Welcome to the History Extra podcast, fascinating historical conversations from the makers of BBC History Magazine.

In the latter half of the 19th century, Europe was dazzled by the beauty, charm and sensibility of two empresses. Eugenie,

Empress of the French via her marriage to Napoleon III, and Elizabeth, better known as Cece,

consort to the Austrian emperor Franz Josef. In this episode, author Nancy Goldstone speaks to

Danny Bird about the lives of these two women,

how they broke boundaries and redefined what a royal consort could be.

Nancy, you've written about some incredible historical women before, but what was it about

Empress Elizabeth of Austria, aka C.C. and Empress Eugenia of France that made you want to tell

their stories in tandem.

Well, I remember distinctly when I first came across Cissy, Empress Elizabeth, she's more

commonly known as Cissy. It was at least five years ago when I was researching a much earlier

book about Elizabeth Stewart, actually, the Winter Queen.

We were in Prague, and we just finished touring the castle.

We walked outside to some of the shops, and there was a bookstore.

I love going into bookstores in other countries, so of course we went in and there.

There was a little English section with, I think it was almost like a child's book with a picture on it that was standing out on the shelf of a woman in a good fairy princess gown with diamond stars in her hair.

And I literally did a double take and said, who is that? I didn't think for a moment that she was a real person.

I thought this was like a German fairy tale or something.

And I bought the book, and it turns out that she was an empress and right up my alley. And I said, well, okay, I have to do her. I don't care. Her story must be wonderful.

But then, as I really understood who she was and that it was the 19th century, I always try to find, I don't just

do one person because I've discovered in the course of doing all of my books that you have to

set some kind of context for that person's life. You either have to follow it out to the next

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