View source for Elisabeth of Austria

[[File:Empress Elisabeth of Austria in dancing-dress, 1865, Franz Xaver Winterhalter.jpg|thumb|Empress Elisabeth of Austria in Courtly Gala Dress with Diamond Stars (detail), Franz Xaver Winterhalter (1865)]]
[[File:Isabel da Austria 1867.jpg|thumb|upright|Elisabeth of Austria, coronation photograph by Emil Rabending (1867)]]

'''Elisabeth, Empress of Austria''' (1837–1898) was a previous embodiment of [[Elizabeth Clare Prophet]].

== Life ==

She was born December 24, 1837 at Possenhoffen Castle near Munich, daughter of the Bavarian duke Maximilian Joseph. She received an unconventional education. She accompanied her eccentric father on hunting expeditions and became an expert rider and climber.

In August, 1853, she met her cousin, Emperor Franz Joseph I, ruler of Austria. He fell in love with her at first sight. He was twenty-three, she was fifteen. They were married and she became Empress. 

Life was difficult from the start. The emperor had numerous love affairs, and his involvements in state business left him little time for Elisabeth. One of her confidantes wrote: “He believed her to be too young, too inexperienced and too indifferent to become his real companion and comrade.”<ref>Marguerite Cunliffe-Owen, ''Forget Me Not: The True Story of Elisabeth of Austria and the Mysterious Hapsburg Curse'' (Gardiner, Mont.: Summit University Press, 1982), p. 45.</ref> She bore four children—three daughters and a son. The first daughter died in infancy. The Archduchess, Franz-Joseph’s mother, forbade her to raise her own children, claiming she was only a child herself. 

Her exceptional beauty, charm and generosity made her popular with her subjects. But her impatience with Viennese court etiquette, her love for horsemanship and frequent visits to the imperial riding school scandalized Austrian high society. She exhibited great compassion for the common people and tended the wounded during the Seven Weeks War. 

She began to spend more time away from court. In November 1860, she separated from her husband over his infidelities, and they were estranged for seven years. She spent the time traveling and learning Latin and Greek. She involved herself in state affairs on behalf of the people of Hungary. She learned the Magyar language and helped to arrange the Compromise of 1867, which raised Hungary to equal status with Austria in the empire. She was also involved in charitable work. In 1889, her only son, the crown prince Archduke Rudolf, committed suicide. Elisabeth never fully recovered from this shock.

On September 10, 1898, she was assassinated by the Italian anarchist Luigi Luccheni while visiting Geneva, Switzerland. She was walking from her hotel in Geneva when she was stabbed. At Luccheni’s trial, he stated that human suffering was the motive for his act: “I considered [her death] to be the funeral knell of the bourgeoisie, whom I detest.”<ref>Ibid., p. 303.</ref>

== Legacy ==

Elisabeth of Austria is remembered as being independent, unconventional and high-spirited and possessed of exceptional intelligence and kindness. In her role as the wife of Francis Joseph, Emperor of Austria and king of Hungary, she was tutored by the Master [[El Morya]] in the art of government and in the intrigue and treachery of power politics—the actual cause of her assassination in 1898.

She studied at the same time with [[Saint Germain]], whose [[Rakoczy Mansion|retreat in Transylvania]] (then in Hungary) was within that kingdom, which she was called upon to rule by popular acclaim. (Both [[Mark L. Prophet|Mark]] and Elizabeth have been Saint Germain’s pupils during and between many embodiments.)  

The queen was trained in administration and in dealing with people of every level of society—including “the rulers of the darkness of this world.”<ref>Eph. 6:12.</ref> Her training in the initiations of the [[Brotherhood]] took preeminence over her Catholic upbringing. 

It was through the Austro-Hungarian Empire that the Brotherhood made their final attempts to unite Europe. Although these failed to stem the mounting control of Europe’s governments by dark powers both within and without, the democratic reforms instituted by Franz Joseph were “more rational than anything seen in Europe before or since.”<ref>Edward Crankshaw, ''The Fall of the House of Hapsburg'' (New York: The Viking Press, 1963), p. 4.</ref>

== Belief in reincarnation ==

Elisabeth’s Greek tutor recorded in his ''Vienna Diary'':  

<blockquote>Speaking of the difference between culture and civilization, she says: “Civilization is reading, culture is the thoughts.... Everyone has culture within himself as heritage of all his pre-existences, absorbs it with every breath and in this lies the great unity.”... Of Dante and other great ones, she says: “They are souls, who, from ages past have come anew to earth to continue their work and to anticipate the development of others still to come.... Our innermost being is more valuable than all titles and honors. These are colored rags with which we try to cover our nudities. Whatever is of value in us we bring from our previous lives that were spiritual.”<ref>Constantin Christomanos, ''Tagebuchblätter Wien'' (1899), pp. 81, 97, 227; quoted in Head and Cranston, ''Reincarnation in World Thought'', pp. 334–35. </ref></blockquote>

== See also ==

[[Elizabeth Clare Prophet]]

== Sources ==

Elizabeth Clare Prophet, October 5, 1992.

{{PTI}}, chapter 5.

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