AN AGED RULER.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1189, 26 July 1911, Page 4

AN AGED RULER.

STILL YOUTHFUL AT NINETY. The oldest ruler in Europe recently celebrated his ninetieth birthday. Anil ho is no doddering, slippered pantaloon, but a vigorous man who loves nothing better than to hunt bare-legged in tho forests and to swim in cold lakes. The Prince Regent of Bavaria is this grand old man. His life has been ono of the most extraordinary in modern history, not only for its length, but for the strange romance and tragedy with which it has been filled. The son of a king, the brother, of two kings, and the uncle of two kings, he has never been a king himself, and yet he has ruled Bavaria for a quarter of a century. He might have been a king had he so desired at any time in the last twenty years, for the Parliament of his

land has over and over again besought him to assume the name that goes with the duties he has performed so long, and the German and Austrian Emperors have repeatedly urged tho step upon him. But so conscientious is he that he has always refused, and he has also refused in all

this time to take for himself a penny of the taxpayers' money.

Prince Leopold has been Regent of Bavaria for. twenty-five years because two successive Icings have been mad. Otto,

the present nominal ruler, was insane ■when he came to the throne on the death of his brother in 1886. Should he die, Prince Luitpold, his uncle and next of kin, would inhejit the throne. But Oho is only sixty-two years old and at latest

reports was in tho best of physical condition, so in tho nature of things ho should outlive his nonagenarian uncle.

Luitpold's father was Louis I, King of Bavaria, who was forced to abdicate because of his infatuation for Lola Montez, the notorious adventuress and beauty. On tho death of King Maximilian in ISG4 his oldest son, Louis, inherited the thr.me at the ago of nineteen. King Louis was a most extraordinary man, and there can bo little doubt, that he really was insane, many years before he was forced to abdicate because- of his crazy actions. He lived more in a dream world than in a real; his associates were Louis XIV, and Marie Antoinette, Siegfried, Brunnhilde, Tristan, Isolde, Tannhauser, Lohengrin, and the other heroes of Wagner's operas. The only man he gave any sign of loving was Richard Warner." For his family he had no reD By' 1876 his younger brother. Otto, haci gone hopelessly insane and boon put away in a private retreat. It is said that the old Kaiser William I was the. first to discover Otto's insanity when the young, man ordered tho regiment ho was commanding in 1870 to-charge-a stone wall. Louis in the meantime becamo haunted with ghastly nightmares. He would seek' seclusion in some village inn; lie would hide in his castles and only go on;., at midnight,' driving .four or sis switt horses attached to u sleigh in tho form of a golden swan with -wings displaced. In this he would reclino on blue ye.vet cushions, with a crown of electric lights over his head.' , .", • " '~ In ISSS the King shut himself up in his mountain castle, refusing to fee his Ministers or even his servants. A tamily council sent specialists to examine Louis, and on their report decided that hp must be deposed and placed under restraint. Hβ was compelled to abdicate on June 10, 1886, and three days later his body and that of Dr. yon Gudden, his attendant, were found in Lake Marnberg. It is probable that Louis, chafing under restraint, tried to escape by swimming, and was drowned. . Otto, also mad, succeeded him under the regency of his uncle, Luitpold. King Otto spends his time .smoking cigarettes, talking to the wall-paper, shooting at peasants from his windows with' rifles that are carefully loaded by his attendants with harmless bullets. His beard is long,' and they say that he is filthy in his habits, which is no uncommon" thing with maniacs. Throughout the insanity of these two kings their very sane old uncle, Luitpold, has been governing their kingdom for them. He reorganised the army and mado it splendidly efficient. He has gradually been paying off the almost fabulously iarge debts left by Louis I, living in the' meantime on his own private income. • AVhen he first became Regent he was the worst-hated man in Bavaria, for the people loved their handsome, eccentric King Louis; they would not believe he. was insane; they believed flint Luitpold had had him deposed and shut up in his castlo out of personal ambition. But they very soon learned the contrary. Every time the Bavarian Parliament has wanted to depose the crazy King and enable Prince* Luitpold to reign in name as well as in fact, he lias firmly opposed the plan, saying the Bavarian Constitution would not permit it. And so he.has lived, and grown old, unselfishly working for others, with no recompense'whatever for his services'save only tho deep love of his people and the profound respect of the rulers of other lands. He. was ninety years old on March 12. All Bavaria celebrated the day, and all Bavarians in other lands joined them.