From her earliest years she was trained for the ballet, and made her appearance at the Kärntnertortheater in Vienna before she was 7. She almost invariably danced with her sister Therese, who was two years her senior; the sisters studied dancing with Jean-Pierre Aumer and Friedrich Horschelt beginning when Elssler was 9 years old, also traveling to Naples, Italy, to study with Gaetano Gioja. After some years' experience together in Vienna, the sisters went in 1827 to Naples. While there, she had an affair with Leopold, Prince of Salerno, the son of King Ferdinand I of the Two Sicilies, which resulted in the birth of a son, Franz.
