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    "source_title": "Encyclopaedia Britannica (1911)",
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    "chunk_id": "1911:louis ii:58aaa60e6863",
    "title": "LOUIS II.",
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    "verified_text": "louis ii., king of bavaria (1845-1886), son of his predecessor maximilian ii. and his wife maria, daughter of prince william of prussia, was born at nymphenburg on the 25th of august 1845. together with his brother otto, three years younger than himself, louis received, in accordance with the wishes of his learned father, a simple and serious education modelled on that of the german _gymnasien_, of which the classical languages are the chief feature. of modern languages the crown prince learnt only french, of which he remained fond all his life. the practical value of the prince's training was small. it was not till he was eighteen years old that he received his first pocket-money, and at that age he had no ideas about money and its value. military instruction, physical exercises and sport, in spite of the crown prince's strong physique, received little attention. thus louis did not come enough into contact with young men of his own age, and consequently soon developed a taste for solitude, which was found at an early age to be combined with the romantic tendencies and musical and theatrical tastes traditional in his family. louis succeeded to the throne on the 10th of march 1864, at the age of eighteen. the early years of his reign were marked by a series of most serious political defeats for bavaria. in the schleswig-holstein question, though he was opposed to prussia and a friend of duke frederick viii. of augustenburg, he did not command the material forces necessary effectively to resist the powerful policy of bismarck. again, in the war of 1866, louis and his minister von der pfordten took the side of austria, and at the conclusion of peace (august 22) bavaria had, in addition to the surrender of certain small portions of her territory, to agree to the foundation of the north german confederation under the leadership of prussia. the king's bavarian patriotism, one of the few steadfast ideas underlying his policy, was deeply wounded by these occurrences, but he was face to face with the inevitable, and on the 10th of august wrote a letter of reconciliation to king william of prussia. the defeat of bavaria in 1866 showed clearly the necessity for a reform of the army. under the new liberal ministry of hohenlohe (december 29, 1866--february 13, 1870) and under prauckh as minister of war, a series of reforms were carried through which prepared for the victories of 1870. as regards his ecclesiastical policy, though louis remained personally true to the catholic church, he strove for a greater independence of the vatican. he maintained friendly relations with ignaz von dollinger, the leader of the more liberal catholics who opposed the definition of papal infallibility, but without extending his protection to the anti-roman movement of the old catholics. in spite of this the old bavarian opposition was so aroused by the liberalism of the hohenlohe ministry that at the beginning of 1870 louis had to form a more conservative cabinet under count bray-steinburg. on the outbreak of the franco-prussian war he at once took the side of prussia, and gave orders for mobilization. in 1871 it was he who offered the imperial crown to the king of prussia; but this was not done on his own initiative. bismarck not only determined the king of bavaria to take the decisive step which put an end to a serious diplomatic crisis, but actually drafted the letter to king william which louis copied and despatched without changing a word. louis placed very few difficulties in the way of the new german empire under the leadership of prussia, though his bavarian particularism remained unchanged. though up till the beginning of the year 1880 he did not cease to give some attention to state affairs, the king's interests lay in quite other spheres. his personal idiosyncrasies had, in fact, developed meanwhile in a most unhappy direction. his enthusiasm for all that is beautiful soon led him into dangerous bypaths. it found its most innocent expression in the earliest years of his reign when he formed an intimate friendship with richard wagner, whom from may 1864 to december 1865 he had constantly in his company. louis was entirely possessed by the soaring ideas of the master, and was energetic in their realization. he not only established wagner's material position at the moment by paying 18,000 gulden of debts for him and granting him a yearly income of 4000 gulden (afterwards increased to 8000), but he also proceeded to realize the ambitious artistic plans of the master. a series of brilliant model performances of the wagnerian music-dramas was instituted in munich under the personal patronage of the king, and when the further plan of erecting a great festival theatre in munich for the performance of wagner's \"music of the future\" broke down in the face of the passive resistance of the local circles interested, the royal enthusiast conceived the idea of building at bayreuth, according to wagner's new principles, a theatre worthy of the music-dramas. for a time louis was entirely under wagner's influence, the fantastic tendencies of whose art cast a spell over him, and there is extant a series of emotional letters of the king to wagner. wagner, on the whole, used his influence in artistic and not in political affairs.[1] in spite of this the opposition to him became permanent. public opinion in bavaria for the most part turned against him. he was attacked for his foreign origin, his extravagance, his intrigues, his artistic utopias, and last but by no means least, for his unwholesome influence over the king. louis in the end was compelled to give him up. but the relations between king and artist were by no means at an end. in face of the war which was imminent in 1866, and in the midst of the preparation for war, the king hastened in may to triebschen, near lucerne, in order to see wagner again.[2] in 1868 they were seen together in public for the last time at the festival performances in munich. in 1876 wagner's _ring des nibelungen_ was performed for the first time at bayreuth in the presence of the king. later, in 1881, the king formed a similar friendship with joseph kainz the actor, but it soon came to an end. in january 1867 the young king became betrothed to duchess sophie of bavaria (afterwards duchesse d'alencon), daughter of duke max and sister of the empress of austria; but the betrothal was dissolved in october of the same year. though even in his later years he remained interested in lofty and intellectual pursuits, as may be gathered, apart from his enthusiasm for art and nature, from his wide reading in history, serious poetry and philosophy, yet in his private life there became increasingly marked the signs of moral and mental weakness which gradually gained the mastery over his once pure and noble nature. a prominent feature was his blind craving for solitude. he cut himself off from society, and avoided all intercourse with his family, even with his devotedly affectionate mother. with his ministers he came to communicate in writing only. at the end he was surrounded only by inferior favourites and servants. his life was now spent almost entirely in his castles far from the capital, which irked him more and more, or in short and hasty journeys, in which he always travelled incognito. even the theatre he could now only enjoy alone. he arranged private performances in his castles or in munich at fabulous cost, and appointed an official poet to his household. later his avoidance of society developed into a dread of it, accompanied by a fear of assassination and delusions that he was being followed. side by side with this pathological development his inborn self-consciousness increased apace, turning more and more to megalomania, and impelling the weak-willed monarch to those extraordinary displays of magnificence which can still be admired to-day in the castles built or altered by him, such as berg on the starnberger see, linderhof, herrenchiemsee, hohenschwangau, neuschwanstein, &c., which are among the most splendid buildings in germany. it is characteristic of the extravagance of the king's ideas that he adopted as his model the style of louis xiv. and fell into the habit of imitating the _roi soleil_. he no longer stayed for any length of time in one castle. often he scoured the country in wild nocturnal rides, and madness gained upon him apace. his mania for buying things and making presents was comparatively harmless, but more serious matters were the wild extravagance which in 1880 involved him in financial ruin, his fits of destructive rage, and the tendency to the most cruel forms of abnormal vice. none the less, at the time when the king's mental weakness was increasing, his character still retained lovable traits--his simple sense of beauty, his kindliness, and his highly developed understanding of art and artistic crafts. louis's love of beauty also brought material profit to bavaria. but the financial and political dangers which arose from the king's way of life were so great that interference became necessary. on the 8th of june 1886 medical opinion declared him to be affected with chronic and incurable madness and he was pronounced incapable of governing. on the 10th of june his uncle, prince luitpold, assumed the regency, and after violent resistance the late king was placed under the charge of a mental specialist. on the 13th of june 1886 he met with his death by drowning in the starnberger see, together with his doctor von gudden, who had unwisely gone for a walk alone with his patient, whose physical strength was enormous. the details of his death will never be fully known, as the only possible eye-witness died with him. an examination of the brain revealed a condition of incurable insanity, and the faculty submitted a report giving the terrible details of his malady. louis's brother otto, who succeeded him as king of bavaria, was also incurably insane. bibliography.--k. v. heigel, _ludwig ii._ (1893); luise v. kobell, _unter den vier ersten konigen bayerns_ (1894); c. bujer, _ludwig ii._ (1897); luise v. kobell, \"wilhelm i. und ludwig ii.\" _deutsche revue, 22; ludwig ii. und die kunst_ (1898); _ludwig ii. und bismarck_ (1870, 1899); anonym, _endlich vollige klarheit uber den tod des konigs ludwig ii. ..._ (1900); freiherr v. volderndorff, \"aus meiner hofzeit,\" in _velhagen und klasings monatshefte_ (1900); francis gerard, _the romance of ludwig ii. of bavaria_; j. bainville, _louis ii. de baviere_ (paris, 1900); e. v. possart, _die separatvorstellungen von konig ludwig ii._ (1901); o. bray-steinburg, _denkwurdigkeiten_ (1901); s. rocke, _ludwig ii. und richard wagner_ (1903); w. busch, _die kampfe uber reichsverfassung und kaisertum_ (1906); chlodwig hohenlohe, _denkwurdigkeiten_ (2 vols., 1907); a. v. ruville, _bayern und die wiederaufrichtung des deutschen reiches_ (1909); k. a. v. muller, _bayern im jahre 1866 und die berufung des fursten hohenlohe_ (1909); g. kuntzel, _bismarck und bayern in der zeit der reichsgrundung_ (1910); hesselbarth, _die enstehung des deutsch-framozischen krieges_ (1910); w. strohmayer, \"die ahnentafel ludwigs ii. und ottos i.,\" _archiv fur rassen- und gesellschaftsbiologie_, vol. vii. (1910). (j. hn.) footnotes: [1] it was on wagner's advice that the king appointed hohenlohe prime minister in 1866. see hohenlohe-schillingfurst, prince chlodwig zu, under hohenlohe. [ed.] [2] hohenlohe (_denkwurdigkeiten_) comments on the fact that the king did not even take the trouble to review the troops proceeding to the war. [ed.] louis ii.[1] (846-879), king of france, called \"le begue\" or \"the stammerer,\" was a son of charles ii. the bald, roman emperor and king of the west franks, and was born on the 1st of november 846. after the death of his elder brother charles in 866 he became king of aquitaine, and in october 877 he succeeded his father as king of the west franks, but not as emperor. having made extensive concessions to the nobles both clerical and lay, he was crowned king by hincmar, archbishop of reims, on the 8th of december following, and in september 878 he took advantage of the presence of pope john viii. at the council of troyes to be consecrated afresh. after a feeble and ineffectual reign of eighteen months louis died at compiegne on the 10th or 11th of april 879. the king is described as \"un homme simple et doux, aimant la paix, la justice et la religion.\" by his first wife, ansgarde, a burgundian princess, he had two sons, his successors, louis iii. and carloman; by his second wife, adelaide, he had a posthumous son, charles the simple, who also became king of france. (a. w. h.*) footnote: [1] the emperor louis i. is counted as louis i., king of france. louis iii. (c. 863-882), king of france, was a son of louis ii. and with his brother carloman succeeded his father as king in april 879. a strong party, however, cast some doubts upon the legitimacy of the young princes, as the marriage of their parents had not been recognized by the emperor charles the bald; consequently it was proposed to offer the crown to the east frankish ruler louis, a son of louis the german. but this plan came to nothing, and in september 879 the brothers were crowned at ferrieres by ansegisus, archbishop of sens. a few months later they divided their kingdom, louis receiving the part of france north of the loire. they acted together against the northmen, over whom in august 881 they gained a memorable victory. they also turned against boso who had been set up as king in burgundy and provence. on the 5th of august 882 louis died at st denis. he left no sons and carloman became sole king. (a. w. h.*) louis iv. (921-954), king of france, surnamed \"d'outremer\" (_transmarinus_), was the son of charles iii. the simple. in consequence of the imprisonment of his father in 922, his mother odgiva (eadgyfu), sister of the english king æthelstan, fled to england with the young louis--a circumstance to which he owes his surname. on the death of the usurper rudolph (raoul), ralph of burgundy, hugh the great, count of paris, and the other nobles between whom france was divided, chose louis for their king, and the lad was brought over from england and consecrated at laon on the 19th of june 936. although his _de facto_ sovereignty was confined to the town of laon and to some places in the north of france, louis displayed a zeal beyond his years in procuring the recognition of his authority by his turbulent vassals. the beginning of his reign was marked by a disastrous irruption of the hungarians into burgundy and aquitaine (937). in 939 louis became involved in a struggle with the emperor otto the great on the question of lorraine, the nobles of which district had sworn an oath of fidelity to the king of france. when louis married gerberga, sister of otto, and widow of giselbert, duke of lorraine, there seemed to be a fair prospect of peace; but the war was resumed, otto supporting the rebel lords of the kingdom of france, and peace was not declared until 942, at the treaty of vise-sur-meuse. on the death of william longsword, duke of normandy, who had been assassinated by arnulf, count of flanders, in december 942, louis endeavoured to obtain possession of the person of richard, the young son and heir of the late duke. after an unsuccessful expedition into normandy, louis fell into the hands of his adversaries, and was for some time kept prisoner at rouen (945), and subsequently handed over to hugh the great, who only consented to release him on condition that he should surrender laon. menaced, however, by louis' brother-in-law, otto the great, and excommunicated by the council of ingelheim (948), the powerful vassal was forced to make submission and to restore laon to his sovereign. the last years of the reign were troubled by fresh difficulties with hugh the great and also by an irruption of the hungarians into the south of france. louis died on the 10th of september 954, and was succeeded by his son lothair. the chief authority for the reign is the chronicler flodoard. see also ph. lauer, _la regne de louis iv d'outre-mer_ (paris, 1900); and a. heil, _die politischen beziehungen zwischen otto dem grossen und ludwig iv. von frankreich_ (berlin, 1904). (r. po.) louis v. (967-987), king of france, succeeded his father lothair in march 986 at the age of nineteen, and finally embroiled the carolingian dynasty with hugh capet and adalberon, archbishop of reims. from the absence of any important event in his one year's reign the medieval chroniclers designated him by the words \"qui nihil fecit,\" i.e. \"le faineant\" or \"do-nothing.\" louis died in may 987, his mother emma being accused of having poisoned him. he had married adelaide, sister of geoffrey grisegonelle, count of anjou, but had no issue. his heir by blood was charles, duke of lower lorraine, son of louis iv., but the defection of the bishops and the treason of adalberon (ascelinus), bishop of laon, assured the success of hugh capet. see f. lot, _les derniers carolingiens_ (paris, 1891); and the _recueil des actes de lothaire et de louis v_, edited by l. halphen and f. lot (1908). (r. po.) louis vi. (1081-1137), king of france, surnamed \"the fat,\" was the son of philip i. of france and bertha of holland. he was also surnamed the \"wide-awake\" and \"the bruiser,\" and lost none of his energy when he earned the nickname by which he is known in history. in 1098 louis was made a knight, and about the same time was associated with his father in the government, which the growing infirmities of philip left more and more to his son, in spite of the opposition of bertrada, the queen, whose criminal union with philip had brought the anathema of the church. from 1100 to 1108 louis by his victorious wars on the english and brigands had secured the army on his side, while the court supported bertrada. unable to make headway against him in war she attempted to poison him, and contemporary chroniclers attributed to this poison the pallor of his face, which seems to have been in remarkable contrast to his stalwart, and later his corpulent figure. louis' reign is one of the most important in the history of france. he is little less than the second founder of the capetian dynasty. when the feeble and incompetent philip i. died (29th of july 1108) louis was faced by feudal barons as powerful as himself, and ready to rise against him. he was forced to have himself hurriedly crowned at orleans, supported by a handful of vassals and some ecclesiastics. as king he continued the policy he had followed during the previous eight years, of securing the roads leading to paris by putting down feudal brigands and destroying their strongholds in the ile-de-france. the castle of the most notorious of these, hugues du puiset, was three times taken and burned by the king's men, but hugues was spared to go back each time to his robber life, until he died on a crusade. in the north, thomas de marle, son of enguerrand de coucy, carried on a career of rapine and murder for almost thirty years before the king succeeded in taking him prisoner (1130). twenty-four years of continuous war finally rooted out the robber barons who lived on the plunder of the roads leading to paris: the lords of montlheri, who commanded the roads to orleans, melun and the south, those of montmorency near st denis on the north (who had to restore what they had robbed the abbey of st denis), those of le puiset toward the west, on the way to chartres, and many others. parallel with this consolidation of his power in the ancestral domains louis met energetically the anglo-norman danger, warring with henry i. of england for twenty-five years. after the victory of tinchebray (1106) louis supported the claims of william clito, son of robert, duke of normandy, against henry i. a ruthless war followed, in which louis was at times reduced to the sorest straits. in 1119, at a council held at reims under the presidency of pope calixtus ii., the enemies were reconciled; but william clito's claims were not satisfied, and in 1123 war began again on a larger scale. henry i. induced the emperor henry v. to join in the attack upon france; and, his heir having been drowned in the loss of the \"white ship,\" won the count of anjou by marrying his only daughter matilda to geoffrey, the angevin heir (1127). the invasion of henry v. was met by something like a national army, which gathered under louis at reims. \"for a few days at least, the lord of the ile-de-france was truly a king of france\" (luchaire). suger proudly gives the list of barons who appeared. henry v. came no farther than metz. royalty had won great prestige. even theobald, count of chartres, the king's greatest enemy, the soul of feudal coalitions, came with his contingent. shortly afterwards (1126), louis was able to overawe the great count of aquitaine, william ix., and force his vassal, the count of auvergne, to treat justly the bishop of clermont. in flanders louis interfered upon the assassination of charles the good. he caused the barons to elect as their count in arras the same william clito who claimed normandy, and who was closely bound to the king. for a while louis had flanders absolutely at his disposal, but he had hardly left william alone (1127) when his brutal oppression roused both towns and nobles, who declared that louis had no right to interfere in flanders. the death of william clito, and a savage war with his own seneschal, prevented louis from effectually resenting this attitude; but thierry of alsace, the new count, consented in 1128 to receive from louis the investiture of all his french fiefs, and henceforth lived on good terms with him. in all his wars--those mentioned are but a part of them--louis fought in person. proud of his strength, reckless in the charge as on the march, plunging into swollen rivers, entering blazing castles, he gained the reputation of a national hero, the protector of the poor, the church, the peasants and the towns. the communal movement grew during his reign, and he encouraged it on the fiefs of his vassals in order to weaken them; but the title \"father of the communes\" by which he was known in history is not deserved, though he did grant some privileges to towns on his domains. neither was louis the author of the movement for the emancipation of the serfs, as was formerly claimed. his attitude toward the movement was like that of his predecessors and contemporaries, to favour emancipation when it promised greater chance of profit, greater scope for exploitation of the peasants; otherwise to oppose it. he was a great benefactor to the church, aided the new, reformed monastic congregations of citeau, premontre and fontevrault, and chose his two chief ministers from the clergy. etienne de garlande, whom louis raised from obscurity to be archdeacon of notre dame at paris, chancellor and seneschal of france, was all-powerful with the king from 1108 to 1127. his relatives monopolized the highest offices of the state. but the queen adelaide became his enemy; both ivo of chartres and st bernard bitterly attacked him; and the king suddenly stripped him of all his offices and honours. joining the rebellious barons, etienne then led a bitter war against the king for three years. when louis had reduced him to terms he pardoned him and restored him to the chancellorship (1132), but not to his old power. suger (q.v.), administrator of st denis, enters the scene toward the close of this reign, but his great work belongs to the next. louis vi. died on the 1st of august 1137, just a few days after his son, louis the young, had set out for the far south-west, the aquitaine which had been won by the marriage with eleanor. his wife was adelaide, or alice, daughter of humbert ii., count of savoy, by whom he had seven sons and a daughter. see a. luchaire, _louis le gros, annales de sa vie et son regne_ (1890), and the same writer's volume, _les premiers capetiens_, in e. lavisse's _histoire de france._ (j. t. s.*) louis vii. (c. 1121-1180), king of france, son of louis vi. the fat, was associated with his father and anointed by innocent ii. in 1131. in 1137 he succeeded his father, and in the same year married at bordeaux eleanor, heiress of william ii., duke of aquitaine. in the first part of his reign he was vigorous and jealous of his prerogatives, but after his crusade his religiosity developed to such an extent as to make him utterly inefficient. his accession was marked by no disturbances, save the risings of the burgesses of orleans and of poitiers, who wished to organize communes. but soon he came into violent conflict with pope innocent ii. the archbishopric of bourges became vacant, and the king supported as candidate the chancellor cadurc, against the pope's nominee pierre de la chatre, swearing upon relics that so long as he lived pierre should never enter bourges. this brought the interdict upon the king's lands. at the same time he became involved in a war with theobald, count of champagne, by permitting rodolphe (raoul), count of vermandois and seneschal of france, to repudiate his wife, theobald's niece, and to marry petronille of aquitaine, sister of the queen of france. the war, which lasted two years (1142-44), was marked by the occupation of champagne by the royal army and the capture of vitry, where many persons perished in the burning of the church. geoffrey the handsome, count of anjou, by his conquest of normandy threatened the royal domains, and louis vii. by a clever manoeuvre threw his army on the norman frontier and gained gisors, one of the keys of normandy. at his court which met in bourges louis declared on christmas day 1145 his intention of going on a crusade. st bernard assured its popularity by his preaching at vezelay (easter 1146), and louis set out from metz in june 1147, on the overland route to syria. the expedition was disastrous, and he regained france in 1149, overcome by the humiliation of the crusade. in the rest of his reign he showed much feebleness and poor judgment. he committed a grave political blunder in causing a council at beaugency (on the 21st of march 1152) to annul his marriage with eleanor of aquitaine, under pretext of kinship, but really owing to violent quarrels during the crusade. eleanor married henry ii. of england in the following may, and brought him the duchy of aquitaine. louis vii. led a half-hearted war against henry for having married without the authorization of his suzerain; but in august 1154 gave up his rights over aquitaine, and contented himself with an indemnity. in 1154 louis married constance, daughter of the king of castile, and their daughter marguerite he affianced imprudently by the treaty of gisors (1158) to henry, eldest son of the king of england, promising as dowry the vexin and gisors. five weeks after the death of constance, on the 4th of october 1160, louis vii. married adele of champagne, and henry ii. to counterbalance the aid this would give the king of france, had the marriage of their infant children celebrated at once. louis vii. gave little sign of understanding the danger of the growing angevin power, though in 1159 he made an expedition in the south to aid raymond",
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