At the birth of Ludwig II., enigmatic as he was unfortunate, of whom I propose to give a sketch, his grandfather, the eccentric Ludwig I., was still King of Bavaria. His father, Maximilian Joseph, was the Crown Prince. The latter had wedded, in 1842, the beautiful Princess Marie of Prussia, who was only sixteen years of age at the time of her marriage, her husband being twenty years her senior.

To all appearance the marriage was a very happy one. Maximilian was an intelligent and right-thinking man, devoted to public duty, but he had indifferent health, and, like the greater number of his race, was the possessor of a sensitive nervous system. For some years it appeared as if the marriage would be childless. At the beginning of the year 1845, however, the people of Bavaria were informed that the Crown Princess was enceinte, and on the 25th of August, on the birthday of the reigning King, a hundred and one guns proclaimed the birth of a prince at the chÂteau of Nymphenburg.

As a matter of fact, the princely infant had seen the light two days earlier, but the event had been kept a secret in order to give Ludwig I. a pleasant surprise, the King having expressed a wish that a possible hereditary prince might come into the world on that day. The child was named after him, and he held it himself at the font.

The old King at that time was at the height of his popularity. Soon, however, a turning-point set in: the dancer Lola Montez invaded the lovesick Monarch’s life, causing a violent insurrection in the Bavarian capital. Then came the democratic rising of 1848, general all over Europe, which threw fuel on the fire. Ludwig was compelled to abdicate, and was succeeded by his son, Maximilian Joseph, who ascended the throne under the title of Maximilian II.

Shortly after these political disturbances took place the young Queen was brought to bed of another son, who was named Otto.1 The effect on her of the alarm and excitement caused by the aforesaid events, was such that he came into the world three months too early. The physicians declared that it was impossible for the child to live, but they proved to be mistaken in their opinion.

Both the Crown Prince and his brother were unusually good-looking, and it was a brilliant sight when the popular and beautiful Queen walked about the streets of Munich, with her handsome boys beside her. Maternal joy and pride shone from her eyes, and the glance of the people was directed with genuine admiration on her and her children. Otto was the one who most resembled his mother. Being, moreover, lighthearted and accessible, he was also the one to whom the prize of beauty was awarded by popular opinion. Ludwig’s beauty was of a more uncommon and intellectual type, a noteworthy feature of his face being the large, brilliant, and dark-blue eye. The boys were always dressed each in his particular colour, which the Queen herself had chosen. Otto in red, and Ludwig in blue—the national colours of Bavaria. Not only were Ludwig’s clothes blue in tint, but also, as far as was possible, his various other small possessions and necessities; such, for instance, as the binding of his books, his drawing portfolios, and his volumes of music. This hue always continued to be his favourite colour.

Possessed of good sense in many ways, Ludwig’s parents seem to have been deficient in their insight into the difficult matter of bringing up their eldest son. The father was too strict, and made demands on the Crown Prince with which his abilities and strength did not allow of his complying. In season and out of season he reminded him that some time or other he would be a king. He was thoughtlessly punished whether he deserved it or whether his delinquencies were of so insignificant a nature as to demand a certain indulgence. Ludwig was not allowed to be a child. All his toys were early taken from him. He had, for instance, a tortoise of which he was particularly fond, but it was not long before this too was removed by the King’s especial order. The Queen made no attempt independently to combat this unnatural bringing up; nor does she or the King seem to have been alive to the fact that the peculiarities of the Crown Prince’s character required handling with caution.

He was simultaneously the object in other quarters of a directly opposite and still more pernicious treatment. His nurse “Liesi” adored and spoiled him. When he became a little older he was given a French governess, who seems to have had a positively unfortunate influence upon him. Her great admiration was the French Roi Soleil, Louis XIV., and she made no secret of forming her pupil upon this model. Well-known utterances of the Grand Monarque, such as “L’État c’est moi!” “Tel est notre bon plaisir,” and the like, were held up to the royal pupil as models of parlance which ought to be copied; while at the same time the governess gave expression in her looks and words to the subservience which she considered becoming for a subject to show to a future monarch. She never asked if he had been diligent and good. “The Crown Prince is always the first,” she repeated invariably. A teacher of the French language, who succeeded this lady, acted and comported himself in a similar spirit, and contributed further to pervert the childish mind. As an example of his method of education may be mentioned the fact that le trÈs gracieux prince royal, among other things, was allowed to roll his teacher on the floor like a barrel.

In such circumstances Ludwig’s egotism could not but be developed. Episodes from his childhood bear witness that a decided vein of caprice and sense of his own importance were early to be noticed in him. The following is a trait from the time when he was twelve years of age, during a sojourn at Berchtesgaden. He was at play in the park, with his brother. Without the slightest provocation he suddenly threw Otto, three years younger than himself, on to the grass, planted his knee firmly on the latter’s chest, stuffed his handkerchief into his mouth, and shouted commandingly: “You are my subject; you must obey me! Some time I shall be your king!” Happily a courtier was witness of this scene, and running forward, he dragged Otto, who was almost suffocated, from his brother’s violent grasp. The incident came to the ears of the King. He gave his first-born a sound thrashing in true burgher fashion. This corporal punishment had not, however, the desired effect on the exceedingly sensitive boy; and its result seems solely to have been embitterment against his father. So much, indeed, did he take the mortification of it to heart, that later he literally shunned Berchtesgaden.

One winter day in 1859 the two princes were together in the so-called “English Garden,” in Munich. Otto was rolling a large snowball, and called out to his brother, in glee: “See, Ludwig, I have a snowball that is bigger than your head!” Ludwig took it from him. Otto began to cry. Their tutor came up and asked what was the matter. “Ludwig has taken my snowball,” sobbed Otto. “Your Royal Highness,” said the tutor, “if Prince Otto has made a snowball it belongs to him, and you have no right to take it.” “Have I no right to take the snowball? What am I Crown Prince for, then?” asked Ludwig in dudgeon.

A gentleman well known to Maximilian, and who was frequently invited to his shooting parties, informs me that he very seldom saw the little princes when he visited the King. Once when he was walking in the gardens of the castle of Hohenschwangau, however, he came upon an open space where the King’s sons happened to be playing. Ludwig had swung himself up on to a paling, and was running backwards and forwards on it. The visitor reminded him that he might fall and hurt himself. The boy, however, took no notice of the well-meant warning, and its only result was that he increased his antics. The gentleman, who was really afraid that an accident might happen, now took him by force in his arms and lifted him down. The Crown Prince glanced proudly at him; then began to play with his brother, as if no third person was present. Many years afterwards, long after Ludwig had become King, the same gentleman reminded him of this occurrence. “I remember very well,” answered his Majesty coldly, “that you touched me at that time,” and then turned the subject of conversation.

A strict system of economy formed a part of Maximilian’s curriculum. The royal princes were only allowed the plainest food. Sweetmeats the Crown Prince tasted only through the generosity of his nurse Liesi, who was in the habit of buying sweets for her favourite out of her own pocket—a kindness which Ludwig always remembered, and which he rewarded as soon as he became King. When the princes grew bigger they were allowed pocket-money, to the amount of about a shilling a week—hardly a princely appanage. Otto one day hit upon a means, as he hoped, of improving his financial position. Having heard that sound teeth fetched as much as ten guldens apiece, he betook himself to one of the Munich dentists, and offered him one of his best molars at that price. The dentist knowing who he was, did not, of course, accept the offer. When the occurrence became known to the King, the prince was severely punished. The episode, however, seems to have brought the Queen to reflection, and she caused the princes’ pocket-money to be augmented from that day.

On his eighteenth birthday Ludwig for the first time received a sum of any consideration, his father presenting him with a purse containing a specimen of every coin at that time current in Bavaria. The youth, who had never before had anything in his pocket but a few coppers, imagined that he had suddenly become a wealthy man, and hastened off to buy and present to his mother a locket, which she had admired in a jeweller’s shop. He made no inquiries as to the price, but when the jeweller observed that he would send the ornament and the bill to the Palace, said with importance, handing him his purse: “No, I have money of my own now. Here, pay yourself for the ornament!”

Between the Crown Prince and his father there was never any great feeling of tenderness, but he was without doubt very much attached to his mother. The circumstances attending the birth of Prince Otto had, however, given her a preference for her younger son; and when Ludwig in his childish years endeavoured to talk to her of his ideas and impressions, the very prosaic Queen showed a remarkable want of comprehension of his poet’s nature. Apart from occasional friction, the relations between the brothers were peaceful and good. The younger one always took the second place, and the modesty with which he did this was no doubt the chief reason why the two were good friends. The entire character and turn of mind of the Crown Prince, his ideas, pleasures, and sympathies, were absolutely different from those of Otto, and of any real confidence on his side there could consequently be no possibility. Ludwig preferred solitude. Otto was gay and sociable. Ludwig was interested in art, and occupied himself with flowers; his brother loved military matters, and was a keen sportsman. Two interests, however, they had in common: both were from childhood first-rate, almost foolhardy, riders, and both loved music and singing.

They had only two playmates, namely Prince Ludwig of Hesse, who spent part of his childhood at the court of his aunt Queen Marie, and Count Holstein, who now and then was allowed to visit them. The Crown Prince was considered to be highly gifted. From his earliest youth his memory was unusually good, and he often reduced his teachers to despair by the puzzling questions he would put to them. Meanwhile he was only diligent in the subjects which interested him, and lazy and indifferent concerning those which did not please him. His teachers were able and upright men, but towards the greater number of them he was very reserved. With a few exceptions they were powerless and at their wit’s end before this peculiar character, which perplexed them by its contradictions and alarmed them by its outbursts of violence.

Thus grew up the Bavarian Crown Prince; in surroundings which left him partly neglected and misunderstood and partly perverted his understanding, and in circumstances which were fitted to develop his already naturally marked egotism and feeling of self-esteem.