LOUIS


Meaning of LOUIS in English

n.

or Ludwig II also known as Mad King Ludwig

born Aug. 25, 1845, Nymphenburg Palace, Munich

died June 13, 1886, Starnberger See, Bavaria

King of Bavaria (1864–86).

The son of Maximilian II of Bavaria, he supported Prussia in the Franco-Prussian War (1870–71). He brought his territories into the newly founded German Empire in 1871 but concerned himself only intermittently with affairs of state, preferring a life of increasingly morbid seclusion. A lifelong patron of the composer Richard Wagner , he developed a mania for extravagant building projects; the most fantastic, Neuschwanstein , was a fairy-tale castle decorated with scenes from Wagner's operas. He drowned himself three days after he was formally declared insane.

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