I found some letters in books.. i will post some of them here when i see new ones..:
Franz joseph to his mother sophie somewhere in 1856:
I beg you most earnestly to judge Sisi with forbearance if prehaps she is too jealous a mother. after all, she is such a devoted wife and mother! if you would be gracious enough to think about the matter calmly, you will prehaps understand our feelings of pain at seeing our children enclosed in your apartments with an almost joint anteroom, while poor Sisi, who is often so heavy, must pant her way up the stairs,only rarely to find the children alone, even to find them among strangers if you were gracious enough to show off the children, which shortens especially the few moments I have to spend with the children, aside from the fact that showing off the children, thereby making them conceited, horrifies me; wherein, by the way, I may be wrong. By the way, it never occurs to Sisi to wish to deprive you and tell you that they will always be entirely at your disposal.
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Marie Festetics wrote this in her diary when Elisabeth showed her laxenburg..cause everytime she got there she never forget to refer her sad honeymoon..:
Elisabeth went from room to room, said of each room what it was, but without more detailed commentary, untill finally she stopped in a corner room where a desk stood between windows and a desk chair before it ; she stood quiet as a mouse for a long time, suddenly she said: "...Here i wept alot Marie. The mere thought of that time constricts my heart. I was here after my wedding... I felt so abandoned,so lonely. Of course the Emperor could not be here during the day, early every morning he went to Vienna. At six o'clock he returned for dinner. Until then I was alone all day long and was afraid of the moment when Archduchess Sophie came. For she came every day, to spy on what I was doing at any hour. I was completely á la merci of this completely malicious woman. Everything I did was bad. She passed disparaging judgements on anyone I loved. She found out everything because she never stopped prying. The whole house feared her so much that everyone trembled. Of course they told her everything. The smallest thins was an affair of state."
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E. to Marie Festetics about the time in the 1850s when she was alone in laxenburg:
Once I requested the emperor to take me along to Vienna.
I spent the whole day there with him. For one day I did not see her(Archduches Sophie)... but no sooner had we arrived back home in the evening, than she came running over. She forbade me to do anything like that ever again.
She reviled me so much because it is unseemly for an Empress to go running after her husband and to drive back and forth like a cadet. Ofcourse after that it was stopped.
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The ultimatum.
I wish to have reserved to me absolute authority in all matters concerning the childer, the choice of the people around them, the place of their residence, the complete supervision of their education, in a word, everything is left entirely to me to decide, untill the moment of their majority. I further wish that, whatever concerns my personal affairs, such as, among others, the choice of the people around me, the place of my residence, all arrangements in the house etc. be reserved to me alone to decide.
Elisabeth.
Ischl, 27 August 1865.
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On 15th of July, Elisabeth wrote Franz Joseph that she had just come from a meeting with Andrássy:
Alone, of course. He(Andrássy) expressed his views clearly and precisely.
I understood them and gained the conviction that, if you trust him, but Entirely, we, and not Hungary alone, but the Monarchy, can still be saved. But you must at least speak with him yourself, and I mean at once, for each day can shape events in such a way that in the end he would no longer assume it; at such a moment it really does require a very large sacrifice to do it. So speak with him at once. You can do so frankly, for I can give you this assurance, you are not dealing with a man who wants to play a part at any price, who stives for a position, quite the contrary, he is jeopardizing his present position, which is a handsome one.
But like any man of honor, he is also prepared, at the moment when the state is facing ruin, to contribute all in his power to salvage it; whatever he has, his reason, his influence in the country, he will place at your feet. For the last time, I beg you in the name of Rudolf, do not let the last opportunity slip by.
I beg you, send me a telegram the minute you receive my letter whether Andrássy should take the evening train to Vienna. I am asking him to come again tomorrow to Paula ( Paula Königsegg, her chatelaine), where I will give him an answer.
If you say "No", if you are unwilling at the final hour even to listen to disinterested advice any longer then you are in fact acting un.....ly yo us all.
In that case, you will be forever spared my further please and molestations, and I have nothing to fall back on but to reassure myself with the knowledge that, whatever happens, I will one day be able honestly to tell Rudolf, "I did all in my power. Your misfortune does not weigh on my conscience."
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