The age-herald., 1898-09-04

and servants with all outward signs of homage, for he is king.
 It will be surprising to most Ameri- can readers to learn that the present king was a demented person when he succeeded his brother, King Ludwig 1T, who also had been declared insane two
 years before his death. This Ludwig
 was formally deposed three days before
 his end, which he sought himself, drag
 ging with him to the depths of the
 Starnberg lake his physician and true friend, Dr. Gudden.
 In passing it may be stated that Q
 cousin of these two kings, Empress Elizabeth of Austria, has been for years
 the talk of Europe on account of her
 eccentricities. Charity has it that she
 became deranged on account of the
 tragic death of her son, Archduke Ru-
 dolf, in 1889, and charity may prevail in
 this case.
 The royal house of Wittelsbach is one
 of the oldest of the noble families of Europe, the first of the name on X ord being Margrave Luitpold, who died in August, 907, more than 1000 years ago. The Hapsburgs of Austria antedate this redoubtable Margrave by only eight years.
 Polite history always has some excuse for the cratic conduct of the great of the earth. Thus, in the case of King Otto's predecessor on the Bavarian throne, it is said that he was a man of romantic nature, an artist, with very
 fantastic ideas of his personal dignity
 as king and rather capricious opin-
 ions concerning political questions.
 Courtiers say that his insanity was
 caused by the rupture of his engage ment to Princess Sophie of Bavaria, who afterward became the Duchess of Alencon and perished in the holocaust in charity bazaar in Paris last year.
 Plain truth is that the father of both brothers, Maximlian II, was insane and that the taint, probably long ex- tant in a latent form in the hous. of Wittelsbach on account of intermar- riages, descended to Otto and Ludwig from him. This Maximilian, a son of Ludwig I, was treated by his father in a manner so severe that the young prince at one time escaped from Munich, bought a residence in the vicinity of Hamburg and there led life of abso- 1ute abandon. When Maximilian as- stunned the reins in 1S48, upon the abdi- cation of his stern parent, he still con- tinued what in this country would vul- garly be called his "sprees." periodical ly. He finally developed the idea that both his sons, Ludwig III, born in 1S45. and the present Otto, born in 1S4S, amid the thunder of the great revolution, had inherited from him that taint which would ultimately call down upon them the curse of mental death.
 The court physicians as well as emi- nent medical celebrities called in by the court clique sought in vain to dissuade Maximilian from this horrible idea. The course of events has shown that Maxi milan II, in the inner consciousness of his guilt and shame, was correct.
 It was probably this awful vindica- tion of orthodox Mosaic law that caused Harden in his Zukunft ar- ticle to say about the time when King Otto's father ascended the throne: "The royalsts in the land sniggered into their beard, rubbed their hands in glee and whispered to each other grinningly: Now we have what we want. Now can, as in times of yore. maniac wear the crown"