Archduchess Gisela of Austria

Born 12 July 1856, Gisela Louise Marie was the second daughter but first to survive of Emperor Franz Joseph I and Empress Elisabeth of Austria. She grew up in the formal glitter of the Habsburg court, daughter to a monarch whose reign would stretch sixty-eight years and a mother who spent much of that time fleeing Vienna's constraints. She married her second cousin, Leopold, a Prince of Bavaria, binding two great houses in the traditional way. She died 27 July 1932, having watched the empire collapse, the crowns fall, and the old order give way to republics and borders her father never imagine…