Such phrases sound, as it were, the _leit motif_ of the mystery of Elizabeth’s life. She seems to have thrown them out, without telling anyone what sorrow or disappointment had inspired them. Each reporter who tries to guess at their meaning offers a different conjecture. The unkindness of Francis Joseph, who was not unkind—the unkindness of some lover, who was—the tragic deaths of her son, her cousin, her brother-in-law, and her sister—all these things have been cited, by one chronicler or another, as explanations of her funereal gloom. But, as she confided in no one, no one need pretend to know, or to do more than draw the picture of a woman as unhappy as she was beautiful—clinging to her unhappiness as she clung to her beauty—wandering restlessly through Europe like a shadow pursuing shadows, but running home from time to time to keep up appearances. And the picture, to be complete, should also show the figure of Francis Joseph, doing his full share in the keeping up of those appearances, and taking long journeys in order to pay periodical visits to the Empress, who was making it so clear, to all who cared to look, that she was happiest away from home, and always wearing on his countenance that look of bland and imperturbable serenity with which his innumerable portraits have made Europe familiar. It is a picture full of lights and shadows and strange contrasts; but we must not dwell upon it any more. Our attention is claimed by the supplementary spectacle of the Emperor at odds with fate, confronting the difficulties which threatened to tear his Empire to tatters, and gradually getting that Empire into some sort of order. CHAPTER XII Francis Joseph’s snub to Napoleon III.—Proposal to address him as “Sir” instead of “Brother”—The consequences—Napoleon asks: “What can one do for Italy?”—Austria at war with France and Italy—The crimes committed by Austria in Italy—Battles of Magenta and Solferino—Francis Joseph compelled to surrender Lombardy, but allowed to retain Venetia. Other things besides his wife’s secret sorrows—or even his own—claimed Francis Joseph’s attention through the ’fifties, ’sixties, and ’seventies. The hour for the fulfilment of Countess Karolyi’s curse had not yet sounded; but it did seem as if that “break-up” of Austria which statesmen think about when they lie awake at night was imminent. Hungary was sullen; Prussia was ambitious and jealous; the Italian subjects of the Habsburgs hated them. It was the Italians who were destined to speak first.