Louis II de Bavière (French Edition)

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The year-old, idealistic Ludwig gets crowned as the King of Bavaria. His first official act is a lavish support for the inspired but indebted composer Richard Wagner , who settles in Munich after Ludwig's request. Ludwig's cabinet cannot understand his support for the arts and is furious about Wagner's expensive lifestyle.

Ludwig tries to find a faithful friend in Wagner, whose music he loves, but these hopes get shattered: In order to avoid a scandal, Wagner has to leave Munich. Ludwig continues to support Wagner and his projects, but he still feels mistrust against him. Another important person for Ludwig is Empress Elisabeth of Austria , his independent and charismatic cousin.

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During a meeting with other aristocratic families in Bad Ischl , Elisabeth and Ludwig get close to each other and they share a kiss. However, Elisabeth is more interested in bringing up a marriage between her beautiful, cultivated sister Sophie and Ludwig, but the king ignores Sophie. Disappointed by Wagner and Elisabeth, Ludwig starts to withdraw from public into dream worlds. Ludwig wants Bavaria to stay in neutral position in the Austro-Prussian War , but his cabinet has another opinion and they eventually support the Austrian's loser's side.

Louis II de Baviere (French, Paperback)

Shortly after Ludwig becomes aware of his homosexuality, he suddenly announces his engagement with Sophie in January His mother and the cabinet send an actress into his apartments, who is instructed to give him sexual experience. Ludwig feels angry about the actress and throws her into his bathtub. Ludwig has doubts if he can be a good husband to Sophie who loves him, and he postpones and eventually cancels the marriage. Instead, he starts having relationships with his servants, although the devout Catholic feels guilt about his homosexuality.

Shortly after the Franco-Prussian War, the mental health of Ludwig's younger brother Otto declines and doctors have to take care of him. Ludwig is shocked by his brother's illness. Ludwig does not care about politics anymore, instead, he spends his money building Neuschwanstein Castle , Linderhof Palace and Herrenchiemsee.

The cabinet feels increasingly frustrated by the eccentric and secluded king's debts. In , the king has a short but fierce friendship with actor Josef Kainz , whose Romeo performance he adores, but Kainz is mostly interested in the king's money. Ludwig also hosts some orgies with his servants. When his cousin Elisabeth wants to visit him after a long time, he refuses to see her. In , the psychiatrist Bernhard von Gudden declares that Ludwig is mentally insane, following the advise and intrigues of his cabinet.

With the help of his faithful servants, Ludwig can arrest his cabinet for a few hours. Wagner, on the whole, used his influence in artistic and not in political affairs. Public opinion in Bavaria for the most part turned against him. He was attacked for his foreign origin, his extravagance, his intrigues, his artistic Utopias, and last but by no means least, for his unwholesome influence over the king. Louis in the end was compelled to give him up. But the relations between king and artist were by no means at an end. In face of the war which was imminent in , and in the midst of the preparation for war, the king hastened in May to Triebschen, near Lucerne, in order to see Wagner again.

In Wagner's Ring des Nibelungen was performed for the first time at Bayreuth in the presence of the king. Later, in 1 88 1, the king formed a similar friendship with Joseph Kainz the actor, but it soon came to an end. In January the young king became betrothed to Duchess Sophie of Bavaria afterwards Duchesse d'Alencon , daughter of Duke Max and sister of the empress of Austria; but the betrothal was dissolved in October of the same year. Though even in his later years he remained interested in lofty and intellectual pursuits, as may be gathered, apart from his enthusiasm for art and nature, from his wide reading in history, serious poetry and philosophy, yet in his private life there became increasingly marked the signs of moral and mental weakness which gradually gained the mastery over his once pure and noble nature.

A prominent feature was his blind craving for solitude. He cut himself off from society, and avoided all intercourse with his family, even with his devotedly affectionate mother.

With his ministers he came to communicate in writing only. At the end he was surrounded only by inferior favourites and servants. His life was now spent almost entirely in his castles far from the capital, which irked him more and more, or in short and hasty journeys, in which he always travelled incognito. Even the theatre he could now only enjoy alone. He arranged private performances in his castles or in Munich at fabulous cost, and appointed an official poet to his household. Later his avoidance of society developed into a dread of it, accom- panied by a fear of assassination and delusions that he was being followed.

It is characteristic of the extravagance of the king's ideas that he adopted as his model the style of Louis XIV. He no longer stayed for any length of time in one castle. Often he scoured the country in wild nocturnal rides, and madness gained upon him apace.

File:Louis II de Bavière Promenade nocturne en traineau.jpg

His mania for buying things and making presents was comparatively harmless, but more serious matters were the wild extravagance which in involved him in financial ruin, his fits of destructive rage, and the tendency to the most cruel forms of abnormal vice. None the less, at the time when the king's mental weakness was increasing, his character still retained lovable traits his simple sense of beauty, his kindliness, and his highly developed understanding of art and artistic crafts. Louis's love of beauty also brought material profit to Bavaria.

But the financial and political dangers which arose from the king's way of life were so great that interference became necessary. On the 8th of June medical opinion declared him to be affected with chronic and incurable madness and he was pronounced incapable of governing. On the toth of June his uncle, Prince Luitpold, assumed the regency, and after violent resistance the late king was placed under the charge of a mental specialist.

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On the i3th of June he met with his death by drowning in the Starnberger See, together with his doctor von Gudden, who had unwisely gone for a walk alone with his patient, whose physical strength was enormous. The details of his death will never be fully known, as the only possible eye-witness died with him. An examination of the brain revealed a condition of incurable insanity, and the faculty submitted a report giving the terrible details of his malady. Louis's brother Otto, who succeeded him as king of Bavaria, was also incurably insane.

Kobell, Unter den vier ersten Konigen Bayerns ; C.

Kobell, " Wilhelm I.