In the little chapel at Wallenhofen, in all quietness, she changed her religion.
There is no doubt that many hard struggles had gone before this step. It was thought that King Ludwig did not approve of her action because the Protestants of his country so greatly lamented it. But with his love of free-will, he would not place obstacles in the way of her desire. At a religious festival in Munich, he himself informed the public of his mother’s decision.
CHAPTER XXIV
State and Church—Ignaz von Döllinger—Ludwig’s Letters to his old Tutor
One Christmas night in the seventies, Ludwig II. was present with the Queen-mother and the royal Princes at the midnight Mass in the court church at Munich. In the midst of the service he laid his prayer-book aside. He threw himself on his knees, hid his face, and sobbed aloud. His mother regarded him anxiously, and called her brother-in-law, Prince Luitpold, who was sitting in the box next to them. The King rose to his feet and hid his head on her breast; and she and his uncle conducted him to his rooms.
A few days previously an execution had taken place, which had made a deep impression on him. A Neapolitan youth, twenty years of age, who had committed a murder in his country, had been condemned to death. The unhappy parents had sent a heartrending appeal to the young King, who had wished to reprieve him; but his Ministers had opposed his intention.
In his later years, Ludwig seldom attended divine service in Munich; but during his residences at Berg, he went regularly to a little church which had been built in the park there. At the castle of Neuschwanstein there was an altar and a prie-dieu in his sleeping apartment. He was in the habit of hearing Mass in the neighbouring chapel; and no person was refused admittance because the King was praying in it. When he visited the small village churches in the highlands, he would often kneel unknown amid those at prayer. At Ober-Ammergau he was so affected by the passion plays, that he caused a magnificent marble group of the Crucifixion to be erected in that town. Once when driving he met a priest carrying the sacrament; he alighted, knelt upon the highroad and prayed. He was God-fearing, but very tolerant; and he hated confessional dissensions.
In affairs of state he preserved a quiet and certain view, not the less so where ecclesiastical matters were concerned; but the relations between the Papal power and his Government were anything but peaceful. Ludwig had a modern conception of the Church’s relation to the State; he desired that the schools should be freed from the yoke of the Church. The reforms of the Government in this domain became the source of violent skirmishes.
The Catholic Church party, which adorned itself with the often misused name of “National,” worked up a strong feeling against him and his Ministers. In reality, this party was less national than the other; for the Catholic Church is international in its principle and in its entire organisation, the threads being collected in Rome from the Catholic communities in all parts of the world! Nor was there unity among the Catholic clergy themselves. One of the heads of the Church in Bavaria at that time was Ignaz von Döllinger. He had been Ludwig’s teacher, and one of the few whom Ludwig in his youth had really cared about. The Dean was among the most learned theologians of the last century. He had in 1863 published a book, “Pabstfabeln des Mittelalters,” which had brought him into bad odour with the Romish curia. In spite of threats from Rome he quietly continued the way which his truth-loving spirit and his scientific researches pointed out to him. In 1864 Pius IX. had issued the so-called “Syllabus,” in which he vindicated and defined the mediæval conception of the Church’s supremacy over the State. The Pope meant by his action to prepare for the dogma of his Infallibility. Döllinger made this the object of scathing criticism. His writings did not indeed influence the unenlightened masses, who received the Holy Father’s message with blind obedience, but within scientific circles in the Catholic world the Dean’s utterances made a deep impression. Munich became the centre of the opposition, and Döllinger, as a matter of course, became its leader.