In his relations with the Slavs the emperor displayed the same conciliatory disposition as in the case of the Magyars; but though he more than once held out hopes that he would be crowned at Prague as king of Bohemia, the project was always abandoned. In this, indeed, as in other cases, it may be said that the emperor was guided less by any abstract principles than by a common-sense appreciation of the needs and possibilities of the moment. Whatever his natural prejudices or natural resentments, he never allowed these to influence his policy. The German empire and the Italian kingdom had been built up out of the ruins of immemorial Habsburg ambitions; yet he refused to be drawn into an alliance with France in 1869 and 1870, and became the mainstay of the Triple Alliance of Austria-Hungary, Germany and Italy. His reputation as a consistent moderating influence in European policy and one of the chief guarantors of European peace was indeed rudely shaken in October 1908, the year in which he celebrated his sixty years' jubilee as emperor, by the issue of the imperial recript annexing Bosnia and Herzegovina to the Habsburg dominions, in violation of the terms of the treaty of Berlin. But his opportunism was again justified by the result. Europe lost an ideal; but Austria gained two provinces. In his private life the emperor was the victim of terrible catastrophes--his wife, his brother and his only son having been destroyed by sudden and violent deaths. He married in 1854 Elizabeth, daughter of Maximilian Joseph, duke of Bavaria, who belonged to the younger and non-royal branch of the house of Wittelsbach. The empress, who shared the remarkable beauty common to all her family, took little part in the public life of Austria. After the first years of married life she was seldom seen in Vienna, and spent much of her time in travelling. She built a castle of great beauty and magnificence, called the Achilleion, in the island of Corfu, where she often o resided. In 1867 she accompanied the emperor to Budapest, and took much interest in the reconciliation with the Magyars. She became a good Hungarian scholar, and spent much time in Hungary. An admirable horsewoman, in later years she repeatedly visited England and Irland for the hunting season. In 1897 she was assassinated at Geneva by an Italian anarchist; previous attempts had been made on her and on her husband during a visit to Trieste.