structed dumpy Fraeuleins "not to
look like the foreign woman." There is no authoritative record that
any of them did so.

CHAPTER VIII

LUDWIG THE LOVER

I

Lola Montez had done better than "hook a prince." A lot better. She
had now "hooked" a sovereign. Her ripe warm beauty sent the thin blood
coursing afresh through Ludwig's sluggish veins. There it wrought a
miracle. He was turned sixty, but he felt sixteen.

The conversation of Robert Burns is said to have "swept a duchess off
her feet." Perhaps it did. But that of Lola Montez had a similar
effect on a monarch. Under the magic of her spell, this one became
rejuvenated. The years were stripped from him; he was once more a boy.
With his charmer beside him, he would wander through the Nymphenburg
Woods and under the elms in the Englischer Garten, telling her of his
dreams and fancies. His passion for Greece was forgotten. Pericles was
now Romeo.

_In dem Suden ist die Liebe,
Da ist Licht und da ist Glut!_

that is,

In the south there is love,
There is light and there is heat,

sang Ludwig.

Yet Lola Montez was not by any means the first who ever burst into the
responsive heart of Ludwig I. She had many predecessors there. One of
them was an Italian syren. But that Lola soon ousted her is clear from
a poetical effort of which the royal troubadour was delivered. This
begins:

_Tropfen der Seligkeit und ein Meer von bitteren Leiden
Die Italienerin gab--Seligkeit, Seligkeit nur
Laessest Du mich entzuendend, begeistert, befaendig empfinden,
In der Spanierin fand Liebe und Leben ich nur!_

A free rendering of this passionate heart throb would read very much
as follows:

Drops of bliss and a sea of bitter sorrow
The Italian woman gave me. Bliss, only bliss,
Thou gav'st my enraptured heart and soul and spirit.
In the Spanish woman alone have I found Love and Life!

Ludwig had a prettier name for his inamorata than the "feminine devil"
of Henry LXXII of Reuss. He called her the "Lovely Andalusian" and the
"Woman of Spain." She also inspired him to fresh poetic flights. One
of these ran:

Thine eyes are blue as heavenly vaults
Touched by the balmy air;
And like the raven's plumage is
Thy dark and glistening hair!

There were several more verses.

A feature of the Residenz Palace was a collection of old masters.
Wanting to add a young mistress, Ludwig allotted a plac