As was to be expected, Lola, having a healthy appetite and objecting to short rations, gave the mesmerist the slip and hurried back to her Ludwig. After a few words with him, she left for Stahrenberg.
Ludwig sat down and wrote another "poem." Appropriately enough, this was entitled "Lamentation."
CHAPTER XI
A FALLEN STAR
I
ven with Lola Montez out of the way and the University doors re-opened, it was not a case of all quiet on the Munich front. Far from it. Berks, the new Minister of the Interior, who had always supported her, still remained in office; and Lola herself continued from a distance to pull strings. Some of them were effective.
But Lola Montez, or no Lola Montez, there was in the eyes of his exasperated subjects more than enough to make them thoroughly dissatisfied with the Wittelsbach regime, as carried out by Ludwig. The Cabinet had become very nearly inarticulate; public funds had been squandered on all sorts of grandiose and unnecessary schemes; and the clerical element had long been allowed to ride roughshod over the constitution. Altogether, the "Ministry of Dawn," brought into existence with such a flourish of trumpets after the dismissal of von Abel and his colleagues, had not proved the anticipated success. Instead of getting better, things had got worse; and, although it had not actually been suggested, the idea of substituting the monarchy by a republic was being discussed in many quarters.