MAD KING OTTO

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LV, Issue 184, 21 December 1912, Page 2 (Supplement)

MAD KING OTTO

MONARCH'S SAD STORY. A recent cabled stated that the Bavarian Cabinet, press and public favored the proclaiming of the new Regent as Ludwig 11., on account of the incurableness of King Otto, who has now been mad for over forty years. Under no sane king has Bavaria, so flourished, declared a recent writer, as under mad King Otto. Yet Otto's giateful subjects never see him, except such of them as sally out of Munich for the neighboring palace-prison of Euerstenried, and , spy over the unscaleable, walls. They will then at best catch a glimpse of a restless, untidy, fleshy-faced old gentleman, brooding at his window, counting the hairs in his beard or reading a newspaper. If they had eagle eyes, they would notice that the newspaper is upside down, or held sideways, or is even a white shirt which the scholarly recluse is diligently reading. It is a painful spectacle. "But it is all that remains of Otto I, who has been mad since 1873, but, nevertheless, King over the second most important German State ever since his almost equally mad'brother, Ludwig, killed himself in 1886.

King Otto occupies a big suite of rooms on the first floor of the Fuerstenried palace, and there is quite as free in his movements as is the average monarch. In practice that means that he goes all over the palace, always in charge of two attendants and one of his two resident doctors. Sometimes, but by no means every day, he goes into the park, and stares listlessly at the statues and fountains. Sometimes he is violent, and always he flatly refuses to let himself be examined. He rises late, often after midday, and either spends all day in his bedroom or salon in semi-conscious apathy, or lets himself be enticed into the park. In the park he usually brightens up, and sets keenly about his favorite occupation—searching for strawberries. Winter and summer, spring and autmn, for nearly forty years, he has sought industriously for strawberries, and never found one—except once. This was when his doctors, hoping that it would make him happier, planted strawberries by the side of the park walks. The King tore up the strawberries, looked at the roots quizzically, and threw them away. Then he began seeking more. The strawberry-picking mania has a pathetic origin. When he was about 21 and before his madness had assumed such a severe form as it did later, he fell deeply in love with a young countess. This love affair came to a sudden end at a picnic on the shores of the Tegern Sea, when Otto wandered away \vith his.sweetheart, and spent the whole (afternoon picking strawberries. His brother, Ludwig, then King, found them, and took Otto to task angrily, while he packed the girl off to her parents, with orders that she should be placed in a convent, Sometimes Otto sits on a bench in the park, and talks to birds, sings, and watches the clouds floating by on the wind. And then he begins to cry. The doctors watch anxiously for these outbursts of crying, for they are nearly always followed by fits of terrible violence. These fits are all the harder to handle because of the unbreakable rule that under no circumstances is Otto to

be treated other than as King of Bavaria. Violence is never met with violence, and even when the unfortunate King soundly belabors his. attendants they refrain, by orders, from even trying to hold his aims. Luckily, the King is never cunning or malicious, and until lately his manner even showed feeble signs of gratitude for services rendered. Otto recognises nobody to-day. In this respect his malady has steadily grown worse. For two years after he became King he was visited regularly by his mother, Queen Marie, a born Princess of Prussia. In 1888 he suddenly ceased to recognise the Queen, and a year later she died. Long after that, however, Otto has occasional moments of lucidity. Otto's physical health is good, and he is a strong man for his 63 years. The more disease takes possession of his brain, the more it seems avoid his body. Probably the King will outlive the heir, his cousin, Ludwig, who himself is Go years old. In any case, Prince Ludwig, a professorial gentleman with no kingly instincts, is expected to renounce the throne. If so, the next Bavarian King will be Prince Ludwig's son, Riipprecht, who was born in 18(10, anu is married to a Duchess of Bavaria. Rupprecht's father and grandfather arc both noted for their physical and mental soundness, so it is likely there will be a new Bavarian line, free from the taint of insanity.