The Emperor Breaks Protocol
Franz Joseph paced restlessly in the antechamber, unable to stay still amid the screams echoing from beyond the door where Sisi lay in labor.
“It’s already been ten hours of this—surely she’s all right?”
The ministers, fathers of grown children themselves, were sweating bullets trying to calm him down.
“Your Majesty, you must compose yourself. In my wife’s case, the first birth took thirty hours—”
“Thirty hours now, you say?”
The other ministers shot glares at Count Buol.
Now’s not the time to soothe His Majesty and get him back to running the empire—we’ve got enough on our plates!
“The president of the council only meant to reassure Your Majesty.”
Clearly, the emperor hadn’t been this anxious in the first hour or two.
But as the screams grew louder and more ragged—now little more than metallic rasps—the man standing vigil outside his empress’s bedchamber grew ever more haggard.
“Your Majesty, you should retire now…”
“Chamberlain, hold your tongue.”
Count Rechberg stepped in front of him.
And so more time dragged on.
Even the ministers eventually gave up one by one.
“Prince Albert of England—”
Count Buol knew exactly what the emperor was about to say.
I need to cut him off first.
“They say he stayed with the queen during her labor—what do the ministers think?”
“Your Majesty, that would violate protocol—”
But the others just wanted to end this exhausting ordeal.
“Quite right, Your Majesty. How our young empress must suffer alone—”
“My wife will have the child the moment I go in—”
Count Buol was horrified.
Letting the emperor into the birthing chamber—a space for women, midwives, and physicians only!
Everyone knew that a husband entering such a place wasn’t just a breach of etiquette; it was deeply improper and embarrassing.
Wait.
“Count Rechberg.”
Rechberg’s faction.
The ones urging the emperor to enter were Count Rechberg and the husbands of the court ladies rumored to be in the empress’s favor.
Count Buol whispered so the emperor wouldn’t hear.
“Have you all lost your minds…? This is betrayal! If the Archduchess Sophie finds out…”
“Count Buol. Mind your words. Wasn’t it the Archduchess Sophie who betrayed us first?”
If their wives became ladies-in-waiting favored by the empress, then when other nobles or ministers wanted favors or policy suggestions from her, they’d go through unofficial channels—straight to those husbands.
“Do you want Countess Königseck controlling everything?”
No, they couldn’t let that happen.
The young emperor still lacked political savvy.
Left unchecked, Counts Grüne and Königseck would ally with Archduchess Sophie to dominate the empire.
Count Rechberg and the others, long suppressed by Sophie, resolved to seize the intelligence their wives had relayed.
“Count Buol. Open the door for His Majesty. He seems composed now.”
Count Buol squeezed his eyes shut.
A book he’d read recently came to mind.
Marong Resco, who built the empire’s discipline with blood and iron, now tears it down.
In the end, the door to the empress’s bedchamber opened.
But only one man entered: Emperor Franz Joseph.
“Your Majesty! Do you know where you are?!”
Through the closing door, they felt Sophie’s fury.
She must have thought this was still her world.
Count Rechberg tossed a joke to his faction.
“Who’d have thought there’d be two men in the Hofburg?”
The Hofburg’s only man—a nickname for Archduchess Sophie.
And now Rechberg had effectively declared the empress her equal in that regard.
“Count Buol, we’ll see you at the christening tomorrow.”
In the space they left behind, Counts Buol and Grüne ground their teeth in defeat.
“…The empress won’t emerge from her chamber for forty days of postpartum recovery anyway.”
“You mean we restore the empire’s order in the meantime?”
Elisabeth’s faction would have to withstand a furious all-out assault from Sophie’s without its leader—for forty days.
Meanwhile, inside the birthing chamber, Franz Joseph froze in shock.
Blood, screams, trying to rouse the fainted empress—
“Sisi!”
The noblewomen, startled by his sudden entrance, didn’t even think to block him from approaching the empress.
The midwives and physicians barely managed it themselves.
“Your Majesty, please calm down. The empress has only fainted briefly—there’s nothing wrong with her health.”
“She fainted, and you call that healthy?”
“Emperor!”
Franz Joseph finally regained his senses at Sophie’s sharp cry.
“Your Majesty, this is no place for a man. Return at once, in accordance with protocol.”
“But the empress—”
…The wedding too—what is wrong with him!
Sophie grew uneasy at how Franz Joseph kept slipping from her grasp.
The one thing Sisi and Sophie had in common was that all power flowed from the emperor.
“Franzi!”
Franz Joseph turned to his mother at the childhood pet name.
The name he’d been uniquely loved by.
To him, it wasn’t just a pet name—it was the sole proof that Archduchess Sophie saw him as her son, the symbol of the maternal love he’d craved his whole life.
Her most powerful, primal means of control—the maternal yoke he could never escape.
If Rechberg’s faction had opened the birthing chamber door as her husband, Sophie now sought to revert him to son and emperor.
“What in the world are you doing?”
Sophie’s voice was icy with rage.
“The emperor does not let emotions override procedure.”
She glanced at the blood- and sweat-soaked bedsheets and the fainted Sisi, then back at Franz Joseph.
“This is a sacred place where the empire’s heirs are born—not to be sullied by a man’s sentimentality. Look, Your Majesty. Your rash actions have thrown all these ladies and physicians into chaos.”
To restore him as emperor, she invoked the empire’s heir instead of the empress.
“The empress has merely fainted. Childbirth is a woman’s duty and inevitable suffering. But if even you lose your reason like this, who will hold this empire together?!”
Sophie pointed to the door.
“Return to your place at once. Not to prepare as a father, but to reclaim your imperial dignity. I’ll handle this commotion.”
Even amid the chaos, the physicians and midwives kept working to revive the fainted Sisi.
“……”
Franz Joseph merely worked his lips.
And the words that finally escaped.
“There was no need to go that far, Mother.”
Shattered Sophie.
Franz Joseph had judged strategically.
His mother, Archduchess Sophie, had never called him “Franzi” in public before.
That she did so now, before everyone, meant she was desperate to reclaim the power Sisi had taken—even at that cost.
The emotionless emperor she’d sculpted over a lifetime had boomeranged back on her.
Even in this heated moment, he analyzed her actions.
“Joseph……”
Drawn by the faint voice barely audible, Franz Joseph turned.
“Empress.”
“…Give me your hand.”
Ignoring the frozen Sophie, he approached his wife.
The noblewomen who’d come to bless the empress’s delivery became eyewitnesses right there to who truly ruled the empress’s household now.
Where should I put my hand?
What does Her Majesty like?
That dismissed lady-in-waiting said strawberries, right?
Poor Countess Königseck.
Does this mean Her Majesty will rule directly now?
Hiding smiles behind fans, they exchanged glances, each calculating how far the emperor would curb Sophie’s power.
“For Your Majesty to… violate protocol like this…”
“I was worried for you.”
“…I must look a mess right now.”
“Beautiful. More than anyone.”
“Have you been reading French novels…?”
“Feels like we’ve had this talk before.”
They smiled at each other.
The midwife watched them, gauging when to speak up again.
Now?
“Your Majesty, it’s almost there. Just a bit more strength…”
Franz Joseph didn’t flinch even as Sisi’s nails raked his hand in pain.
Princess Ludovika watched in relief, gazing at her daughter’s labor.
At last, the interminable time passed.
“The head’s crowning! Give it one last push with all your might!”
A vigorous cry filled the birthing chamber.
“Sisi, well done.”
Franz Joseph held Sisi’s hand as she gasped for breath, brushing sweat from her forehead and murmuring words of praise.
The midwife, ever at Sisi’s side offering encouragement, deftly caught the baby, while the physician swiftly cut and tied the cord.
“I’m so tired… I need to sleep a little.”
Before drifting off, Sisi whispered cautiously in Franz Joseph’s ear.
“…She’s still your mother. Make peace.”
“You heard that?”
Sisi nodded weakly.
“And the baby’s name—”
Franz Joseph gazed at his wife, now breathing softly in sleep, then rose.
The maids, who had cleaned the newborn with warm cloths, startled as the emperor approached.
“The child?”
“It’s an archduchess, Your Majesty.”
A few soft sighs escaped the nobles, but no great disappointment.
To them, it was only a matter of time before the empress bore a crown prince.
Cradling the newborn in heavy silence, the emperor took a step toward his mother Sophie.
“Archduchess.”
Sophie took the child without a word and turned to leave.
“Mother!”
“Your Majesty. Will you leave the empress like that?”
The maids waited, ready to tend the empress’s body once the emperor departed.
“…”
Sophie handed the archduchess to the wet nurse at the door. Then, stepping outside, she asked Franz Joseph,
“What is the child’s name?”
“The empress said to follow convention.”
By Habsburg tradition, the first archduchess was named after the emperor’s mother—or Maria.
“…Sophie.”