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Elite Way School - 4° año (2004)

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🎶 “You can’t do better!” 🎶

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🎶 “You can’t do better!” 🎶

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since you've found some of fj's letters to elisabeth, i was wondering: how did he write to her? what kind of tone does he use (affectionate, reserved) and what info does he usually include? like, does he keep her updated on political and economic matters, or is it mostly family stuff? sorry for the flurry of questions! no worries if there aren't enough letters to paint the full picture.

Hi! First of all, we do have a lot of his letters available ever since the fall of the monarchy in 1918. The first collection of Franz Josef’s letters was Franz Joseph I. in seinen Briefen, edited by Dr. Otto Ernst and published in 1924. It got an English translation by Agnes Blake in 1927, and it’s currently available to read for free in the archive. Although this book has a chapter dedicated to Elisabeth, it doesn’t have any letter of the couple, but some of their telegrams.

About the kind of information they conveyed, Ernst was particularly frustrated:

Yet, even here, the true note is absent, for Franz Joseph talks of the weather! Wherever his own journeys might take him, be it to Ofen, or to Gödöllő, on a shooting expedition, or to the manoeuvres, he never omitted to inform his wife — as she flitted restlessly from place to place — whether it was hot or cold, whether it was raining or the sun shining; and, during the winter months, Elisabeth was kept duly posted as to how many degrees of frost were being registered.

And again later on:

(…) is there anything more characteristic of the “perfect gentleman” than this everlasting talk about the weather, what it was like yesterday and what it may be expected to be like to-morrow? Thus the telegrams sent by Franz Joseph when staying at Budapest, or Gödöllő, or on manoeuvres at Jungbunzlau, to his wife sojourning maybe at Tunis, Corfu, Venice, or Paris, are limited in nine cases out of ten to bulletins as to the temperature of the air that the Emperor is at that moment inhaling. Now and again he may exceed this limit, and then we get a more detailed analysis of the climatic conditions, as, for instance, when he telegraphs that it is windy, or warm — or that a storm has been raging, which was followed by fine weather, etc., etc.

(I actually laughed out loud reading this).

Then he proceeds to share some of the telegrams and they are truly utterly boring. What’s important is that a) FJ sounds genuinely concerned about his wife’s whereabouts and eager to know news from her and b) he really likes to talk about the weather. The only telegram that genuinely surprised me, because I don’t recall having read this before, is this one he sent to Elisabeth, who was in Corfu, around the time Duke Max in Bavaria (her father) was in his deathbed, telling her to not go see him:

I advise you most earnestly not to go to Munich, for in the present cold state of the weather, you might easily be taken ill, and as I have an impression that Papa [Duke Max] is rapidly approaching his end, you would be sure to arrive too late. Should I unfortunately happen to be right, I will be certain to attend the funeral at Munich myself.

In his biography of Elisabeth historian Egon Corti shared some of the letters the emperor wrote to his wife, many of them unpublished at the time, and they are far more interesting than the telegrams. For exemple, during the 1859 Italian War, Elisabeth asked her husband to let her join him at the front, to which he replied:

Even though she was far away it seems rather cruel to me to ask her not to go see her dying father (specially when Elisabeth was present at his father’s deathbed), but giving that the Duke had an almost non existant relationship with his children perhaps she didn’t lament it that much. Whether it was solely because of her husband advised her against it or for other personal reasons, finally Elisabeth didn’t go.

For the present, unfortunately, I cannot comply with your wish, though I should love to beyond words. Women are out of place in the disturbed life at headquarters, and I cannot set my army a bad example, besides which, even I do not in the least know how long I shall be stopping here... I beseech you, my angel, if you love me, not to grieve so much, but to take care of yourself ; try to find plenty of distractions, go for rides and drives in moderation and preserve your dear, precious health, so that when I come back I may find you thoroughly well and we may be as happy as can be.

The first (and I believe so far only) compilation of letters that FJ wrote to Elisabeth were published in two volumes in 1966, covering from 1859 until 1898. In general his letters to her are very loving, he uses the informal “Du”, calls her “angel” or “Édes szeretett lelkem” (my sweet beloved soul), asks her about her well being and how he hopes to see her soon again. I haven’t gone through all of these yet however so I can’t tell you what are the general themes, but from what I read (which wasn’t much) I noticed that a) again, FJ genuinely missed Elisabeth and wanted to know about how and where she was, b) he just needed to communicate absolutely everything he did on the day in detail and c) he really liked to talk about the weather.

I also recall reading somewhere before that FJ didn’t discuss politics with his wife in his letters, which is just plain untrue, I literally opened the second volume at random and found this (letter from December 1894, machine translation):

I am already longing for news from you, as I have heard absolutely nothing from you since your arrival in Algiers. I hope you are well and happy. I am sad and distressed because the crisis in Hungary is approaching and I fear that it will again cause me much trouble, worry and agitation. The Indemnity Act has been quickly adopted in the House of Representatives and will probably not last long among the magnates either. Then the resignation of the Ministry will soon follow and the work will begin.

Since I haven’t read the 700+ pages of correspondance I can’t tell if this was out of character or if he always communicated her these kind of news, but that he never mentioned politics is wrong.

And lastly family life was an important part of the correspondance, especially during the years Elisabeth just wasn’t around. He often wrote to her of their grandchildren, for exemple in March 1893 he wrote: “A few days ago Erzsi [Rudolf’s daughter] went to confession for the first time and on the first Sunday after Easter Georg's [Gisela’s son] first Comunion will take place”, and in July of the same year: “[Valerie’s] children I found, praise God, quite well, the little one [five-months-old Franz Karl Salvator] is gaining weight and is getting really cheerful and Ella [one-year-and-a-half-old Elisabeth] was particularly gracious and funny. She is very amusing and already speaks quite a lot.” You can find a lot of small mentions like this, and also of their great-grandchildren, nieces and nephews, cousins and in-laws.

I hope you found my answer helpful and sorry it took me so long! I’ll share more about these letters when I continue reading them.

Sources:

Corti, Egon (1936). Elizabeth, empress of Austria (translation by Catherine Alison Phillips)

Emperor Franz Josef I of Austria (1966). Briefe Kaiser Franz Josephs an Kaiserin Elisabeth, 1859-1898. Band II

Ernst, Otto (1927). Franz Joseph as revealed by his letters (translation by Agnes Blake)

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THE BRIDGERTONS BRIDGERTON | SHOCK AND DELIGHT

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FLORENCE HUNT AS HYACINTH BRIDGERTON BRIDGERTON | SHOCK AND DELIGHT

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Conrad + Belly + Parallels + Callbacks + Moments of Growth (Season 2)

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I feel like I always hear people saying belly has no personality or questioning why the boys are so obsessed and in love with her because she seems to have nothing special about her. But I think we forget two things. One, that her and the boys have such a deep connection because of how close they were their entire childhood and now, they have an even closer trauma bond of sorts after going through such a painful loss of someone they all loved so dearly. It is so much easier to love someone who understands on such a deep level the pain you had suffered in your life. Also, I think belly is a living breathing reminder or Susannah to the boys. She embodies everything that Susannah used to be. She came up with the idea of the party on the last night in the cousins house, plays songs and movies that were Susannah’s favorites, set up an entire study night just to help Conrad, initiates dance parties when the mood is down, and so much more that brings the magic and the spark back to daily life in cousins—just like Susannah used to do. She reminds the both of them of their mother in a way that no one else could and they love her even deeper for it.

And on an even deeper more analytical level lol I think this is why Conrad and belly are meant for each other. Conrad seems to have a really hard time letting people help him or see him hurting or trusting them or overall letting his walls down. So who better to be with than the girl who knows him inside and out from all the time they have spent since childhood together, who knows exactly the pain he has suffered, who has proved to him that she will always be there for him? I think that’s why that line in one of the books, I can’t remember which, where Conrad tells belly “sometimes I think your the only girl I could ever trust” hits so hard. It’s so true. They’re both such quiet, peaceful, introverted personalities where actions are so much louder than words for them. I think that’s why they make so much sense for each other, whereas Jeremiah is so extroverted and more open, and I think he feels drawn to belly becashe of that deep connection they’ve had since childhood and now with his mom gone he feels more drawn to her but at the end of the day, he could easily find someone else that cares and loves and knows him whereas that would be really hard for Conrad.

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Friends?

The Summer I Turned Pretty || 2.07

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I THOUGHT WE LOVED EACH OTHER. WE DID.

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the oc did so many things so well but the thing i’ll always love the most is no summer x ryan and no marissa x seth and they even go a little farther to do that thing where when we get an only summer/ryan scene or an only marissa/seth scene there’s a veryyyy *light* awkwardness. like ok … unusual dynamic but we are best friends technically speaking so let’s make it work.

i love that. very real.

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PERIOD DRAMA APPRECIATION WEEK DAY 1: Favorite adaptations | [template]

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THE SUMMER I TURNED PRETTY 2.02 — “Love Scene”

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LOLA TUNG as Isabel “Belly” Conklin in THE SUMMER I TURNED PRETTY (2022—)

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S1E1 -> SUMMER HOUSE

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The Summer I Turned Pretty || 2.02