Moreover, the staunchest Republican must admit that if there is no divinity, there is a glamour or fascination about a king. He is, at least, uncommon--even in Germany; he holds aloof, his inner life is to some extent veiled in mystery; his setting is spectacular, and he rarely appears at a disadvantage. He is never seen rolling in the mire in the football field, affording sport to counsel and reporters in the witness-box, or in any of those undignified situations in which we so often meet our fellows. Above all, he represents power, a faculty more attractive even to women than to men. Ambition prompted Lola to hook a prince, but she found it quite easy to like one for his own sake. The exact nature of the relations between individual men and women is not in general a legitimate matter for curiosity or speculation. It is a question which concerns the parties only. In this instance, however, it may be in the interests of Louis and Lola to observe that their relations were in all probability what is called platonic. The King's nature was aesthetic, poetical, sentimental; he was eminently capable of that unsensual affection that seems to have animated Dante and Michelangelo. It must not be forgotten, too, that he was sixty years of age. "The sins of youth," he said "are the virtues of age." He affirmed publicly and solemnly that Lola had been his friend, never his mistress; and the word of Louis of Bavaria is not to be lightly disregarded. Lola repeatedly said the same thing. Nothing to the contrary was ever alleged by the King's immediate _entourage_; and--most significant fact of all--the Queen, Therese of Sachsen-Hildburghausen, never manifested the slightest jealousy of her husband's friend, but, on the contrary, more than once expressed her sympathy with her policy and actions. It was not, of course, to be expected that the public would take this view of Louis's relations with the famous adventuress. Least of all would it find acceptance with the Roman Catholic clergy, whose tendency it has ever been to exaggerate the sensual instincts in man's nature and to ignore the subtler, finer phases of passion. Puritan and prurient are generally synonymous terms. Nor were the King's ministers and clerical advisers at all anxious to place a favourable construction on Lola's presence at the court.