KING LUDWIG SCANDAL

This video in German displays some of the artistic and architectural efforts of King Ludwig I of Bavaria to make Munich a refined place full of fine art. The father of 9 had a tolerant Queen who knew he had affairs, but then along came Lola Montez.

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According to the book by James F. Varley,   King Ludwig I of Bavaria was Lola's greatest conquest.    He had been a bit deaf since his youth and was a bit of a wreck at 60 to her 29 years.  His wife, the Queen, Therese of Hildburghausen, knew he had affairs with singers and actresses and already had a life long "friend" named Marchesa Maria Florenzi.  Lola Montez, calling herself Senora Maria Dolores de Porris y Montez, proved to be a real threat.  She had shown up wearing black silk and lace and a few diamonds and had danced a hachucha and a fandango in October of 1846.

She called him Louis.  He called her Lolita.

She was offered 50,000 franks to leave the country.  She refused.  So the King figured she loved him.

Then Pope Pius IX and the Catholic Church told Ludwig to give her up.
He wasn't having it.

Though the King gave into the Pope and his advisors and the people, in the end he abdicated to Crown Prince Maximilian II in the spring of 1848.  And so, long before Wallis Simpson, Lola Montez, a King gave up his thrown for a mistress.  In this case one he would never see again.