National Republican. (Washington City (D.C.)) 1872-1888, 1874-12-05
NatiuuaI grpabIitaH
4 WHIMSICAL KING.
THE FREAKS OF THE YOUNG KING OF
BAVARIA.

IhE FhEAhS OF THE YOUNG KING OF
BAVARIA.
A correspondent Of the Boston Advertiser,
writing from Munich, says When arrived In
Munich the BaYarians were looking every
where for their King. He had gone-disap-
peared from their gaze. The Court was dis
tracted, the cOurtiers frantic. They searched
for him in the palace, on the top of his favorite
mountains, and nowhere could they find their
master Suddenly a telegram arrived from
Paris telling US he had gone there ileoJHitO,
Cor rather had attempted it, When a royal
parsonage goes of 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 Versailles 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 pecH-
liar. He hates and flies from the world; his
people are nothing to him; be comes and goes
no one knows where.
He avows passionate admiration for Wag-
ner 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 Yer
sailles. He has chosen an island in the mid
die OF the largest of the lakes, called Chem
see. believe there used to be q convent of
Beneaictines on it, but the principal attraction
is the beautiful view extending over the Baya-
riaR Alps from SOnahe to Salz6urg, in Austria.
Here he intends to reproduce the Palace and
park of Versailles. The cost and labor of
carrying all the material for building across
the lake are matters of little importance to
the youthful monarch. He was in the full
tide of another cratic construction at Falsen-
burg, costing already four millions of francs,
but that he has now abandoned after eight or
nine years of hard work. But what cannot a
King do! Poets glow in their praises Of his
"beautiful artistic nature;" painters put upon
canvass his glorious deeds; even Wagner makes
music at his command; and the pOpulace,
awed by such vast ideas, loves him, and the
mystery with which he surrounds himself adds
to his popularity. He Is not like sovereign.
forget who it was that was so unpopular
that on some journey his cOurtiers, fearful lest
he should remark the dead silence that at
tended his progress, had the idea to attach
some mechanical apparatus to his carriage,
that with every turn Of the wheel cried, s'ViVe
PEmpereur." The pOtentate, half asleep,
would awake occasionally to the consciousness
Of his peoples devotion, and congratulate him
self on the gratitude they felt for all his bens-
fits. In our day We are all actors; some princes
play at being comedians, some princes at being
jockeys, and, like them, break their necks on
race courses; but Louis II of Bavaria PLAYS Sc
riously the part of king. Though he 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 max
ing.
With great labor stone and iron are car
ried by man and beast to the summit of some
pet mountain, and there in the midst of the
forest, only surrounded by his eourtiers, does
he hold his court. ExtraYagant stories are
told of him-that he walks about in the cos
tune of Louis XIV, doubtless with silken
doublet and hose, powdered wig and proYerbial
cane, preceded by torches borne by gayly-
dressed pages and followed by his chamber
lain. Again, that in winter he will 90 In a
golden sleigh, rushing through villages slum-
bering in the snow, with a frightfuI noise of
galloping horses and sudden CLEAN of hun
dreds Of torches. By the time the villagers
are aroused and realize that It is the King,
he has disappeared. Then they say that when
he wants little music he orders the theatre
to be lighted up, and at midnight, long after
the last glass Of beer has been drunk in quiet
Munich, he arrives. noiselessly in his box, and
the play begins. The actors do their painful
work of performing a whole opera to an empty
house and to a dead silence. Suddenly the
King leaves as quietly as he came, and all is
over.