Schloss Berg--The King's Death
At four in the morning Ludwig left Neuschwanstein.
In the first carriage sat Dr Müller and two keepers. In the second was
the King, quite alone. By the side of the coachman sat the head keeper
from the madhouse at Munich, and close at the rear of the carriage rode
a man who had orders sharply to watch his Majesty, and give a sign
at the slightest suspicious movement. Dr Gudden, a police officer,
and several keepers followed afterwards. When Ludwig had taken his
seat in his equipage he said to the doctor; "You do not object, of
course, to my taking leave of my servant?" Mayr stepped up to him;
but the conversation seemed too long to Dr Gudden. "Make haste, so
that we can get off," he repeated several times. Mayr sobbed aloud
as his master drove off.
Some persons were standing outside to see the sorrowful train; the
King returned their greeting with amiability. At the first turn of
the road he rubbed a clear space with his hand on the damp window,
and looked back at Neuschwanstein, which he had loved so dearly, and
which has never since been inhabited. He looked ill; his complexion
was ashy white, his glance irresolute. The horses were changed three
times. At the last stage, Seeshaupt, the landlady approached, and
respectfully saluted his Majesty. He asked her for a glass of water. As
he handed her back the empty glass he thanked her cordially. Weeping,
she called after the carriage: "Behüt Gott, Majestätt."
The new Commission had relinquished the plan of taking him to
Linderhof, as it was known that one of his jægers was collecting
people in the Tyrol to help him over the border. While the carriage,
unhindered, was nearing Berg, one hundred and twenty peasants were
standing ready to rescue him in the vicinity of Reutte. After waiting
for two days they learned that the King had driven another way.
It was Dr Gudden who had decided on Schloss Berg as his prison; this
was the more wanting in consideration, since it was there that he had
spent his happy youth. Ludwig had learned to know this physician while
he was treating his brother, Prince Otto, and cherished a peculiar
antipathy to him. "Gudden looks at me in such a curious way," he said
several times to his mother's Grand Mistress of the Court. "I only
hope he won't discover something to say about me too."
It was the forenoon of Whitsun Eve when he arrived at his
destination. He spoke genially to the gendarme stationed there. "I
am glad, Sauer, that you are on duty again," he said as he went
in. In one of the first apartments he entered his eyes fell on his
own portrait: a large painting which represented his first landing
at Schloss Berg after his accession. How different was that day from
this! He was given only two rooms for his use. The windows had been
hastily provided with iron bars, and holes had been bored in the
doors that he might be under continual observation. He regarded these
alterations without saying a word. The doctor ordered him to go early
to bed and he obeyed. At two in the morning he awoke, and wished to
get up. The keepers would not allow it. They had taken his clothes
away from him; despite his earnest prayers they would not give them
to him. At last one of them let himself be persuaded into letting him
have his socks. Clad only in his night-shirt and in his stockinged feet
he walked restlessly hour after hour up and down the room. At six in
the morning he asked the keeper to help him with a bath. He allowed
the former to assist him to dress, but bade him afterwards fetch his
valet and his barber. The keeper answered, what was strictly true,
that they had not come with him to his new place of residence.
Whitsunday dawned. Ludwig wished to attend divine service in the
neighbouring church. Gudden refused to allow this, fearing that the
people would not believe the King to be mad if he showed himself. In
the course of the morning he asked for an orange. It was brought to
him, but without a fruit-knife. He sent it out again without having
touched it. At eleven o'clock Dr Gudden accompanied him on a walk. Two
keepers who followed them received a sign to increase the distance from
the King. Ludwig and the doctor seated themselves on a bench ten or
fifteen paces from the banks of the lake of Starnberg. Ludwig's quiet,
collected demeanour lulled the physician into a feeling of security,
which was destined to be fatal to himself.
The King ate his dinner alone at four o'clock. Before seating himself
at table he inquired of the keeper who waited upon him whether Gudden
had touched his food; he feared that the latter intended to render
him unconscious, and that he would show him to the people in this
condition to prove that he was mad.
He asked to be allowed to speak with his old acquaintance,
Staff-Comptroller Zanders, who was in the castle. Gudden at first would
not hear of this; at length he gave way to the King's supplication,
and Zanders was allowed to be with him for half-an-hour, but was
required to promise on his word of honour not to arouse any hope in
the King's mind that he might regain his freedom. Ludwig advanced to
meet him with the vigour and energy he displayed at his prime--quite
a different man from what he had been two days previously. He showed
him the bars before the windows, the peepholes in the door, and told
him how he had been treated. "How many gendarmes are there in the
park to guard me?" he asked. "Six or eight, your Majesty." "Would
they in case of emergency shoot at me?" "How can your Majesty think
such a thing!" was the answer.
While this conversation was taking place the chief physician
was telegraphing to Munich: "Everything is going wonderfully well
here." A quarter of an hour afterwards the King started on his last
walk with Gudden. The sky was overclouded, and a drizzling rain was
falling. Two keepers accompanied them. The doctor observed that their
presence was unnecessary, and soon afterwards they returned to the
castle. The King and his physician struck into the path they had
followed in the morning. Ludwig had known the banks of the lake of
Starnberg from childhood, and it is more than probable that he had
that forenoon chosen the spot where he would free himself from his
life. The physician had said he would return with the King at eight
o'clock. Half-past eight and nine passed, but they did not appear;
and anxiety was felt at the castle in case some accident might have
happened to them in the darkness of the park. The assistant doctor
had the immediate vicinity carefully searched. This led at first
to no result, for no one thought of the lake of Starnberg. Not far
from the seat on which Ludwig and Gudden had rested in the forenoon
were found later the umbrellas of both men. A fisherman was summoned;
and upon rowing a short distance from the shore in his boat the body
of Dr Gudden, in a half-sitting posture, with the back bent below
the surface of the water, was discovered. A few feet farther out
was found the King's lifeless body, the head downwards, and the arms
bent forward. The lake was not so deep at this spot but he could have
saved himself had he been so minded.
What had happened at this spot will for ever remain unknown. The
sorrowful incident took place without witnesses; but the tracks along
the shore, and in the bottom of the lake, which was examined, justify
the following assumption. The King was walking on the right side,
Gudden on the left, until they reached the seat they had rested
on before. The King must then have thrown down his umbrella and
run towards the lake, for his footsteps could be seen on the damp
moss-grown shore. Gudden had immediately rushed after him, and seized
him by the coat-collar. His grasp must have been very firm, for the
nail of one of his fingers was splintered. Ludwig, on the other hand,
must have continued to press forward, for Gudden had retained both the
coats of the King in his hand. Above the doctor's left eye there was
a bruise, which undoubtedly resulted from a blow. A terrible struggle
must have taken place.
Dr Müller made the most strenuous efforts to call Ludwig back to life,
but all his exertions were in vain; death had freed the mad King from
the torments of his existence.