The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle. — 1886-06-19 (Stourbridge, West Midlands, England)

ROYAL SUICIDE.  HOLIDAY-KEEPING has in a measure elle-c'rose:ld the minds of many newspaper-readers during , the few days past, and there has been in consequence somewhat of an abatement in the political excitement which is disturbing this country. But it has only been the restingtime before the final struggle, in vinv of, which the proceedings of the dying Parliament-have almost ceased to evoke intere 3t, attention being directed now to the succession (if manifestoes and addresses which are fast flowing into print, and to the _prepare, , lions for the contests in the constituencies. Just when many men had mentally sworn to abjure newspapers, and refrain from reeding anything which should interfere with their Whitsuntide surcease from the bub'ole of politics and the serious business of one of those appaling events occurred whieh arrest those even on pleasure bent, and coeipel them to give a shocked attention 4o a tragical story. it was the intelligence which reached England on Wnit Monday of the sad death of Louis 11., the mad King of Bavaria, which occurred on the previous evening. Only a few days before we hed read painfully of the arrangements eviiieh had been made for the isolation of the insane sovereign, whose mental malady had teen ascertained beyond a doubt to be incurable. ! Those who held to the idea that the doctors might be wrong were speedily disabused, , for the poor King soon settled any qaestioa, ings which existed as to whether lie was .• mad. With him perished the too-confident doctor, who foolishly relied upon his moral influence to protect him against the irresponsible violence of the crazy monarch—a L man of fine physique and no mean animal ; strength, for Louts U. was reputed te he the best built man in Bavaria—and as to Vie , details of how the two actually met their death the trail will probably nevdr be known, for no man saw the end. Either the demented King, a strong giant of forty years old, before himself committing suicide, deliberately and designedly drowned his medical man; or the latter, an elderly gentleman, rushing into the Lake of Starmberg to save the would-be self-destroyer was held beneath the water by Louis in his deathstruggle until the breath of life was gone. They walked together in theenclosed grounds ! near the Castle of Berg, and hours after the two were missed the bodies of both were found in the lake—the King in his shirtsleeves, and the doctor with a scratched and. scarred face and other marks of his mad master's violence. Louis's only brother, now King, is hopelessly insane, and a Regent, Prince . Luitpold, uncle of the ill-starred pair, carries on the government of the country in consequence. Poor Louis had for Years' been regarded as a most eccentric monarch, but until quite recently he has not been considered actually insane. His madness seems to have been intermittent, and in the intervals of lucidity he evinced much fitness for kingship, a fact which is calculated to excite all the greater sympathy for his melancholy fate. his life was full of promise at its opening, and left a mark upon Europe's history, its painful associations j notwithstanding, which will long remain. The German Official Gazette; in some remarks respecting the sad event on the Lalcig of Starmberg, says the services which the late King Louis rendered in securing the unity of the Empire are still held in remembrance througheat Germany. Louis himseif it was, who, fifteen years ago, proposed that William of Prussia should assume the Imperial title, and that the, German Empire should be constituted upon its present stable foundation. Bavarian troops played a gallant part in the French War; and Louis,- who had not always been Prussia's friend, but stood under the Austrian banner in 1866, acted wit peculiar significance. when he made the practical suggestion that Germany should be once again a solid State under Prussian lead. But for years the regal suicide had ceased to take an active part in the government of his people, almost Evince the life of a recluse, and giving his loyal subjects unEnding anxiety because of his strange eccentricities, which all the world now knows were the result of affliction. His sad exit from the world seems to have retcored Louis to the place he before held in the affections of the Bavarians, and the sorrow which is felt throughout the country, and indeed in all Germany, is doubtless sincere. The unhappy and grief-stricken Queen-mother is to be deeply commiserated in her sore trouble. One son dead by his own act, and other only more hopelessly insane than him whom she is now mourning _ Such is the sad lot of QUPPII Maric, the widow of Maximilian IT. This twenty-two years since Louis ascended the throne of Bavaria, and when he took up his Royal heritage he was as handsome a man as any in Europe. and as accomplished as he was comely. I", 7as an able musician —and a princely pateon of professors of all the branches of the art—as Richard Wagner well knew. Louis was also an adept in water colours, and a skilful draughtsman generally, Fortunately, though many matches were proposed for him by the friends of the poor King, his remarkable inborn antipathy to matrimony proved_an insaperable barrier against his entering into wedlock, and saved some Royal Princess from an alliance which would have ended in deep sorrow. Louis was lavish in his liberality, but his later years were altogother olonded by the disease which hang so darkly over him. Ile developed a passion for selfish seclusion, and would shut himself in solitude in his palaces, or cause a play to be per. formed by an expensive company in the Grand Theatre of Munich, himself being the only auditor of the actors. He built a new Royal palace on a scale of incredible magnificence, squandering untold sums over the embellishments. _ But tl-ese aed other strange actsgwere thegou.tct eue,,of his mad