The members of the Royal and Ducal Houses of Bavaria are, taken all round, certainly far more interesting and clever than the Habsburgs. The eccentricities of the Wittelbachs sometimes develop into madness, but the difference between the two families is, that with the Habsburgs insanity usually shows itself in depravity, self-effacement, and common marriages, while in the case of the Wittelsbachs it transforms the sufferer into a romantic being who is quite above the banalities of everyday life, but who occasionally deteriorates and becomes a gross feeder. There has always been a strain of madness in the Royal House, and certain eccentricities in the Ducal line, but none of us have ever committed the glaring indiscretions of the Habsburgs.
I knew the late King Ludwig II very well, for when I was quite a tiny child he used often to come to Garatshausen to see my father, of whom he was very fond.
Ludwig became King at the age of eighteen, and was then somewhat despotic, very romantic, and excessively clever. The young monarch was engaged to my aunt, Princess Sophie of Bavaria, but the engagement only lasted for a short time owing to the intrigues of the Court entourage, who disliked the idea of the match.
The Master of the Horse, Count Holnstein, was a good-looking man, who was much trusted and liked by the King, but the Count became the tool of the entourage, and was persuaded to inveigle the Princess into a flirtation in order to arouse Ludwig's jealousy. The Court photographer, who was in the plot, took some rather "affectionate" photographs of the Count and the Princess, which were shown to the King by the usual well-meaning friend, with the natural result that Ludwig became highly suspicious of his fiancée. He kept putting the wedding off on some pretext or other, until my grandfather, Duke Maximilien, wrote to him and said he would not allow his daughter to be treated in such a manner. The King, driven into a corner by his prospective father-in-law, and incited by his scheming counsellors, decided definitely to break off the engagement. It was a great blow to Princess Sophie, for she loved Ludwig dearly, although some years afterwards she accepted the hand of the Duc d'Alençon.
After the termination of his love affair, for which he alone was to blame, the King slowly developed into a morose, moody creature, a victim to melancholia, and obsessed with a thorough dislike for women, although he admired the ideal woman who never disappoints or disillusions too trusting man.
His kindness changed into cruelty where his servants were concerned, and he upset the generally accepted scheme of life by turning night into day. The command performances which he attended alone in the empty theatre began at midnight and were often not over till five A.M. His favourite opera was Parsival, and, as nearly everybody knows, the world of music is for ever indebted to Ludwig for the unfailing support which he gave Wagner, at a time when few people acknowledged his genius.
Countess Marie Larisch, My Past
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House for Otto 5
1999
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