LUDWIG OF BAVARIA.

King Country Chronicle, Volume V, Issue 345, 15 March 1911, Page 2

LUDWIG OF BAVARIA.

A Fairy-Prince Out of Date. In "Love Intrigues of Royal Courts," by Thornton Hull, there is a remarkably good photograph of Ludwig of Bavaria. We like him, perhaps, better than any other eccentric known, says the "Mirror, in noticing the book, which has something amusing on almost every page. There are dull madmen and interesting madmen. Ludwig was interesting. He was a mad artist—his insanity was artistic. To read of him is like reading of a fairy prince in some extravagant fairy tale. Ludwig was born in 1815. He was ushered into the world with the ringing of many bells, for his mother, the Crown Princess Marie, was the "good angel" of popular love. And Ludwig had a capital education. Jordan water was sprinkled over him at his christening. He was trained with rough simplicity—bread, meat, and cheese ; two shillings a week pocket money ; no luxuries, no indulgences. One day the poor boy learned that a sound tooth was worth ten florins, which immediately made him go to the nearest dentist and offer him his entire set of teeth. This shows a regrettable desire to get rich quickly. But Ludwig evidently only valued riches as a means of realising his fairy dreams. He was, like the Stranger of Baudelaire's prose-poem, a lover of the clouds. When he became king, and had plenty of money, he tried to bring the clouds to earth. Handsome, tall., with wonderful eyes and hair, he naturally attracted women. But he treated them very rudely. Engaged to the Princess Sophie Charlotte, he refused, at the last moment to go to the altar with her, and the Austrian archduchess who followed Sophie in his capricious esteem was suddenly overwhelmed with abuse one day when he met her and took a dislike to her, in the rosegarden. And when a prima donna to whom he had been gracious ventured to pass her fingers through his hair while they were one day boating on his magic lake he upset the poor lady into the water, and she had to be rescued with a boat-hook ! REAL RAIN ON THE STAGE. Actors and actresses, singers and dancers, did not indeed by any means always enjoy their experiences with Ludwig He spent any amount of money on mounting operas, and sat alone listening to them. But if something came along which he did not like in the music he retorted by standing up in his box and loudly abusing everybody. And occasionally would call for such unrehearsed effects as this :

"On one such occasion, when the Kins was the sole audience, a curious scene took place. In the piece a great storm was introduced ; the theatre thunder rolled, the theatre wind blew the noise of rain falling began. The King grew more and more excited, he was carried out of himself. He called from his box in a loud voice, 'Good, very good ! Excellent ! Bat I wish to have real rain. Turn on the water !' "The manager ventured to remonstrate ; he spoke of the ruin to the decorations, the silk and velvet hangings, and so on ; but the King would not listen. 'Never mind, never mind ! I wish to have real rain. Turn on the taps !' ''■' Bo it was done. The water deluged the stage ; it streamed over the painted Mowers, the painted hedges, and the summer houses ; the singers in their line costumes were wet from head to foot ; hut they tried to ignore the situation. They sang on bravely. The King was in the seventh heaven. He clapped his hands and cried, 'Bravo ! More thunder ! More lightning ! .Make it nun harder ! Let all 'he pipes loose ! More ! More ! I will hang anyone who dares to put up an umbrella ! ; " Poor Ludwig ended in the sinister way of madmen ; he killed himself after his disposition—drowned himself in one 01 those solemn Bavarian lakes whose waters lap the fantastic walls of their lonely castles. Even his end was picturesque—stage-man-aged, as it were, for efiect.