Elizabeths problems with her health

Over the next few years, Elisabeth started to have problems with her health. That was the reason why  she started spending a long time away from Vienna, "for the sake of her health". (The first such trip may have been prompted in part by the discovery that Franz Joseph was unfaithful to her.) These trips grew longer and more frequent as time went on, and for the most part reports indicate that she looked perfectly healthy--until she returned to Vienna, where she always grew worse, leading to another escape from the court she detested. In 1865, however, shortly after a still-tentative reconciliation with Franz Joseph, she was forced to take action. One of the men responsible for Rudolf's education came to her begging for her assistance; he feared that the sadistic military training of the precocious but delicate boy--at the Emperor's orders--was endangering his life. On August 27, the Empress presented her husband with a written ultimatum: either she would be in charge of everything concerning the children until their majority, as well as anything touching on her own personal life or she would leave him. The Emperor gave in.