Knoxville journal. [volume] (Knoxville, Iowa) 1874-1986, 1874-12-10
The Freaks OF an Eccentric King.

| WHEN / arrived in Munich the Bava
rians were looking everywhere for their
King. He had gone-disappeared from
| their gaze. The court was distracted,
the courtiers frantic. They searched for
him at the palace, on the top of his ia
vorite mountains, and nowhere could they
| find their master. Suddenly a telegram
| arrived from Paris telling us he had gone
| there incOgnito (rather he had attempted
it, When royal parsonage goes off
| suddenly without crying "gare" there
must be something in it; but what this
particular something was no one knew.
Several days were passed in suspense
when the news came that the King had
gone to Paris to study the chateau of Yer
sailles and the bed Of Louis XIV. Some
say the King is only original others that
he is not quite sane; at any rate he is
young, handsome, and peculiar. He
hates and flies from the world; his peo-
pie are nothing to him; he comes and
goes no one knows where.
He avows passionate admiration for
| Wagner and his music, and is in love with
| the old-fashioned majesty Of the King
Louis XIV. To initiate him he is going
| to create another Versailles. He has
chosen an island in the middle of the
largest of the lakes, called Chiemsee. /
| believe there used to be a convent Of
Benedictines on it, but the principal at
traction is the beautiful view extending
over the Bavarian Alps, from Sonahe to
Salzburg, in Austria. Here he intends
to reproduce the palace and park of
| Versailles. The cost and labor of carry
| ing all the materials for building across
| the lake are matters of little Importance
to the young monarch. He was in the
| full tide of another cratic construction
at Falsenburg, costing already four
millions of francs, but that he has now
| abandoned after eight or nine years of
| hard work. But what cannot King do?
Poets glow in their praises of his "beau-
| tiful artistic nature" y; painters put upon
canvas his glorious deeds; even Wagner
makes music at his command; and the
populace, awed by such vast ideas, love
| him, and the mystery with which he sur
rounds himself adds to his popularity.
| He Is not like sovereign.
forget who it was who was so I'M
popular that, on some journey, his
courtiers, fearful lest he should remark
the dead silence that attended his prog
ress, had the idea to attach some me-
chanical apparatus to his carriage, that
with every turn of the wheel cried
4" Vsoe Empereur." The potentate, half
asleep, would awake occasionally to the
| consciousness of his peoples devotion,
/ and congratulate himself on the graft
tude they felt for all his benefits. In our
day we are all actors; some kings play
| at being comedians, some princes are be-
ing Jockeys, and like them break their
necks on race courses; but Louis H., of
Bavaria, plays seriously the part of
King. Though ne has thirty chateaux
| built by his ancestors, all more or less
beautiful and in good repair, he will not
| live in them, but prefers one of his own
making. With great labor, stone and
| iron are carried by men and beast to the
summit of some pet mountain, and there,
in the midst of the forest, only sur
rounded by bis eourtiers, does he hold
his court. Extravagant stories are told
of bim-that he walks about in she cos
tune of Louis XIV, doubtless with
silken doublet and hose, powdered wig,
and the proverbial cane, preceded by
torches borne by gayly-dressed pages,
/ and followed by his Chamberlain. again,
that in winter he will 60 in golden
sleigh, rushing through villages slumber-
ing in the snow, with frightful noise of
gailoping horses and sudden CLEAN of
NUMEROUS vi toiohco. iy thu siibc vac
villagers are aroused and realize that it
is the King he has disappeared Then
4 they say that when he wants a little mu-
! sic he orders the theater to be lighted up,
/ and at midnight, long after the last glass
of beer has been drank in quiet Munich.
i he arrives noiselessly in his box, and the
4 play begins. The actors do their painful
work of performing whole opera to an
! empty house, and to the dead silence.