Few monarchs have waded through such deep waters of sorrow as the venerable Emperor of Austria, who was born on August 18, 1830, and succeeded to the throne on the abdication of his uncle, the Emperor Ferdinand, and the renunciation of all rights by his own father. To the good-looking high-spirited lad of eighteen the world probably did not seem difficult to conquer, even though his dual inheritance was torn by inward throes of dissension. It was when he was twenty-three that he met his beautiful cousin Elizabeth, the second of the five daughters of the Duke Maximilian Joseph of Bavaria, at Ischl, and immediately fell in love with her, though she was only sixteen. Though negotiations had already been entered into for his marriage with her elder sister, he declared he would marry her and no one else, and in spite of her surprised exclamation as to why he should choose one so insignificant, when told of this prospect by her mother, he carried through his project and they were betrothed in three days, though not married till eight months after. The young couple were first cousins, their mothers being sisters. On that large family of sons and daughters of the house of Bavaria many sorrows have fallen. The tragic end of the Empress is described below; one of her sisters, the Duchess of Alençon, was burnt to death in the terrible fire at the charity bazaar in Paris a few years earlier. Another, having married the Crown Prince of Naples, was driven from the throne with him. The Imperial marriage did not turn out a success. Elizabeth shared to the full in the eccentric tendencies of her family, an eccentricity which developed in the elder and reigning branch of her house into madness. She was of a melancholy temperament, and entirely without the power of adapting herself. Young as she was, her tastes were formed, and the somewhat wild out-of-door life she had led as a girl had imbued her with a hatred of functions and ceremonies. She was suddenly elevated to a supreme position in one of the most conventional courts in Europe. Small wonder was it that, in spite of her unquestioned beauty, she alienated the hearts of her courtiers by her want of tact and obvious dislike of court life. Two daughters were born to her before the longed-for son, and one of them died. This increased her unhappiness, but when at length a prince appeared it was hoped things would go better. Unfortunately the Empress’s eccentricity increased rather than diminished. She took umbrage at the Emperor’s love affairs, which might have been condoned in one in such a position of temptation, and at last she left her home and children and wandered over Europe for many years.