His want of money was known far outside the limits of his kingdom. Ludwig was angered at the contemptuous manner in which the financial newspapers of Vienna and Berlin made mention of it; and it was a painful surprise to him to find that the Jews were those who attacked him the most mercilessly. "Do they not know," he exclaimed, "that I am the only prince who from the beginning of the anti-Semitic movement has taken strong measures to counteract it?" His pressing need for money rendered him apt to regard every unknown person as a dun. "Yesterday when I was driving," he said to his barber, "I met a man who looked at me in such a curious manner that I positively thought he had come to seize my horses." On one of his last walks in the woods of Neuschwanstein he met a poor boy who was gathering faggots. When he asked him who his parents were the lad answered that his father had been a stone-cutter, but was now out of work. "Why does he not ask the King for help?" inquired Ludwig. "He has no money himself, and nobody will lend him any," was the reply. The King laughed, and handed him a five-mark piece; but his laughter was no doubt bitter. His debts had reached a sum of 14,000,000 marks. On the 5th of May, 1886, his Ministers represented to him that it was absolutely necessary that his pecuniary affairs should be brought into order, and his expenses reduced. Months before this date he had been informed that every prospect of opening new resources was cut off. He now set to work himself, in every conceivable manner, to raise money. Hesselschwerdt was sent to Ratisbon in order if possible, to raise a loan of 20,000,000 marks from the enormously wealthy Prince of Thurn and Taxis. Bismarck was consulted; and the King endeavoured to obtain money from America. An aide-de-camp was despatched to the Emperor of Brazil, another was sent to the King of Sweden, and a third to the King of the Belgians. The financial magnates Rothschild, Bleichröder, and Erlanger were requested to give him their support; and he planned an application to the Sultan of Turkey and to the Shah of Persia. The means of assistance to which he resorted in his need are clear proofs that his mental and moral powers were rapidly declining; and in his alarm and confusion he even gave secret orders that persons should be procured who would be willing to break into the banks of some of the capitals of Europe.