In the movie, Princess Sisi has an evil mother-in-law, Grand Duchess Sophie, which makes the sunny Princess Sisi suffer the torment of the soul, and stubbornness and bossiness are the characteristic labels of this old woman.
But historically Grand Duchess Sophie could not be defined so simply.
Before becoming an evil mother-in-law, she was a rational and determined beauty, or a strong woman who supported Habsburg.
She could have become a queen, but she willingly gave up the throne and used her great wisdom to resolve the crisis of the collapse of the dynasty.
After being a grand duchess all her life, she can be above the emperor and queen, and the only thing that holds Princess Sisi is to hide.
Sophie was a princess of the small kingdom of Bavaria and married Franz at the age of 19 to the younger brother of Emperor Ferdinand I of Austria. Archduke Karl. Sophie, who became the Grand Duchess, was unhappy.
Archduke Karl is a bit dull and not very healthy. On this condition, she can marry a beautiful princess with a proud heart, thanks to her mother's desire for profit.
The Austrian nobles looked down on the princess of this small kingdom and thought she was a countryman.
Fortunately, with a rich maiden dowry as a foundation, coupled with Sophie's cleverness, she quickly got rid of the dilemma of "countryman".
Although he had several miscarriages, he gave birth to Franz, the male heir of the Austrian royal family, in the sixth year after marriage. Joseph, and a healthy heir, Sophie's status skyrocketed in an instant.
Ferdinand I, in addition to being even dumber than his brother, could not have children.
The future of the throne belongs to his younger brother Grand Duke Karl, and the Sophie family agrees to this affair, and it is self-evident what kind of calculation they make.
However, when the situation in Austria changed and Ferdinand I was forced to abdicate, Sophie came forward to persuade her husband, Archduke Karl, to cede the throne directly to his 18-year-old son Joseph.
Under the domestic situation at that time, if the Habsburgs wanted to restore their family glory, the incompetent Grand Duke Karl would certainly not be able to count on, and another stupid emperor would not be agreed.
The 18-year-old son is what everyone expects.
Miraculously, Grand Duchess Karl did not express any dissatisfaction, to be precise, the Grand Duchess did not let him express dissatisfaction.
And she herself gave up the queen's crown in pain.
In Europe, if the mother of the new king was not the empress, then she could not become the queen mother, that is, Sophie put her son on the throne of emperor, but she was still the grand duchess.
However, the powerful Sophie has been assisting her son in handling state affairs, and Franz, who has been strictly disciplined and qualified since childhood, listens to her mother, and Sophie becomes the only man in Habsburg.
Joseph's only disobedience was his choice of Princess Sisi as queen. Sophie wants her son to choose a dignified and quiet sister, but who knows that he has a fancy to his lively and cheerful sister.
Although Sophie is Princess Sissi's own aunt, she can't look at this unobtrusive daughter-in-law.
In particular, Princess Sixi, who is really frank by nature, only likes to go sightseeing, and the strong mother-in-law simply deprived her of the right to raise children.
The thousand-year-old problem of the contradiction between mother-in-law and daughter-in-law is also unsolvable in the royal family, and Franz, who is caught in the middle, also has to bow to his mother.
He succeeded to the throne in 1848, his father died in 1878, and if not for Sophie, he would have been emperor 30 years later.
Sophie's name as "evil mother-in-law" is actually a little wronged.
Princess Sisi is not a competent queen or a competent mother.
It doesn't matter if you haven't been educated by the queen, study. Princess Sisi, however, hates the annoying affairs of the palace, and her hobby is to travel around the world with a lot of money so that she can escape her evil mother-in-law.
Princess Sissi's children were all raised by Sophie and separated from the children for a long time, and Princess Sissi's rebellious psychology is very heavy. When the eldest daughter was still young, she forcibly took her to visit despite her mother-in-law's dissuasion, and as a result, the two-year-old child died.
Princess Sisi tried her best to get her son Rudolph back to her side, although she finally got her wish, but she was separated from her parents for a long time, Rudolph and Princess Sisi are very strange, and naturally they can't talk about each other.
Lonely and fearful, he ended his life.
Sophie, on the other hand, is still worried about her grandson's future, and does not know that her grandson, who she raised with her own hands, has died with Mayerin with her mistress.
In fact, Sophie's favorite is still her second son Maximilian.
The child obediently accepted the Belgian princess Charlotte she had chosen for him.
Princess Charlotte is self-disciplined and rigorous, which is exactly what a good daughter-in-law should look like in Sophie's eyes.
The old people are not in tune, she naturally likes the second family more, and she wants to plan more for her second son.
Coincidentally, the French Emperor Napoleon III, who was related to the Austrian royal family, threw the fat gap of the Mexican emperor.
Sophie didn't even think about directly persuading her second son to take office and become the emperor of Mexico.
But this time, the shrewd Grand Duchess miscalculated. In 1867, the political situation in Mexico changed, and Maximilian became a gunner.
Sophie, who was overly heartbroken, could not afford to hit a blow, and no longer had the heart to help her eldest son deal with state affairs, and gradually took a back seat.
In 1872, she died of a brain tumor.
Sophie, who had been planning all her life, worked hard to make the Habsburgs prosper again.
Although she could not stop the change of history, the Habsburg dynasty lasted in her hands for half a century, which can be regarded as a great achievement.