Evening Republican, Volume 14, Number 306, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 26 December 1910 — MAD KING OTTO’S LIFE [ARTICLE]

MAD KING OTTO’S LIFE

Some remarkable details relating to the mad King Otto of Bavaria are published from a diplomatic source by the Glornale d’ltalia, the London Chronicle says. Though shut up for forty years in castles, now at the Castle Furstenried, and though sixty-two years of age. Otto is still a fine, handsome figure, with a magnificent beard and flowing gray locks. The stories about his periodical fits of fury are quite untrue. His court is presided over by Marshal Baron Redwiz and consists of a few trusty gentry belonging to the most ancient families of the Bavarian aristocracy. King Otto suffers terriby from insomnia and often sits up in bed half the night staring toward the door, as if expecting somebody to enter. He, however, rises punctually every morning at 8 and mutely allows himself to be dressed by his valet. He has a holy horror of soap and water, and of having his hair and nails cut, so that servants have to await patiently a favorable day for these operations, when the poor patient is in a state of complete apathy. King Otto smokes incredible quantities of cigarettes and is always puffing away save when z he is absorbed in his favorite pastime of studying the operatic music of his pet composer, Verdi. Often he causes the castle to resound all day long with the melodies of "Rlgoletto." The diplomat relates that the first symptom of brain decay In the young prince, till then so bright, forceful and courageous, was manifested during the Franco-German war. Just before the seige of Paris Kaiser William summoned him to the headquarters of the general staff and kept him under observation, In company with Bismarck and Moltke, the reason being that King Otto had called out a squad of cavalry and ordered them to charge straight at a stone wall, which, he insisted, was a body of the enemy’s Infantry. He began preaching everywhere the stern necessity of concluding peace with France at any price. Soon after intercepted letters were brought to the Emperor William which the Bavarian prince had been dispatching secretly to the enemy. It was then that the old kaiser sadly sent for the demented prince, decorated him with the order of the iron cross for service rendered in the campaign and packed him off under a medical escort for a pleasure trip in Spain and Italy.