The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1886-06-19 00:00:00

A ROYAL SUICIDE.

HOLIDAY-KEEPING has in a measure elle-c'rose:ld
the minds of many newspaper-readers during
, the few days past, and there has been in con-
sequence somewhat of an abatement in the
political excitement which is disturbing this
country. But it has only been the resting-
time before the final struggle, in vinv of,
which the proceedings of the dying Parlia-
ment-have almost ceased to evoke intere 3t,
attention being directed now to the succes-
sion (if manifestoes and addresses which are
fast flowing into print, and to the _prepare,
, lions for the contests in the constituencies.
Just when many men had mentally sworn
to abjure newspapers, and refrain from reed-
ing anything which should interfere with
their Whitsuntide surcease from the bub'ole
of politics and the serious business of
one of those appaling events occurred whieh
arrest those even on pleasure bent, and coei-
pel them to give a shocked attention 4o a
tragical story. it was the intelligence
which reached England on Wnit Monday of
the sad death of Louis 11., the mad King of
Bavaria, which occurred on the previous
evening. Only a few days before we hed
read painfully of the arrangements eviiieh
had been made for the isolation of the insane
sovereign, whose mental malady had teen
ascertained beyond a doubt to be incurable.
! Those who held to the idea that the doctors
might be wrong were speedily disabused,
, for the poor King soon settled any qaestioa-
, ings which existed as to whether lie was
.• mad. With him perished the too-confident
doctor, who foolishly relied upon his moral
influence to protect him against the irres-
ponsible violence of the crazy monarch—a
L man of fine physique and no mean animal
; strength, for Louts U. was reputed te he the
best built man in Bavaria—and as to Vie
, details of how the two actually met their
death the trail will probably nevdr be
known, for no man saw the end. Either the
demented King, a strong giant of forty years
old, before himself committing suicide, de-
liberately and designedly drowned his medi-
cal man; or the latter, an elderly gentle-
man, rushing into the Lake of Starmberg to
save the would-be self-destroyer was held
beneath the water by Louis in his death-
struggle until the breath of life was gone.
They walked together in theenclosed grounds
! near the Castle of Berg, and hours after the
two were missed the bodies of both were
found in the lake—the King in his shirt-
sleeves, and the doctor with a scratched and.
scarred face and other marks of his mad
master's violence. Louis's only brother,
now King, is hopelessly insane, and a Regent,
Prince . Luitpold, uncle of the ill-starred
pair, carries on the government of the coun-
try in consequence. Poor Louis had for
Years' been regarded as a most eccentric
monarch, but until quite recently he has not
been considered actually insane. His mad-
ness seems to have been intermittent, and in
the intervals of lucidity he evinced much
fitness for kingship, a fact which is calculated
to excite all the greater sympathy for his
melancholy fate. his life was full of pro-
mise at its opening, and left a mark upon
Europe's history, its painful associations j
notwithstanding, which will long remain.
The German Official Gazette; in some remarks
respecting the sad event on the Lalcig of
Starmberg, says the services which the late
King Louis rendered in securing the unity
of the Empire are still held in remembrance
througheat Germany. Louis himseif it was,
who, fifteen years ago, proposed that Wil-
liam of Prussia should assume the Imperial
title, and that the, German Empire should
be constituted upon its present stable founda-
tion. Bavarian troops played a gallant part
in the French War; and Louis,- who had not
always been Prussia's friend, but stood under
the Austrian banner in 1866, acted wit
peculiar significance. when he made the
practical suggestion that Germany should
be once again a solid State under Prussian
lead. But for years the regal suicide had
ceased to take an active part in the govern-
ment of his people, almost Evince the life
of a recluse, and giving his loyal subjects
unEnding anxiety because of his strange ec-
centricities, which all the world now knows
were the result of affliction. His sad exit
from the world seems to have retcored Louis
to the place he before held in the affections
of the Bavarians, and the sorrow which is
felt throughout the country, and indeed in
all Germany, is doubtless sincere. The un-
happy and grief-stricken Queen-mother is to
be deeply commiserated in her sore trouble.
One son dead by his own act, and other
only more hopelessly insane than him whom
she is now mourning _ Such is the sad lot of
QUPPII Maric, the widow of Maximilian IT.
This twenty-two years since Louis ascended
the throne of Bavaria, and when he took up
his Royal heritage he was as handsome a
man as any in Europe. and as accomplished
as he was comely. I", 7as an able musician
—and a princely pateon of professors of all
the branches of the art—as Richard Wagner
well knew. Louis was also an adept in
water colours, and a skilful draughtsman
generally, Fortunately, though many
matches were proposed for him by the friends
of the poor King, his remarkable inborn an-
tipathy to matrimony proved_an insaperable
barrier against his entering into wedlock,
and saved some Royal Princess from an al-
liance which would have ended in deep
sorrow. Louis was lavish in his liberality,
but his later years were altogother olonded
by the disease which hang so darkly over
him. Ile developed a passion for selfish
seclusion, and would shut himself in solitude
in his palaces, or cause a play to be per.
formed by an expensive company in the
Grand Theatre of Munich, himself being the
only auditor of the actors. He built a new
Royal palace on a scale of incredible mag-
nificence, squandering untold sums over the
embellishments. _ But tl-ese aed other
strange actsgwere thegou.tct eue,,of his mad-