Wessington Springs herald. (Wessington Springs, Aurora County, Dakota [S.D.]) 1883-1891, 1886-07-02
AN KING.
Tlhs Idiosyncrasles of Busy Little Bavarla'
Sovereign.

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Tho L diosyncrasies of Busy Little BAVARIA.
Sovereign.
The career of Louis the Second, the
present King of Bavaria, affords a
singular and sorrowful' example of the
evils of unbridled and long-continued
self-indulgence. At the age of forty,
in the early prime of middle-age, this
Prince has become such a moral and
mental wreck that it has been seriously
proposed to depose himfrom his throne
and consign him to some safe retreat.
Louis came to the Bavarian throne
twenty-five years ago, on the death of
his father, King Macmillan. He was
then a very tall, graceful and strikingly
handsome youth of eighteen. When he
appeared, on state occasions, in the
snowy Bavarian military uniform, he
called forth the admiration of all who
saw his erect, slim figure, his rich curly
hair, his large, bright brown eyes and
the right kingly carriage with which he
bore himself. The Bavarians were
enthusiastically fond and proud of their
young monarch. He seemed the very
ideal of youthful majesty and grace.
They were glad, too, that his tastes
were like those of his people. Above
all. like them, did he p~assionately love
music, and was an ardent patron of
the arts.
1t was not long. however, before
Louis began to betray odd and eccen-
trio ways. He took no interest in the
serious affairs of his busy little king
dom. He neglected his royal duties.
He avoided those public ceremonies of
which, in such a country, the sovereign
is always the central figure. The first
of Louis eccentricities which became
painfully apparent to his subjects was
the development of his love of music
into al abnormal and unnatural pas
sion. He took the great composer,
Richard Wagner, as his most intimate
friend, companion. adviser. He re-
jected the counsels of his Ministers if
they conficted with those of Wagner.
and he loaded the musician with favors
and honors. He built opera houses
and hired musicians and got Wagner
and other composers to write music.
He spent his money on these things
with lavish recklessness, He had per
formances given in his theaters to
which he listened as the sole auditor.
He would sit alone in the great audi
forum and hear the harmony produced
by a hundred performers.
Among other strange things Louis
once caused an artificial waterfall to
be built at the end of one of his cham
bers. Over this waterfall an artificial
moon was made to rise, cross the mock
armament and set behind the rocks.
When night came a band was stationed
in a n%eighboring %alcove; the water
would be let on and go splashlng down
over the rocks, the noon would rise
and sparkle upon the cascade; while
Louis, stretched on a lounge at the
further end of the room, would listen
with ecstasy to the mingled sounds of
the music and the waterfall. After a
time, the eccentric Kings passion died
away, to give place to an equally in
tense and extravagant passion for
architecture. Without regard to ex-
pense, he had all sorts of fantastic
buildings, with all sorts of queer decor
ations, erected, and would live in them
for months together, entirely secluded
from the world.
He was several times engaged to be
married to princesses of royal rank;
but his strange pranks and his gro
tesque manner in each instance soon
drove his betrothed to sever the bond.
So he has never married.
At last Louis has degenerated into a
self-indulgent glutton, caring little for
any thing but eating and sleeping. He
has become bankrupt, having spent all
the money he could by any means
scrape together; and with the rest, his
intelligence has waned until now he is,
perhaps, fit for no other abode than an
insane asylum. Such is the end of a
supremely selfish, self-indulgent career,
ending in the gloom of intellectual
night. Had Louis striven to be a good
ruler, to fill well the place to which his
destiny assigned him, he might easily
have retained the love of his subjects.
which, in his early youth, he inspired
But he chose the path of selfishness,
and his life is only useful as having
pointed a moral and a warning
YOUTHS Companion.