File:Luitpold, Prince Regent of Bavaria, c. 1890.jpg

Identifier: withinroyalpalac00font (find matches)
Title: Within royal palaces : a brilliant and charmingly written inner view of emperors, kings, queens, princes and princesses ...
Year: 1892 (1890s)
Authors: Fontenoy, marquise de, pseud
Subjects: Courts and courtiers
Publisher: Philadelphia, Hubbard Pub. Co
Contributing Library: The Library of Congress
Digitizing Sponsor: Sloan Foundation

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he wassurrounded, the King presented a heart-breaking picture as 404 WITHIN ROYAL TALACES. he wandered wildly about the gorgeous apartments which hehad himself designed. Guarding the door of the sovereigns private rooms in thecastle of Neuschwannstein was a curious ornament of theKings own design, consisting of a magnificent silver palm-tree, eight feet high,laden with fruit, atthe foot of whichcrouched a horriblegray dragon, sap-ping the roots. Who knows if thepoor, mad King didnot mean to illus-trate his own mao^ni-ficent physique andintellifjence attackedby that most terribleof all diseases,namely, hereditaryinsanity? N eu sell wan nsteinis built on the ex-treme edge of theplateau, and whenthe King was on the balcony of the fifth-floor room abovementioned, he was able to gaze down into a chasm over1,000 feet deep. With his horror of daylight he would retireto rest at daybreak, and remain in artificially darkened roomsall day. The ceilings of each of his bed-rooms were painted dark-
Text Appearing After Image:
THE REGENT KING. THE ROYAL FAMILY OF BAVARIA. 405 blue, and through httle pieces of glass, cut in the shape ofstars, a soft light shone on the royal sleeper. An artificialmoon was likewise arranged in the ceiling, artificial palm-trees surrounded the bed, and through the branches thereofmight be seen at the end of the room an artificial waterfall.He would never rise until five oclock in the afternoon. Thewhole place had to be brilliantly lighted up every eveningwith some 8,000 wax candles, at a nightly cost of over ^1,000, One of his pet crazes was about King Louis XIV, ofFrance, and on the anniversary of the latters birth he woulddine (^^^/i^/^-rt;-/^/^ with a marble bust of the Grand Monarque,to which he would address the most talon rouge compliments.On these occasions he would be dressed in a Louis XIVcostume, and was very proud of his shapely leg, which, how-ever, ended unfortunately in an unusually big foot. In his Cabinet de toilette at Neuschwannstein are somerather risque but

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