A Cyclopaedia of Female Biography/Elizabeth of Austria
ELIZABETH OF AUSTRIA,
Daughter of the Emperor Maximilian the Second, and wife of Charles the Ninth, King of France, was married at Mézieres, Nov. 26th., 1570. She was one of the most beautiful women of her time; but her virtue even surpassed her beauty. The jealousy of the queen-mother, Catharine de Medicis, and the influence she possessed over the mind of her son, prevented Elizabeth from having any share in the events that occurred in the tumultuous reign of Charles the Ninth.
The deplorable massacre of St. Bartholomew affected her extremely; though she was not informed of it till the morning, lest her opposition should influence the king.
She was gentle and patient, and devoted herself entirely to domestic concerns. Warmly attached to the king, during his illness, she spent all the time, when she was not attending on him, in prayers for his recovery. Thus she always preserved his affection and esteem; and he often said, that he might boast of having the most discreet and virtuous wife, not only in whole France, or is all Europe, but in the whole world.
Elizabeth wrote two books: one "On the Word of God;" the other, "On the principal events that happened during her residence in France." After the death of the king, her husband, she retired to Vienna, where she died, in 1592, at the age of thirty-eight, in a convent of her own foundation.