For some time previous to 1886 the King had exhibited strong symptoms of insanity. He had retired from active participation in affairs of state, and lived only for his marvellous private operatic performances and the building of his peerless palace. It was not exactly a sane thing for a king to dress himself up as the hero of a Wagner opera and sail about on a swan’s back, and it was, to say the least of it, odd for him to come mysteriously at midnight on a golden steamer across the silent lake to his lonely palace and order all the hundred thousand candles to be lighted that he might march about it and fancy himself a god.
On the hottest day of a hot week I went to the Starnberg Lake to visit the scene of the tragedy. Just at the spot where Ludwig dragged the doctor into the lake on the evening of Whit Sunday and murdered him the Prince Regent has erected a memorial, and here there burns day and night a blood-red lamp. Long after night had fallen on the lonely island, and the dull red ray of that lamp fell upon the silent waters, I sat by the water’s edge and brooded over the strange, sad story of the Starnberg Lake.
It was Baron von Lutz, the brother of our own Herr Meyer Lutz, that master of melody, who for many a long year wielded the merry bâton of Gaiety burlesque, who really put an end to the mad pranks of Ludwig of Bavaria. When the King could get no more money to finish his ‘enchanted palace’ with, he ordered Freiherr von Lutz, the Bavarian Minister-President, to find him the sum he needed at once. Herr Meyer Lutz’s brother informed the King that the country was not in a position to comply with such a demand. Immediately the King wrote to the Baron to say that unless he sent the sum within twenty-four hours the eminent composer of ‘Faust Up to Date’ would have to go into mourning for him, as his head would be cut off. This letter Baron von Lutz at once brought before the Ministry, and the result was that a Commission sat, and declared the King to be insane and incapable of managing his own affairs.
Ludwig was at this time at his castle of Hohen Schwangau in the mountains. Thither the Commissioners, accompanied by Dr. Gudden, the Asylum director, repaired, directly Prince Luitpold, the King’s uncle, had accepted the Regency and authorized the arrest of his nephew. The Commissioners informed the King he was a prisoner, but others learned the news also. These others were the men of the mountains, who worshipped their monarch almost as a god—many of them, indeed, believing him to be superhuman. These brave fellows, arming themselves with axes and choppers and guns, came pouring down the mountains, and swore that they would slaughter the Commissioners and set the King free.
The situation looked so threatening that the King was secretly conveyed that afternoon to a little castle on the Starnberg Lake, where he could be more effectually guarded. One night only did the poor mad King spend there. On the evening of the second day—Whit Sunday, 1886—he went for a walk with Dr. Gudden and the attendants. He talked so calmly and rationally that when he said pleasantly, ‘Doctor, must these fellows follow us about everywhere? It isn’t exactly what I care for,’ the doctor sent the men back to the castle. The King and the doctor went on along the edge of the lake alone, and were partly hidden from sight by the trees. What happened after that no human being can say with certainty; but it is conjectured that the King, saying he was tired, sat down on a seat, and invited the doctor to sit beside him. Suddenly the King sprang up and rushed to the lake. The doctor ran after him and seized him. The King then gripped the doctor by the throat, gave him a fearful blow in the face which stunned him, and then held him under the water till he was drowned. Then, freeing himself from the dead man’s grasp, he walked on and on into the deep blue lake—on and on until the quiet waters closed over his head, and his mad dream of splendour ended in the eternal sleep of death.
No one can look upon the spot where the poor mad King died, and think of that gorgeous palace which was his glory and his life, and which stands unfinished to this day, without a pang of pity. It would be easy to moralize upon it. ‘The vanity of human wishes’ writes itself large on the quiet waters that lave the foot of the lonely memorial to Bavaria’s hapless King. I have no doubt I should have moralized had I had time. But my programme was not mapped out for that sort of thing, and so I turned sadly away from the melancholy shore, gave one last look at the dim red lamp and the dying Saviour on the cross, and went quietly to the landing-stage and took the last boat to the opposite shore, and thence made my way by train to Munich, where I arrived just in time to pack up, make a light supper, and catch the Paris-bound Orient express at 1.15 a.m.
CHAPTER XXV.
HOLLAND.
I cannot swim. It is a humiliating confession to make at the best of times, but the admission at the present moment is an absolutely painful one. I am staying in a place where I am in hourly fear of falling into the water. My present address is Amsterdam, and no one but a native can walk about Amsterdam without an uneasy feeling that sooner or later he will find himself in a canal. There is a canal in front of my door, my bedroom window at the back of the house opens on to a canal, and there is a canal round the corner.
To get to the post-office from my hotel you have to cross fourteen bridges and walk along the side of seven canals. Some of the bridges suddenly go up in the air just as you are about to step on them. This is to let the ships through. It is quite right that ships should pass down the principal streets of Amsterdam, but it is a little annoying to have to wait for a small fleet to go by when you are in a hurry to get home. There is, however, this advantage about the bridge going up suddenly on end ten feet in the air. It makes a wall between you and the water. Now, when you walk along the canal instead of going over it there is no wall, and as in the dark the water looks uncommonly like a roadway, and you see gentlemen and ladies sitting at their doors opposite, you have to keep on remembering where you are, or else you would go to step in the middle of the road out of the way of a crowd or a passing vehicle, and find yourself in an awkward predicament.
A week ago I never thought I should get to Holland. I was afraid I should have to spend the rest of my days at Bingen on the Rhine, waiting for a registered letter. Of all the awful things that can happen to a foreigner in Germany, there is nothing that can compare with the tortures and anxieties to which he is subjected while waiting for a registered letter. According to the law of the land, the postman must, after preliminary inquiries as to your birth, parentage, and habits, deliver the said letter personally to you in the room in which your luggage is, and must further take your receipt for the same in ink, and said receipt must be signed in the presence of the landlord of the hotel at which you are staying, and the said landlord is also required to countersign the document.