They had only two playmates, namely Prince Ludwig of Hesse, who spent part of his childhood at the court of his aunt Queen Marie, and Count Holstein, who now and then was allowed to visit them. The Crown Prince was considered to be highly gifted. From his earliest youth his memory was unusually good, and he often reduced his teachers to despair by the puzzling questions he would put to them. Meanwhile he was only diligent in the subjects which interested him, and lazy and indifferent concerning those which did not please him. His teachers were able and upright men, but towards the greater number of them he was very reserved. With a few exceptions they were powerless and at their wit's end before this peculiar character, which perplexed them by its contradictions and alarmed them by its outbursts of violence. Thus grew up the Bavarian Crown Prince; in surroundings which left him partly neglected and misunderstood and partly perverted his understanding, and in circumstances which were fitted to develop his already naturally marked egotism and feeling of self-esteem. CHAPTER II Fundamental Traits of Ludwig's Character Ludwig's tutor, the Count de Larosée, has expressed his conception of his pupil's character in the following words: "The Crown Prince is intelligent and highly gifted. He is already possessed of abilities which far exceed the ordinary. His imagination is so vivid, that I have seldom seen its equal in so young a man; but he is hasty and exceedingly quick-tempered. A more than strongly developed wilfulness points to a stubbornness of character which is perhaps inherited from his grandfather, and which it will be difficult for him to control." This "character" was written out by the Count on the day upon which Ludwig filled his eighteenth year, and on the tutor's retirement from his responsible position. The Crown Prince had not merely inherited his grandfather's obstinacy, but resembled in other ways his father's father and his own namesake. Like him he was an idealist and Schwärmer, with distinct leanings towards æstheticism.