Pecuniary Distress
Bavaria was distressed and saddened in the spring of 1886. No personal
lecture took place any longer before the King. All affairs of state
were conducted in writing, and all Ludwig's commands were transmitted
through his functionary, Hesselschwerdt.
Those who were in a position to know had long been aware that
his financial situation must be improved if the prestige of the
crown were not to suffer thereby. The newspapers announced that his
health was in a less satisfactory state. He himself endeavoured to
disarm these assertions by taking walks in the middle of the day,
and speaking graciously with those whom he might meet on his way. He
had never known the value of money, but regarded it as the Ministers'
duty to procure it, and as his own right to dissipate it. In 1884
his Minister of Finance, Dr von Riedel, had negotiated a loan of
7,500,000 marks. Hardly a year afterwards the same Minister received
an autograph letter in which he was desired to raise a new loan
of 6,500,000 marks. He now explained without circumlocution to the
King in what a critical situation the privy purse found itself. The
information aroused disquiet in Ludwig; despite which, however,
he showed himself deaf to the representations which were made
to him. Through a court functionary, in a subordinate position,
he corrected the Minister because he had ventured to address
himself directly to his Majesty. Riedel made answer by tendering
his resignation. The rest of the Ministry declared that if it was
accepted they would all resign. The other members of the Council
of State also received a reprimand at this time. Simultaneously,
however, Ludwig despatched to his Minister of Finance a gracious
letter, in which he requested him to remain in office.
It is quite clear that his debts were not the consequence of unwise
financial operations; nor were they the immediate consequence of his
passing caprices. The deficit in the exchequer was owing in the main
to his insatiable passion for building. The completion of his palaces
was delayed on account of financial difficulties. Nevertheless,
he occupied himself continually with plans for the future; a new
castle, to be called "Falkenstein," was to be erected on an all but
inaccessible mountain-top close to the borders of the Tyrol. Another,
smaller, castle was to be built in Chinese style in the neighbourhood
of Linderhof.
The debts augmented from day to day. Business people who required
their money waited with impatience for their bills to be paid. Several
creditors sent in legal complaint to a collective amount of a million
and a half. A catastrophe seemed inevitable; it was said out loud
that it was time to put a stop to the King's building enterprises.
Although Ludwig no longer received his secretary, the machinery of
legislation still went its accustomed way. He signed the documents
which were sent to him; but even important papers of state only reached
him through the intervention of domestics, and if he happened to be
in an ill-humour they lay scattered about on his table for days.
His want of money was known far outside the limits of his
kingdom. Ludwig was angered at the contemptuous manner in which the
financial newspapers of Vienna and Berlin made mention of it; and it
was a painful surprise to him to find that the Jews were those who
attacked him the most mercilessly. "Do they not know," he exclaimed,
"that I am the only prince who from the beginning of the anti-Semitic
movement has taken strong measures to counteract it?" His pressing
need for money rendered him apt to regard every unknown person as a
dun. "Yesterday when I was driving," he said to his barber, "I met a
man who looked at me in such a curious manner that I positively thought
he had come to seize my horses." On one of his last walks in the woods
of Neuschwanstein he met a poor boy who was gathering faggots. When
he asked him who his parents were the lad answered that his father
had been a stone-cutter, but was now out of work. "Why does he not
ask the King for help?" inquired Ludwig. "He has no money himself,
and nobody will lend him any," was the reply. The King laughed,
and handed him a five-mark piece; but his laughter was no doubt bitter.
His debts had reached a sum of 14,000,000 marks. On the 5th of May,
1886, his Ministers represented to him that it was absolutely
necessary that his pecuniary affairs should be brought into
order, and his expenses reduced. Months before this date he had
been informed that every prospect of opening new resources was cut
off. He now set to work himself, in every conceivable manner, to raise
money. Hesselschwerdt was sent to Ratisbon in order if possible, to
raise a loan of 20,000,000 marks from the enormously wealthy Prince
of Thurn and Taxis. Bismarck was consulted; and the King endeavoured
to obtain money from America. An aide-de-camp was despatched to the
Emperor of Brazil, another was sent to the King of Sweden, and a
third to the King of the Belgians. The financial magnates Rothschild,
Bleichröder, and Erlanger were requested to give him their support;
and he planned an application to the Sultan of Turkey and to the
Shah of Persia. The means of assistance to which he resorted in his
need are clear proofs that his mental and moral powers were rapidly
declining; and in his alarm and confusion he even gave secret orders
that persons should be procured who would be willing to break into
the banks of some of the capitals of Europe.
Two of his cousins were still unconvinced of his insanity; they were
therefore willing to give him their support. They put him in relations
with the House of Orleans, who, during their short period of rule,
had thought more of filling their own pockets than of the welfare
of France. This family addressed themselves to Rothschild in Paris,
who sent his secretary to Munich with the power to conclude a large
loan if the conditions which he required were acknowledged by the
King. The House of Orleans were to be the guarantors of the loan,
which, as a matter of fact, they had already undertaken to be.
Preliminary consultations took place. The final issue came to nothing,
according to report, because on the French side it was demanded that
Ludwig should bind himself to neutrality in the event of a war between
Prussia and France. Rothschild's secretary went back to Paris, and
informed his master that he had suffered defeat. The King apparently
was willing to give a promissory note; in political respects, on the
other hand, he refused to bind himself.