A few days afterward, May 1, 1873, the Emperor and Empress opened the World’s Exposition at Vienna, an event that was celebrated with all sorts of festivities and made the occasion of a perfect jubilee. The Exhibition was a great success as well as a source of pride to Austria, as it demonstrated what the country could accomplish in the way of arts and manufactures in a comparatively short space of time. Many of the crowned heads of Europe came as guests to the capital. The old Emperor William and his clever wife Augusta visited at the Hofburg and Schönbrunn; Czar Alexander Second of Russia and King Victor Emmanuel of Italy also came, as did the Shah of Persia and many others. Elizabeth, however, cared little for people of her own rank. “Titles mean nothing,” she declared; “they are only the trappings with which we try to hide our nakedness; they do not change our real selves.” Little to her taste as court ceremonies were, she bore her part in them with ease and dignity and was always the centre of interest and admiration wherever she went. Some years before the fall of the French Empire, the Austrian sovereigns met Napoleon and Eugénie at Salzburg. The French Empress was then at the zenith of her beauty, but Elizabeth with her glorious eyes and hair and the wonderful charm of her personality did not suffer by comparison with the Spaniard nor even with younger princesses. In 1873 the twenty-fifth anniversary of Franz Joseph’s accession to the throne was celebrated with great rejoicings, the festivities culminating in the evening by the triumphal progress of the imperial pair with the Crown Prince through the streets of Vienna, which were brilliantly illuminated and decorated and filled with cheering throngs. But even on this occasion it was evident Elizabeth found it an effort to appear in public, and she avoided the noise and confusion as much as possible. Her growing reserve and dislike of self-display were taken as a personal offence by the spectacle-loving Viennese and added to her unpopularity. She was considered cold and proud and was taxed with heartlessness and indifference, a fact of which she was well aware and which only added to her melancholy.