The Savannah morning news., 1901-12-08
ROYAL MADM EN-.
MANIA AN ALMOST INEVITABLE
ROYAL HERITAGE.

ISL, Or 0e Ia Naudrteres ana Many
of the Rulers of Europe Bear Out
the Theory-Kaiser WiIheIm's Ec-
centricities Are Notorious; He Be-
Iieves Himself TO BE Divinely In
of Manincal Fury-The Car Is a
Melancholy Mystic, the Dupe OF
AstroIOgists and Fortune TeIlers
and Victim of the Belief That He
Will Die by ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
perOr Franz Josef of Austria
VacIllates Between Melancholy
and Insane GayetIes-The Dread
full Doom That Hangs over Boz
hemia's ThrOne-AIfOnso of Spain
amt the Young queen of Holland
Both Seem Marked for Royal
Mania why Madness Attacks
Royalty So PersistentIy.
Copyright 1901 by Stephen Mackenna.)
Paris, Nov. 15.-At one of the few
conversational salons of the old order
that still flourish in the midst of the
rush and hurry of modern cosrnopoli-
tan Paris there happened to be a large
gathering of habitues on the day when
it was announced that mad King Otto
of Bavaria. had shown signs of return
ing sanity. Comment on the informa-
ton from various points of view was
brought to a focus by financier noble
of the Second Empire, who remarked
rather pompously:
in, arnfhar
is the special distinction and hall mark
of aristocracies. We all have a mad
drop in our blod, If we have any
blood worth mentioning"
There was "a moments pause, then
a serious looking young man spoke up
with the quiet authority which thor
ough knowledge of a subject gives to
the possesscr.
Madness is, at any rate, the doom
of royalty" he said. ut is almost in
evtable, in fact, that royal blood
should be tainted with the beginnings
of insanity. 1t may, or may not, be
true that a king can do no wrong, but
it is all but certain that he can never
be entirely sane"
The speaker was DR.. de la Vaudriere,
probably the most eminent. as he is
certainly the most fashionable special
list in Paris on nerve diseases and
maladies of the brai He began his
career some 20 years ago as one of the
favorite pupils of the famous Charcot
of the Salpetriere; studied later in
Italy under Lombroso; passed an un-
usual sort of a year in Ireland inquir
ing into the curious outbreak of either
intoXication in Ulster, and the tea
III.
turned to Paris to write remarkable
treatises on all these things. His repu-
tation was soon made; only his COM
mercial fortune lay ahead of him. He
is now laying hold of the dollars by
treating the nerve nIaladies, real or
imaginary, of the new millionaire
quarter around the Pare Monceau.
DR.. de la Naudriere' rather startling
reflections upon royalty We're challeng-
ed by the hostess, whereupon he took
up the question at length, and gave us
in half an hour a conversational lecture
as fascinating as it was sensational. I
shall borrow from his material to
add to personal researches on the
subject of his talk.
To begin with. the unfortunate King
Otto. the royal house of Bavaria,
seems to lie under some mystic curse.
Among the kings and princes
of Bavaria for centuries back
the dreaded insanity is always
seen cropping UP; sometimes
skipping q. generation, some
times marking down two or even three
princes in one grim year. King Otto
for example, is successor to his brother
Louise IT,, who was deposed from the
throne as a lunatic and flung himself
into the fish pond of Berg Castle,
shrieking that If they would not let
him be King of the Bavarians, at least
they should not prevent him from rul-
ing over the carp and gold fish. Fo~
twenty-five years Otto has reigned.
nominally, from the royal and splendid
madhouse of Furstenried, sometimes
raving mad, sometimes broodirg mad,
sometimes 'pathetically gay, singing,
like Ophelia, snatches of plaintive
peasant songs. sometimes wailing for
hours like a sick baby, but always
mad stark staring mad. Even if he
should definitely regain his reason, as
his physicians seem to expect, the
period of lucidity will probably prove
to be the last sputter of reason before
it sinks in it's socket forever. That. at
any rate, is our experts opinion. And
he adds: THE mere ghastliness of
Otto's return to an exalted station
after twenty-five years Of Obvious
idiQcy would in itself suffice to turn
his brain again. I am not thinking
merely of the appalling sense of shame
that would almost certainly overwhelm
him and work morbidly on his over
wrought nerves. l mean that he must
be infinitely more susceptible than the
average type to the conditions which
tend almost fatally to create insanity
in any man placed in the extraordinary
and utterly abnormal position of a
reigning prince. Even a King of Ba-
varia, administering a little kingdom
as vassal to great Emperor, is, with
in his own borders, treated with all
the slaVish subServience that waits on
the Emperor at Berlin. 1t takes a
strong head and a sound system to
keep it's balance amidst these condi-
tons. How can a broken mind like that
of Otto withstand them? In a hundred
ways kings are less likely to enjoy
physical health and nerve tone than
the plowboy in the fields" continued
the physician. Their blood generally
comes to them polluted and enfeeblei
by the most unnatural marriage
among their ancestors. Their childhood
has never had any natural unrestrain-
ed gaiety in it; their education has
been forced beyond the bearing point
from an age when happier children
have not left off making mud pies AS
they grow up there comes the terror
of assassination. Almost always there
is a heavy grief in their families
scandals. stified crimes, heart breaking
marriages dictated by state reasons. n
thousand circumstances of which we
who have the good fortune not to be
kings. can form no idea Almost in
eVitablN they are OVerstrained. the