intention of bringing their views and conduct into line with it. A true son of the Church was Carl Abel, a politician of some repute, to whom Louis handed the portfolio of the Interior in April 1858. He was, it is interesting to note, one of those Bavarian ministers who had accompanied the King's son, Otho, to Greece in the 'twenties, and assisted in schooling the renascent nation in its new political status. He it was who enacted the "knee-bending" order to which allusion has been made; he again who substituted the word "subjects" for "citizens" in the royal decrees and proclamations. His policy was frankly Ultramontane. The publication of Strauss's "Life of Jesus," three years before, had given a powerful stimulus to rationalistic tendencies, and these the Bavarian Government determined at all costs to eradicate. It was in the world of thought and education that they saw the struggle must be waged, and they wisely strove to bring the schools entirely within their control. To prevent the spread of dangerous opinions it was decreed that all the books used in the universities and schools, even in those of the lowest grade, must be purchased from the official Government depot. A bad time followed for the booksellers and for every one suspected of liberal opinions. The editor of the Bernstorff papers speaks of Abel's administration as a scandal to all Europe. It was not considered such by the majority of the Bavarian people, who were probably more in sympathy with their ruler's present mood than with his earlier aspirations towards a Grecian polity and culture. The Jesuits reigned supreme, but it was not without certain faint misgivings that their chiefs heard the news of Lola's arrival in Munich. The dauntless adventuress was a factor that had to be reckoned with. XIX THE ENTHRALMENT OF THE KING