That was the bait; and Ludwig walked into the trap and took it. He made no inquiries, and asked for no explanations. Instead of doing so, he made unsatisfactory excuses for postponing his wedding-day; and when Duke Maximilian charged him with trifling with his affianced bride’s affections, he lost his temper, smashed Sophie’s bust, tore up Sophie’s portraits, and declared that Sophie was welcome to marry anyone she liked provided that she did not marry him. So all was over, and they were both unhappy; and it does not seem that Sophie found perfect bliss in her subsequent union to the Duc d’Alençon. The day came when Sophie clamoured for a divorce: not because she had any tangible grievances, but because she had conceived the idea that she would like to marry a doctor in practice at Munich, and devote herself to philanthropic activities. She had to be kept under restraint for a season at a private asylum at Graetz, already referred to as “the rendezvous of princes,” because of the large number of august lunatics whom it harboured: among others, the Duchess of Augustenburg, Pedro of Saxe-Coburg, whose mania was a dread of poison, and Charles of Lichtenstein, who had gone mad on account of his failure to meet the woman of his dreams. And Ludwig, meanwhile, was so mad that there could be no mistake about his madness, though it was a kind of madness which gained him, as has been said, the title of the Last of the Romantics. He lived, like William Beckford, in a solitude of fantastic splendour. He had the table laid, in an empty banqueting hall, for ghostly guests, and fancied that he was entertaining Marie-Antoinette, and Catherine of Russia, and Hamlet, and Julius Cæsar. He caused command performances of the best operas to be given to himself alone in an empty theatre. He sailed about the Starnberg Lake in a gondola, towed by a swan. He caused eminent actors to recite to him while he ate, and he went on eating, and kept them reciting, until five o’clock in the morning. He outraged the feelings of the Court by bestowing titles of nobility on his tailor and his barber; and the end of it all was that keepers took the place of courtiers, and a Regent was appointed. [Illustration: KING LUDWIG II. OF BAVARIA]