Ludwig II of Bavaria

“ Ludwig's attempts to release the estates belonging to the Bishops, monasteries and priesthood from the payment of taxes, and the obligation to furnish soldiers in case of war, created so much dissatisfaction among the nobles and people, that, at a diet held the following year, he was summoned to divide the government of the Empire among his three sons. He resisted at first, but was finally forced to consent: his eldest son, Lothar, was crowned as Co-Emperor of the Franks, Ludwig as king of Bavaria, and Pippin, his third son, as king of Aquitaine. ”

“ Bismarck scouted the idea, remarking: “The King of Bavaria lives in a world of dreams. He is hardly more than a boy who does not know his own mind!” The Prussian statesman, it need hardly be said, was careful not to say this directly to Ludwig. He wrote a long and exceedingly deferential letter to him, in which he emphasised how necessary it was that the Imperial crown should be offered to the King of Prussia, and that it was for the King of Bavaria to take the first step. ”

“ Weird and woful is the tale of Bavaria’s mad monarch, Ludwig II. He was cursed with that form of insanity which is called ‘la folie des grandeurs.’ He rode about in carriages of eye-dazzling magnificence, the panels of which were hand-painted by great artists at a cost of a thousand pounds per panel, and his carriages were always drawn by eight cream-white horses. ”

“ Inactive, powerless, Ludwig was witness from his capital of the defeat of his faithful soldiers. His people were a vanquished people, and himself a vanquished King. Austria concluded peace with Prussia in Nikolsburg without paying any regard to the fate of her ally. Bavaria now also concluded peace. She did not lose any province, had only to renounce a strip of country hardly worth mentioning; but she was compelled to pay thirty millions of guldens for the expenses of the war. The Bavarian troops went each in their own direction. ”

“ At the return of the troops in 1871 his displeasure with Friedrich had been very apparent. It had not grown less with the course of years. Ludwig II. suffered more deeply under the supremacy of Prussia than any of the other princes because his kingdom was larger than that of any other prince, and because he was morbid and his pride wounded. While his Ministers in 1870–71 were spinning out the negotiations respecting the federation of the German States, Friedrich had uttered words of anger against [154] Bavaria of which its King had not remained in ignorance. ”

“ This idyllic life at Possenhofen was interrupted for a time, however, by the political agitations in Munich. All over Europe the spirit of revolution was stirring, a spirit that was soon to find expression in a general outbreak. Nowhere did the royal power seem more secure than in Bavaria. No monarch was more beloved than Ludwig the First, no people so universally loyal to the crown as his good-natured, easy-going subjects. ”

“ CHAPTER XXIII King Ludwig and Queen Marie
A picture very often to be seen in Bavaria is one representing Maximilian II. and his family in the garden at Hohenschwangau. The Queen is sitting with Prince Otto on her lap, and the King, standing beside her, has laid his hand on the Crown Prince’s head. He is in the full prime of his manhood; his wife is radiant with happiness and beauty.
The lapse of a few years had transformed this family life in the Bavarian royal castle. The bright and happy Queen had become a widow, the proud mother a Mater Dolorosa. ”

“ Ludwig of Bavaria read these lines as Crown Prince, and exclaimed, with enthusiasm: “When I am a King I will show the world how highly I prize his genius!”
Hardly a month after his accession Ludwig sent his private secretary, Herr von Pfistermeister, to invite Wagner to Munich. The secretary sought Wagner first in Vienna; but the poet-musician had been obliged to flee the Austrian capital for some place where his pursuers could not reach him, having been threatened with arrest for debt. ”

“ Bavaria has not forgotten King Ludwig, and the traits of geniality and kindness, by [274] which he won all, are still spoken of with love. In those parts where he mostly resided the remembrance of the “romanticist on the throne” dwells fresh and warm in the hearts of the people. ”

“ On the evening of Whitmonday the body of Ludwig II. was conveyed to Munich.
The hearse, which was drawn by four horses and was accompanied by his servants and by priests, arrived at the capital at half-past three in the morning. Great numbers of country people followed his coffin weeping. Nobody believed he had been mad, but that an innocent man had been persecuted. In the hearts of all there lived the memory of the beloved King, who had promised so much, whose peculiarities they had condoned, and who, despite all, had continued to be the pride of the Bavarians. ”

“ Friedrich Wilhelm IV. of Prussia was Queen Marie of Bavaria’s first cousin, the son of her sister. There was in Ludwig’s tastes and turn of mind much that resembled this Prussian King, who in contrast to the greater number of the Hohenzollerns took a greater interest in science and art than in the profession of arms. ”

“ CHAPTER XXV Ludwig II. in Daily Life
When Bavaria in 1880 celebrated the seven hundredth anniversary of the House of Wittelsbach, the King declined to have any festivities. He issued a proclamation from his highlands in which he declared that he felt himself one with his people, and at the same time expressed the wish that a charitable institution might be founded in honour of the day. ”

“ Ludwig’s health sometimes failed and prevented him from enjoying the festivities as much as he might have done; he was unable now and then to appear at some entertainment which had been given in his honour. But he was never-failing in his amiability, and he visited all the places where there had been battles with the enemy, laying flowers with his own hand on the soldiers’ graves, and rewarding those who had helped to nurse the wounded.
On the 30th of November he arrived in the most glorious winter weather at Nuremberg, welcomed by crowds of people and shouts of “Long live the King!” ”

“ King Ludwig's conduct in this matter is especially deserving of praise, because his kingdom is of sufficient size and importance to make its absorption into the empire a great sacrifice of individual pride; particularly when it is remembered that Prussia, of which Bavaria had [pg 412] long been jealous, was to be the leading power in the new union of states, and Prussia's king the emperor. But from the time of Ludwig's accession he had looked forward with hope to a consolidation of the numerous states of Germany into one nation ”

“ Pull it from the vaults of the Munich Hofburg, Bülow, and place it on Luitpold's head, and if he persists in his silly refusal, on Ludwig's."
"Majesty knows these gentlemen's objections: 'There can be no real king in Bavaria, they say, until the constitutional incumbent is dead,'" spoke the Chancellor gravely.
"Then kill Otto," cried the War Lord. "What, miss our place in the sun for a madman! Not if I know Wilhelm, Imperator Rex. ”

“ Ludwig’s need for solitude was, without doubt, the result of enigmatical depths in his nature. As a youth he had suspected, and as a man of riper years he felt, that it was impossible for him to be otherwise than a recluse and a stranger in life. Despite his high position, despite his beauty and gifts of mind, he was in his inward self helpless and tired of existence. His friendship for Richard Wagner was the bright spot in his life. ”

“ The homage of the people made a deep impression on Ludwig. “Shall I go to the window once again?” he asked, after showing himself many times, as the shouts outside became louder and warmer. He was received with ovations in the evening, when he appeared at the performance of Wagner’s Die Walküre. The shouts of hurrah for the King continued to ring. Day after day, till far into the night, the crowds surged backwards and forwards. One cannot know how the dice may fall,” said the Bavarian Minister of War. “But this I can already say for certain: the army will come out of the battle with honour!” ”

“ As no prospects of assistance from any direction could be seen, Ludwig determined to reassume negotiations with Rothschild. He was now promised a loan of thirty or forty million francs, at four per cent. interest, to be paid within a certain period of time. In the event of Bavaria remaining neutral during a possible war between France and Prussia, repayment of the sum would be remitted, together with all [241] further interest. In this manner the agreement was deprived of the sting which might wound the allies in Germany ”

“ Munich, there was every ground to suppose that an attack on the King’s person was intended. All were ready to risk their life in order to rescue him.
Meanwhile in the light of dawn the Court Commission had reached the gates of Neuschwanstein. It had been agreed that one of its members should read aloud Prince Luitpold’s address to the King, after which the doctors were to convey him to Linderhof. To their surprise, they found the doors of the castle guarded by gendarmes, who forbade them in the King’s name to enter. ”

“ On one occasion, when Nachbaur was ill, Ludwig wrote to him: “Take care of yourself. Do it for your family’s sake and to preserve your divine voice. Do it, too, for my sake. I ask it of you, I, the King, who otherwise am not wont to ask.” On another occasion he wrote to him: “We are both opposed to all that is meretricious and bad, and we glow with holy enthusiasm for everything that is lofty and pure. We will, therefore, all our lives be faithful and sincere friends.” ”

“ Ludwig was incapable of repressing his displeasure, which increased the more when he discovered that all the houses along the banks of the lake were decorated with flags in his honour. “It is swarming with people here. I wish to live unknown and alone for myself!” he exclaimed. At the landing-stage the hotel carriage was standing with four horses harnessed to it; and some members of the Swiss police were also discovered to be drawn up for his reception. This was too much for the shy Monarch. “I will certainly not go ashore here,” he cried. “I will not make myself a sacrifice to ovations.” ”

“ He looked upon the Crown Prince’s annual visit to his kingdom as an insult; and he was possessed by the morbid conviction that the latter, when Emperor, would drive him out of his dominions. “It is not pleasant to be swallowed up,” he often repeated. Wilhelm I. had, in 1872, sent him the Order of the Black Eagle; but the envoy conveying it had been unable to gain an audience of the King, despite the earnest representations of the Prussian Minister at Munich. At last, however, Ludwig was persuaded to send a letter of thanks. ”

“ The sorrow at the demise of a highly venerated prince was mingled with sympathy for his successor, who had been brought up so strictly and in such loneliness. A heavy burden had with the mantle of kingship been laid on his shoulders; the father’s early death was no doubt a misfortune to the son. The seeds of mental morbidness which were slumbering within him would hardly have shot so soon into growth, nor perhaps would Maximilian’s principles of education have brought about such distressing consequences, had not Ludwig become King when he was in the midst of his development. ”

“ Ludwig, the first king of Bavaria, stood sponsor for the child, who received his name and in addition that of Arthur, in honour of the duke of Wellington. He received a careful education, and in 1827 became a page at the Bavarian court, where a great future was predicted for him. Entering the artillery in 1833, he was after some years placed on the general staff. ”

“ Nevertheless, Ludwig danced for four hours running. He conversed with ladies of all ages, and with men of the most varying grades of society. He was pushed into the very midst of the crowd, and he laughed and joked at the incident. It was not till long after midnight that he withdrew from the ball. He remained a whole week in Nuremberg. The castle courtyard, and the neighbouring castle hill, were besieged by people from morning to night, who could not look often enough on their King. From the adjacent country places people came in troops to the town ”

“ Ludwig swooned with the strength of his emotions. Later in life he was heard to say how painfully it had impressed him that he had been greeted as the Sovereign as he left his father’s deathbed. “The Lord has taken a good [19] king away from us! Let us pray that He will give us as good a king again!” said the Archbishop to the assembled courtiers, who were waiting outside. All fell on their knees; tears and sobs filled the room. The capital and the kingdom were weighed down by the pain of their loss. ”

“ Ludwig also stood by his side, a loyal helper, during the struggle which ensued before his theatre was finally complete. The foundation-stone was laid in 1872. The King telegraphed: “From my inmost soul I express to you, my dearest friend, my warmest and sincerest congratulations on the occasion of this day, which is of import to the whole of Germany. Success and blessing accompany the great work! I am to-day more than ever with you in thought.”
Richard Wagner’s letters to Emil Heckel give an insight into the immense difficulties which he and his admirers had to overcome. ”

“ He is the present bearer of the title of King of Bavaria. ↑
[Contents]
CHAPTER II Fundamental Traits of Ludwig’s Character
Ludwig’s tutor, the Count de Larosée, has expressed his conception of his pupil’s character in the following words: “The Crown Prince is intelligent and highly gifted. He is already possessed of abilities which far exceed the ordinary. His imagination is so vivid, that I have seldom seen its equal in so young a man; but he is hasty and exceedingly quick-tempered. ”