MAD KING OF BAVARIA.

Auckland Star, Volume XXIX, Issue 177, 29 July 1898, Page 7

MAD KING OF BAVARIA.

a sudden revival of interest in the extrabrdinary career of Ludwig 11., Aa mad king of Bavaria, has broken v gays a writer in 'London Sketch.' T ff o sensational articles about him have appeared in the sixpenny maga■Ees with in the last few months, Tjjle I havo 3ust received from jlnnich the first two parts of a book t,v Fraulein Louise yon Kobell. enm& 'Konig Ludwig 11. und die Tftujst.' Ludwig is of considerable invest to English people. To begin %, his cousin. Prince Ludwig, son f Prince Luitpold, who is Regent of Bavaria in place of King Otto (who exceeded Ludwig and who also beLje insane), is married to the Architochess' Maria Theresa, whom the Lritimists' claim to be the de jure Owen of England. Then poor Ludwig himself fell in love, first with the m udduchess, who is now Duchess of Edinburgh, and secondly, with the vrfßCess who is Queen Regent of Holland to-day and sister of the Duchess „f Albany. Ludwig inherited a love for building from his grandfather, Ludwig 1., and enormous fortune from his father „jtfc which to gratify the craze. From first to last he spent £4,000,000 on his castles in the air. In the gorgeousnesS of their design and the splendour 0 f their fittings they seem to belong mor e to the times of Louis XIV. than to this matter-of-fact nineteenth cfenfury. His rooms in the palace of Munich were the first objects of his lavish expenditure, and everything, from the corridors, decorated with frescoes of the Nibelungenlied by a leading Bavarian artist, to the audience chamher with its throne of.gold, is an example of the highest art of tie sculptor, the painter, the silversmith and the architect.

Adjoining this suite of rooms is a jna^nificent winter garden, of which jra°ulein yon Kobell gives a detailed description. A painting of the Himalayas forms the background to a grove of palms, rhododendrons, azaleas and orchids; hrightly coloured birds swing mon golden boughs; roses hang from the "lass roof, lotos flowers bloom on the miniature lake, on which floats a boat of gold. Beyond lies a green meadow, through which a brook meanders and on the banks of which ? row sweetly scented hyacinths. In this paradise the King sometimes entertained his guests at dinner, when softly coloured 'lights illuminated the scene, and a band hidden among the foliage played melodies from Wagner's °Peras- - -_- -■ • ._.■_ Early in his reign Ludwig greatly Vished to build a magnificent opera louse for Munich, with a road and a bridge over the Isar connecting it with the palace. The plans were drawn and the estimate for carrying them out amounted to 5,000,000 guldens. The Treasury officials vigorously opDosed this-enormous expenditure, and tbe plan fell through. Thwarted in this scheme, Ludwig determined to henceforward build for his own personal gratification alone; in fact, Iranlein yon Kobell tells us that he expressed a wish that the numerous castles he had built should be blown up at. his death. Foremost among these castles is the Linderhof, a socalled hunting lodge. It is in the style of the. palace at Versailles, and very nearly as gorgeous, with its bekrtifiil 'stone f acadei its dovely gardens 'aid terraces, and its Temple of Venus..': In most spots in. Bavaria some- masterpiece may, ,be found to remind "the inhabitants of their mad and splendour loving king, and.-none is more striking than the colossal representation in stone o# the crucifixion erected on a hill at Oberammergau, and presented to the inhabitants by Ludwig in remembrance of one of his visits there. ."What Europe really owes Mm is his daring- belief in Wagner at. a. time when the great composer ras helieved to be as mad as his Maecenas". _