Habsburgs and Wittelsbachs—Which is the madder House?—Insanity of the Empress Elizabeth’s cousin, Ludwig II. of Bavaria—His eccentricities—His tragic death—Grief of the Empress—Suicide of Elizabeth’s brother-in-law, the Comte de Trani—Tragic death of the Archduchess Elizabeth. Archduke Maximilian was dead, and Francis Joseph had to humble himself to the Indians and half-breeds, and beg their permission to fetch his brother’s body to Europe and bury it in the tombs of the Habsburgs. Archduchess Charlotte was stark, staring mad, and all hope of the restoration of her reason had been abandoned. There was to be no other tragedy quite so tragic, or quite so intimate, until that of Meyerling, to which we shall quickly come; but there were intervening tragedies, tragic and intimate enough, which hit Francis Joseph through his cousins of Bavaria. Notably there was the tragedy of Elizabeth’s cousin—who was also Francis Joseph’s cousin—King Ludwig II. It is a question sometimes debated by the members of the two families, whether the Wittelsbachs are madder than the Habsburgs, or the Habsburgs madder than the Wittelsbachs. According to Countess Marie Larisch, who speaks for the Wittelsbachs, the difference is that “with the Habsburgs insanity usually shows itself in depravity, self-effacement, and common marriages, while, in the case of the Wittelsbachs, it transforms the sufferer into a romantic being who is quite above the banalities of everyday life, but who occasionally deteriorates and becomes a gross feeder”; but that is not quite a true antithesis. Common marriages, as Countess Marie calls them—and the marriage of her own father, the brother of the Empress Elizabeth, to the actress, Henrietta Mendel, falls in the category—are not necessarily unromantic; and Wittelsbachs, as well as Habsburgs, have contracted them. Still, as an introduction to the story of the career of Ludwig II., the contrast is not without its point. Ludwig was as mad as a hatter; and he has also been spoken of as “the last of the Romantics”—the last, at all events, of the Romantics who have sat on thrones. The beginning of his tragedy was the breaking off of his engagement to the Empress Elizabeth’s sister, Sophie; and the ease with which he was manœuvred out of that engagement, as the result of a Court intrigue, is, in itself, a sufficient proof that his intelligence was none too strong. It was represented to him, quite untruly, that his affianced bride had been flirting with his Master of the Horse, Count Holnstein. The Count and the Princess were inveigled into being photographed together; and this testimony of “the camera which cannot lie” was brought to Ludwig’s notice. There was also some story of a ring which Count Holnstein was observed to be wearing, and which was believed to have been given him by the Princess, though, as a matter of fact, it had been given to him by an actress who had stolen it from the Princess.