. Contemporary accounts describe an Empress who had grown increasingly depressed, embittered, and hopeless, showing indifference toward almost everything and everyone.
Paradoxically, she continued to live when, by all medical reasoning, she should not have. After receiving the fatal stab that pierced her heart, she was helped back to her feet, dusted off her gown, exchanged a few bewildered remarks with her lady-in-waiting, walked some hundred metres, and boarded a lake boat that was just about to depart. Only then did she collapse.
When news of her death reached Vienna, the Imperial family, though shocked, was not truly surprised. They had, perhaps unconsciously, long been prepared for some tragic end — one that seemed to fit the general pattern of Elisabeth’s troubled life.
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