Attempt
In September 1898, Austria-Hungary’s Empress Elisabeth, known to history as Sissi, was a fragile figure whose vitality seemed waning under a weight of personal losses and national strains. The empire faced disease and political unrest, while her own life carried the shadows of tragedy: a sister lost in a terrible fire, a daughter claimed by fire, and the long, painful memory of the mysterious death of her favorite son, Archduke Rudolf, years prior. The empress carried these sorrows as part of a life that many felt had matured her beyond her years.
Her health wavered under strain and illness, including tuberculosis, as concerns about the empire’s future grew louder. Elisabeth lived under the thumb of her husband, Emperor Franz Joseph I, in a regime that many described as rigid and controlling. Yet whispers of rebellion, radicalism, and nihilism were rising in the streets, and Elisabeth occasionally expressed sympathy with these dissident voices. Even her favorite horse bore a cryptic name that hinted at the era’s tensions. Some saw Elisabeth as a voice for women’s rights, a critic of militarism, and a champion of the working class, though her public stances sometimes clashed with the austere court culture of Vienna. In the last years, she returned to poetry as a personal outlet, a hobby begun in youth and reevaluated in later life. Those verses offered a sharp critique of Viennese society and the courted corruption she believed surrounded the monarchy. She even instructed that the poems be kept hidden for decades, a safeguard against a society that might misunderstand them or forget them as time passed.
Attempt
On the morning of September 10, 1898, Elisabeth was at the Beau-Rivage in Prégny, a lakeside retreat near Geneva. After a quiet luncheon, Countess Irma Sztáray left the hotel to board the steamer Geneva and make her way along a route toward Montreux. Despite warnings from Emperor Franz Joseph, Elisabeth walked without an escort. At the end of the day, two women approached from the shore and identified the empress. A man named Luigi Lucheni stepped forward, drawing a slender 14-centimeter stiletto and driving it beneath Elisabeth’s left collarbone with the intent to strike at her heart. Elisabeth collapsed, her head striking the pier stones, but her hat softened the impact. She rose quickly, trying to reassure bystanders and assess her own condition, believing the pain in her back was from the fall rather than from the wound.
With resolve she moved toward the ship, attempting to board, but fatigue overtook her. The captain ordered a return to port, yet the ferry had already departed when Elisabeth finally collapsed again in the cabin. The empress died soon after, the wound piercing her lung and striking the heart with deadly force. Lucheni, captured by local authorities, claimed sole responsibility for the murder. A newspaper telegraph noted his act in the context of a society he believed oppressed the working class. He had originally planned to target a different royal claimant in Europe but changed plans upon learning of Elisabeth’s proximity in Geneva.
Illustrations and contemporary reports captured the moment and the aftermath, with images that would fuel debates for decades. The assassination would echo across generations, prompting questions about political violence, personal vulnerability, and the limits of power. The terrorist, driven by a utopian rage, sought to alter the course of history through a single, brutal act. The narrative of his life as a street child turned aspiring ideologue underscored a broader theme: the fragility of a life lived under the glare of public expectation and the consequences of a turbulent era.
In a subsequent trial held in Geneva, Lucheni received a sentence of life imprisonment; a court in Lucerne later considered his case, where the death penalty had previously been in force. His time behind bars was marked by study and reflection, as he turned to readings by Rousseau and Voltaire and began drafting an autobiography in French. He described the act and its motivations in stark terms, acknowledging the deep disillusionment that had driven him to violence. His notebooks—detailing his thoughts and life—disappeared from his cell under unclear circumstances, leaving behind questions about motive and memory. He ultimately took his own life, a belt becoming the instrument of his end. The immediate aftermath of Elisabeth’s death reverberated through courts, press, and society, provoking a reevaluation of security, sovereignty, and the human cost of political extremism, as well as the enduring tension between a public figure and the private life she inhabited.
A note of memory persisted in those years: a few months after Lucheni’s death, a woman who had served as the Geneva prison warden’s daughter sold several memoirs to a local dealer, a reminder that stories of power, punishment, and personal history continue to surface long after the final act has been performed.