The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1899-09-16
By A F|END|SH TRICK
Just the Kind That Wicked
People Play in Novels.
ROYAL LOVERS PARTED
And Hence Came Madness
Upon Louis of Bavaria.
ROYAL LOVERS PARTED

| raStlc love story OF modern rOyaty-tne
secret of the broken engagement of mad
King Louis of Bavaria and Duchess DIAL
encos-has at last been revealed by the
! CountessWallersee a niece of the Duchess
and of the late Empress Elizabeth OF
| Austria
The two lovers were parted by an in
trigue as remarkable as any which has
ever been conceived by the ebrain of dra-
matist. and its consequences were so tragic
that one would hardly dare to reproduce
them in fiction.
The separation drove the fantastic and
overweight mind of the King to madness
and left the Duchess a broken hearted
woman for the rest of her life, so that she
welcomed her awful death by flame in the
Bazaar de la Charlie with a prayer of
thankfulness.
1t was an actress, Clara Zeigler, a beau
tiful, ambitious. talented, love-crazed wo-
man who parted the royal lovers. A SIM
pie little ring was the chief instrument in
the device which she employed. That de-
vice was so develish in its ingenuity and
its results that people will always be
horror stricken when they read Of it.
The careers of the principal personages
in this dramam are so strange, so roman
like those of creatures of this everyday
world. The complaint is sometimes made
that modern royal persons are common
place and uninteresting, and that they diff
fer from the rest of the world only in the
superior luxury which they enjoy. OF the
Bavarian house of Whittelsbach and the
Austrian Hapsburgs this is certainly not
true, for there has been enough romance
in their lives within our own times to
satisfy the most vorcious appetite.
Louis IL, King of Bavaria, head of the
ancient house of Whittelsbach, was a
youth whose temperament was overburd-
ened with poetic, artistic and romantic
impulses. There was much that was mag
nificent about him. and but for the unhap-
py circumstances which are now revealed
for the first time, he might perhaps today
he regarded as a great man, instead Of
a mad-man.
Even in LoJis's madness there was more
that was fascinating than repulsive. He
rode through the forests of Bavaria at
night clad in the full armor of a medieval
Lake Starenberg in the swan boat Of To-
hengrin.
There is a Junior line of the house Of
Wittelsbach, whose members are distin-
guished by the title of ''Duke in Bavaria"
or Duchess in Bavaria" This family con-
tanned a number of daughters of nearly
the same hge as King Louis, whose lives
have been filled with more romance and
tragedy than any women Of our day. One
was the Duchess Elizabeth later Empress
of Austria, who, after a career of extraor-
binary sorrows, was fated to die by an
assassin's hand Another was the Queen of
Naples who led her husbands troops at
the siege of Gaeta with a physical cour-
age which has not been surpassed by any
woman since Joan of Arc.
But the chief Of them, from the point of
view of this narrative, was the Duchess
Sophie Charlotte, afterward known as the
Duchess dAlencQn. All these sisters were
women of remarkable beauty, intellect and
elevation of character. They had been
brought up amid beautiful and wholesome
surroundings with simplicity unheard or
among royal families. How different the
ducaI Wittelsbachs are from ordinary roy
alties may be judged from the fact that
the present head of the family, the Duke
Charles Theodore is an occult who gives
his whole time freely to the poor
The Duchess Sophie Charlotte was not
so superbly beautiful as her sister the
Austrian Empress; but those who knew
her in youth say that her face had an
expression of ineffable sweetness ana
charm She was always deeply religious,
and afterward developed into a devotee
but her youth piety did not exclude wit
and love for art and poetry
Like all her sisters, she was precocious
Intellectually. When she was in her
eighteenth year and at the height OF her
charms King Louis. not then insane, but
a creature of unrestrained impulses, fell
madly in love with her
The King was a strikingly handsome
mass Of black hair and deep. dark burning
eyes. He looked indeed like prince of
legend. He Rooed the young Duchess in
the beautiful grounds of her fathers pail
ace, Possennoffen, on Lake Starenberg, on
the shores of which he also had castle.
The young girl was completely carried
away by the Kings ardent wooing, and in
her innocent way loved him as deeply as
he loved her For six months they were
in paradise and looked forward with alb
solute faith to the fast approaching time
when they should be united forevermore
and live as happily as prince and princess
in that fairyland on which the minds OF
both tot them dwelt so much.
But the evil spirit was not lacking IN
that fairy paradise. Il was enacted by a
beautiful injured woman-Clara Zeigler.
She was a young actress. whose charms
and talent had been discovered by the
King. He educated her from the age OF
sixteen and had her declaim his favorite
dramas for his ole delectation. She was
deeply in love with him, and ne apparently
was at one time as deeply devoted 20 her.
Public opinion in moaarchiai countries
sees nothing wrong in an attachment such
as this. and allows the woman 10. the
shadow Of n right when the king proposes
TO marry some one OF his own rank. But
this story shows thar however false con-
veutions may ne KINGS mast sometimes pay
the debt Of sin like other men.
II Louis had entered into a Ioveless e.
gagement for reasons Of state. Clara Zeig--
Ter would have accepted the episode IS a
matter OF course. But when she saw that
he was passIouately in love With the
Duchess Sophie and found by oit;er tx
3erience that he no longer cared for her
az all she was possessed by deyourtng
Jealousy. and under SIS influence she went
20 work 70 shat1er the new love iiyl
Having plenty % influence az court. she
obtained the position 81 reader 20 the
Duchess. for which she was ezninentIy IT