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Life for this Bavarian princess was no fairy tale
Married at 16 to the emperor of Austria, Elisabeth—nicknamed Sisi—was a reluctant empress, struggling with royal life and sympathetic to the democratic struggles of the people in her new nation.
Franz Winterhalter’s iconic 1865 portrait of Elisabeth (Sisi) depicts her at age 27, with a coquettish smile and bejeweled hair.
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