Empress Elisabeth of Austria (or "Sisi" as she was colloquially known) was one of the most famous women in the world at one time. One of the most audacious, even eccentric, female celebrities of her time, she served as monarch and helped to create the dual monarchy of Austria-Hungary – along with her husband the Emperor Franz Joseph – in the mid-19th Century. Considered a phenomenal beauty and obsessed to the point of pathology with shrinking her waist size, she was also an early adopter of psychiatry, rigorous physical exercise at a period when women were advised against it, and an ardent reader of philosophy and literature.