"Thus then the fiery young artist, his wild oats not yet fully sown, plunged into a new world, where no true sense of right or wrong was known; where virtue and morality were laughed to scorn; where, in the chaotic whirlpool of a reckless court, money and influence at any price were the sole ends and aims of life; where, in the confusion of the times, the insecurity of conditions, and the ruthless despotism of the government, the sole watchword of existence, from high to low, was 'Après moi, le deluge!'" The Prince Ludwig was a great spendthrift, and was continually appealing to his brother for funds. It was poor Weber's pleasant task to be the go-between, and to receive on his head the rage of Behemoth. Again to quote the vivid language of the Baron Max: "The stammering, stuttering, shrieking rage of the hideously corpulent king, who, on account of his unwieldy obesity, was unable to let his arms hang by his side, and who thus gesticulated wildly, and perspired incessantly, and had the habit, moreover, of continually addressing his favourite, generally present on these occasions, with the appeal, 'Pas vrai, Dillen?' after each broken sentence,--would have been inexpressibly droll, had not the low-comedy actor of the scene been an autocrat who might, at a wink, have transformed laughter into tears. But there was a demoniacal comicality about the performance, which, if it did not convulse the spectator, made him shudder to his heart's core. "Weber hated the king, of whose wild caprice and vices he witnessed daily scenes, before whose palace-gates he was obliged to slink bareheaded, and who treated him with unmerited ignominy. He was wont, in thoughtless levity of youth, to forget the dangers he ran, and to answer the king with a freedom of tone which the autocrat was all unused to hear. In turn he was detested by the monarch. "The royal treatment roused young Carl Maria's indignation to the utmost; and his irritation led him one day to a mad prank, which was nigh resulting in some years' imprisonment in the fortress of Hohenasberg, or of Hohenhaufen. Smarting under some foul indignity, he had just left the private apartment of the king, when an old woman met him in the passage, and asked him where she could find the room of the court washerwoman. 'There!' said the reckless youth, pointing to the door of the royal cabinet. The old woman entered, and was violently assailed by the king, who had a horror of old women; in her terror, she stammered out that a young gentleman who had just come out had informed her that there she would find the 'royal washerwoman,' The infuriated monarch guessed who was the culprit, and despatched an officer on the spot to arrest his brother's secretary, and throw him into prison.