Louis was not a Liberal of the Manchester School. His sympathy with freedom and progress was genuine, and he loyally observed the provisions of a not very democratic constitution. But there can be no doubt that he believed rather in government for the people than by the people. In the particular instance he was abundantly justified, for in general enlightenment he was several centuries ahead of his subjects. Five years after his succession to the throne, his good resolutions were rudely shattered by the Revolution of July. Why that event should have arrested him in the path of progress it is not easy to divine, for Charles X. lost his crown through obstinately opposing, not by stimulating, Liberal tendencies. In the Revolution the reactionary or Ultramontane party of Bavaria saw their chance, however, and gained the King’s ear. They dwelt on the natural alliance of throne and altar, and the identity of liberalism in religion with liberalism in politics. Only in a religious people, they argued, could a king place his trust. Secure of royal protection and encouragement, friars, nuns, and ecclesiastics of all kinds came flocking into Bavaria. Monasteries, convents, and church schools threatened to become as numerous as they are now in England. Some made light of this black-robed invasion, and attributed it to the King’s well-known fondness for the mediæval and the picturesque. But a real change had come over Louis. Germany was seething with discontent, and revolution was in the air. The King remembered the fate of his godfather, and decided to take the side of reaction. The censorship of the Press was again enforced. Those who were found guilty of lèse-majesté were condemned to make a public apology to the King’s portrait or statue—an almost Gilbertian penalty. Soldiers, Protestants and Catholic, were alike ordered to kneel when the Host was carried past. Repressive laws were enacted against the Lutherans and Calvinists, and Germany seemed on the point of passing once more under the sway of Rome. Louis had lost his head. A few clod-hoppers brawling over their beer appeared to him an attempt at revolution. It justified him in closing the university and calling out the reserves. He established a star-chamber at Landshut, where anonymous accusations were entertained and every accusation entailed conviction. The Jesuits were supposed to have inspired this policy. The rumour was probably true in substance. The children of Loyala are not allowed to do evil that good may come, or to indulge in verbal equivocations, as their enemies allege; but it is their aim to bring the whole world into real and sincere submission to the Roman Church, and to achieve that end they have certainly not hesitated to sacrifice political and social ideals dear to all the rest of mankind. The Jesuit is a Christian produced to his utmost logical extremity. Naturally, the order is very unpopular with people who like to profess Christianity without any intention of bringing their views and conduct into line with it.
A true son of the Church was Carl Abel, a politician of some repute, to whom Louis handed the portfolio of the Interior in April 1858. He was, it is interesting to note, one of those Bavarian ministers who had accompanied the King’s son, Otho, to Greece in the ’twenties, and assisted in schooling the renascent nation in its new political status. He it was who enacted the “knee-bending” order to which allusion has been made; he again who substituted the word “subjects” for “citizens” in the royal decrees and proclamations. His policy was frankly Ultramontane. The publication of Strauss’s “Life of Jesus,” three years before, had given a powerful stimulus to rationalistic tendencies, and these the Bavarian Government determined at all costs to eradicate. It was in the world of thought and education that they saw the struggle must be waged, and they wisely strove to bring the schools entirely within their control. To prevent the spread of dangerous opinions it was decreed that all the books used in the universities and schools, even in those of the lowest grade, must be purchased from the official Government depôt. A bad time followed for the booksellers and for every one suspected of liberal opinions. The editor of the Bernstorff papers speaks of Abel’s administration as a scandal to all Europe. It was not considered such by the majority of the Bavarian people, who were probably more in sympathy with their ruler’s present mood than with his earlier aspirations towards a Grecian polity and culture. The Jesuits reigned supreme, but it was not without certain faint misgivings that their chiefs heard the news of Lola’s arrival in Munich. The dauntless adventuress was a factor that had to be reckoned with.
XIX
THE ENTHRALMENT OF THE KING
The Court Theatre of Munich, thanks to the King’s critical faculty and liberal patronage, had a very high reputation throughout Europe, and seemed to Lola a very proper place for the display of her charms and accomplishments. She applied accordingly to the Director, who upon an exhibition of her powers, announced that they did not come up to his standard. This was probably true; but had Lola danced like Taglioni, she would no doubt have been rejected all the same by an official of this strictly clerical Government. Full of wit and resource, she saw in her rebuff the very opportunity she sought of bringing herself to the notice of a sovereign. She had made a few friends among the jeunesse dorée of the Bavarian capital, and through one of these, Count Rechberg, a royal aide-de-camp, she craved an audience of His Majesty. Louis was indisposed to grant it, despite his usually gracious bearing towards foreign artistes. “Am I expected to see every strolling dancer?” he asked pettishly. “Your pardon, sire,” said Rechberg, “but this one is well worth seeing.” The King hesitated. While he did so Lola Montez stood before him. Tired of waiting in the antechamber, and anticipating a refusal, she had coolly followed an aide-de-camp into the royal presence. Now she stood before the astonished King, dazzlingly beautiful, with downcast eyes, a suppliant mien, and a smile of triumph at the corners of her mouth.
To a passionate admirer of beauty like Louis her loveliness was an all-sufficient excuse for her amazing audacity. His aide-de-camp was right. The woman was well worth seeing. As he gazed upon her youth glowed anew in his sixty-year-old frame, the blood coursed as fiercely as in the time long gone by. Those who saw Lola knew a second spring. Collecting his faculties, the King granted the dancer’s prayer—she received his command to appear at the Court Theatre; but he was in no haste to dismiss the suppliant. Lola, says one writer, came, saw, and conquered. The King yielded to her at the first shot. Lola’s detractors relate that, glancing at her magnificent bust, he asked in wonder if such charms could be of nature’s making, whereupon the lady, there and then ripping up her corsage, dispelled his doubts. They can believe the story who like to; it sounds in the highest degree improbable. But from this first interview dated the enthralment of the King.
Not only grey-headed rulers but tiny school-girls felt the power of the enchantress. Louise von Kobell tells us how, when a child, she saw Lola Montez.[12]
“On the 9th October, 1846, as I was going down Briennerstrasse, near the Bayersdorf Palace, I saw coming my way a lady, gowned in black, with a veil thrown over her head, and a fan in her hand. Suddenly something seemed to flash across my vision, and I stood stock still, gazing into the eyes that had dazzled me. They shone upon me from a pale countenance, which assumed a laughing expression before my bewildered stare. Then she went, or rather swept on, past me. I forgot all my governess’s injunctions against looking round, and stood staring after her, till she disappeared from view. Like her, I told myself, must have been the fairies in the nursery tales. I returned home breathless, and told them of my adventure. ‘That,’ said my father, grimly, ‘must have been the Spanish dancer, Lola Montez.’