The Sun.
London, England, 1868-02-25 00:00:00

THE SUN, LONDON, TUESDAY EVENING, FEBRUARY 25, 1868

BAVARIA.

(From a Correspondent of the Westminster Gazette.)

MumeH, Feb. 14.

The last few days have added considerably
to the store of sad experience we have been
gathering here. The poor King has allowed
himself to be seduced into taking a step which
proves but too clearly to his subjects that, not
content with sliding quietly and unresistingly
along the downward path marked out for him
by Prussian intrigue, he, with an activity un-
usual with him, collects his last energies to
rush headlong into the abyss that is yawning
at his feet. He offers a singular spectacle—
this young Prince, so sickly and so inclined to
melancholy, and yet seldom showing any traces
of serious aspirations after higher things !
A few days ago, indeed, the sight of the im-
mense masses of the Munich people pressing
forward with devout eagerness to their Cathe-
dral, on the occasion of the festival of its anni-
versary being celebrated, the religious enthu-
siasm of so many thousands so artlessly dis-
played, made, it is said, a deeper impression
on him. To this feeling is attributed his giving
the Archbishop a highly distinguished order on
this occasion. But little account, however,
can be taken of such flickering and uncertain
gleams of a better feeling in a young man,
who does not believe in the existence of a God!
Your readers may be surprized, perhaps, that
I should write thus, and I would not do so
were it a secret. But the King himself a short
time ago asked in all seriousness of his Minis-
ter of Justice (the well-known Herr Leitz, who
passes for a Catholic, but who brings up his
children Protestants) whether he believed in
the existence of God, and on receiving an
answer in the affirmative, rejoined—Are you
then able to prove the existence of God? Such
is our young King—such the questions he
puts to a lukewarm, milk-and-water Catholic,
whilst he refuses to see his old teacher and
former confessor, the Abbot Haneberg; at least
as I heard not long since, the Abbot Haneberg
has repeatedly asked, and has been repeatedly
refused, an audience. But enough of this. I
wished to say a word or two on the political
doings of the King, who never stirs in political
matters, except when something utterly dis-
creditable and perverse is in view. For instance,
during the whole of the very important de-
bates in the Chambers he was absent from
Munich to the' moment when it was thought
proper to bring the influence of his person and
presence to avert the intended opposition of
the " Reichsrath" to the Prussian customs-
treaty. He came, he spoke, he conquered
—as Prussian vassal ! Now, again, a similar
vassal-service has been required of him. The
election for the " Zoll-Parliament" was about
to take place ; the patriotic party had every
hope of victory, and were to have a great
meeting immediately previous to the day of
election, and intended to hold it in the great
hall in the Odeon, a royal building generally
used for such purposes. But lo ! at the last
moment, when there was no longer time to
seek out a suitable place of meeting for so large
an assembly, the King caused the Odeon Hall
to be closed. He thus, at the same time,
restrained the freedom of action in a most
important party question, and threw the weight
of the Royal will into the scale of the Prus-
sianizers. The consequence was that the Con-
servative party succumbed, the great majority
of the electors taking no part whatever in the
elections ; and in numberless cases a remark
now often heard in Belgravia, was uttered
aloud—" If the devil has taken possession of
the King he may take the kingdom too." But
that your readers may judge for themselves
of the shamelessness of this party, I will tran-
scribe the words in which, immediately before
the election, a correspondent of a paper
friendly to the Government dared to speak
of the above-mentioned party manoeuvre :
" The Ministerial party have succeeded in
baffling the plan of campaign laid down by the
Conservative party ; the election of Schlor is
secured ; the candidateship of Hew v. Schrenk
has now no longer any existence but in the
hands of his adherents. This has been decid-
edly brought about by the withdrawal of the
Royal permission for the Bavarian election
committee to hold the large meeting fixed for
Sunday, the 9th, in the Odeon. This defeat
of his opponents in a perfectly legal way really
does all honour to the talent of Herr Von
Schlor ; as one can easily imagine, the ad-
herents of the ' particularistic ' policy are
very indignant, and from their point of view
veryjustly so, for the people are now fully
aware of the will of the Monarch. The Bava-
rian election committee, left high and dry by
this manoeuvre, must give up all agitation for
the election, through want of a suitable meet-
ing-place." In that part of Munich which
lies on the other side of the Isar (like South-
wark), and includes several country districts,
the Conservative party has, nevertheless, been
victorious, as well as the greater number in the
electoral districts • even in Augsburg, Wiirz-
burg, and Aschaffenburg, where the party of
progress is, as I hear, fearfully enraged at
the electoral success of the Catholics. Letters
from Wiirzburg say, that until two days before
the election the Progressists had had it all
their own way, and alone were bestirring them-
selves about the election, perfectly confident
ofan
the
Conservative
triumph,
partysuddenly
ap-
peared, address .
peared, which was responded to by a large
majority in the town itself, and an immense
majority in the country districts voting for
the Conservative candidate. The clerical
and national party have decidedly gained a
signal victory, and this is acknowledged with
undisguised astonishment by the Progressist
journals ; they feel that their predominance is
at an end, and while the Catholic and I
Conservative members in the present Bavarian
Chamber can be counted on the fingers of
one hand, they will form the great majority
in the Customs Parliament at Berlin, and
yet this party is but just beginning to be
in some degree organized. Even in this elec-
tion there were many omissions, and many
faults have been committed. The party which
has lost most is the Government party, which,
placed between the clerical party and that of
the extreme Left, makes a very sorry figure in-
deed. At the close of the election here, there
were long faces to be seen among the Minis-
terial clique, for the consequence of the un-
worthy intrigue of the Minister of Commerce,
Von Schlor, against the Conservative party
was, that the Minister himself received fewer
votes than the candidate of the extreme Left.
It is true the election is not yet at an end.
As the candidate of the Progress party has not
the half of the votes received, a new election
must take place, the contest lying between him
and the Government candidate, the Minister ;
but the Conservatives, however, have only to
withdraw from the lists to ensure the defeat
of the latter, which, doubtless, will be the course
most humiliating to a Minister, who, a short
time since, had the vulgar insolence to cha-
racterize the Conservative addresses sent in
by eighteen hundred and sixty-nine communes
for the dissolution of the Chamber as " rub-
bish, slime, and polluted streams." Naturally
the indignation felt in the country districts
is by far the greatest, and, in many places,
where the Progress party were successful in
the towns, they were beaten from their being
conjoined with country districts, where the
honest and healthful-toned country people had
the preponderance. In a great number of
villages the country people voted with one
voice for the Conservative candidate ; in some
cases going all together to the place of elec-
tion in an orderly procession, with bands of
music, and with the beloved white and blue
flag flying, on which was embroidered the
name of the patriotic candidate. This elec-
tion excitement of the people is closely con-
nected with the indignation aroused by the new
school law, a pernicious piece of Freemason
handy-work by our Minister of Instruction,
Von Gresser, against which lately eighty ad-
dresses were presented in one day to the Reichs-
rath. This same Minister, as I have already,
I think, informed you, put Professor Sepp .of
this university upon the retired list without

specifying any reasons for the act ; and the
true-hearted Bavarians have shown what they
think of it by electing him, by a very great
majority, to the Customs Parliament. Dr. Jorg,
editor of the Historich Politische Bliitter, has
also come off with flying colours, another
brilliant victory on the Catholic and Con-
servative side. One may easily imagine what
was the feelings uppermost in Ministerial
hearts at such results. Nevertheless the same
Minister, Von Gresser, has lately also put
Professor Muller, in Wilrzburg, on the retired
list likewise, without any intimation of reasons
for the act, but, doubtless, because he has been,
as the Volksbote very truly remarks, "for years
a thorn in the side of the Progressists." Our
Minister busies himself in clearing away thus
the Conservative and clerical element in com-
mon with his " brothers "in Austria. But to
all appearance he will soon himself be sent into
retirement, and his retirement will be no plea-
sant one. When the poor King sees the results
of the elections, a feeling may stir his soul
similar to what he lately experienced at the
sight of the devout crowd that filled the Lieb-
frauen Church on the solemn festival of its
jubilee. It has always been loudly rung into
his ears " The people are with us." He now
sees with whom the people, more particularly
the Catholic people, are. With their God,
their Church, and its priesthood, the people
stand and vote, and act ; and the idols of the
Masonic lodges fall to pieces !
Whilst writing these lines fresh accounts
have arrived of the great election day, 10th of
February. The results are more important
even than we ourselves had dreamt of. The
patriotic party have achieved a brilliant victory.
The Minister of Commerce, in spite of the most
eager exertions of the Government, has been
defeated in three or four places. And where the
Catholic party has been victorious the majority
in many places is quite astounding ; and the
small minority returned by the party of Pro-
gress is insignificant in talent, as well as in
numbers. One remark that has been forced
upon us by these elections is of mournful im-
port, namely, that the Protestant districts have
proved themselves even more (than was ex-
pected) anti-Conservative and anti-Bavarian
friends of Prussia. Some Catholics of this
sort were only elected by taking refuge in
these Protestant districts. The cause of this
phenomenon is a double one—first, the Pro-
testant population have been much more
worked upon by the revolutionary spirit ;
second, the Protestant clergy cannot, if they
would, exert the same influence over their
people as the Catholic clergy do.

and struggles, and at the same time to uphold
Catholic doctrine in its fulness and complete-
ness, is the most likely way of leading back to
the Church those who, amidst the multitudi-
nous errors which surround them, are proclaim-
ing by their lives, and by their teaching, so
many great Catholic truths.— Westminster
Gazelle.