Born a radiant Bavarian duchess and swept into Vienna’s gilt cages by an imperial marriage, Sisi Die Keiserin rose to the peacock throne of the Austro-Hungarian Empire with an allure that unsettled courtiers and soothed restless provinces. She mastered the choreography of court—audiences, treaties, winters in palaces, summers by lakes—yet never surrendered her private sovereignty. When ministers argued over borders, she perfected arts of a subtler dominion: reputation and rumor.