Finally the bombshell exploded.
Late in the afternoon of 9 June 1886, I received a letter from Dr. Loewenfeld in which he earnestly asked me to travel to Lake Starnberg at once. Richard Hornig had a villa there in Allmannshausen, where we few who were still the king’s friends met on occasion to discuss what could be done. It was clear from Loewenfeld’s letter that this was a matter of the utmost importance; the doctor spoke of life and death.
When I arrived in Allmannshausen around eight that evening, in torrents of rain, the other conspirators were already sitting around a card table in the smoking room, looking grave. Through the haze of cigar smoke, I saw Dr. Loewenfeld, on whose face the last few months had engraved deep lines of anxiety, as well as Hermann Kaulbach, the painter, and Richard Hornig, the equerry. Only Count Dürckheim was missing.
“Where’s the count?” I asked, bewildered. “Has he been held up?”
Loewenfeld shook his head sadly. “Sycophantic courtiers have suspended him from his post and sent him to his estate in Steingaden,” he said. “Because they know that he is the king’s most faithful friend. We tried to send him warning, but obviously someone intercepted our messenger.”
I let myself drop into one of the upholstered armchairs by the fireplace. “My God, what’s happened?” I said. “Is Dr. Gudden really going to certify the king insane?”
“He’ll do it today,” replied Kaulbach, flicking the ash off his cigarette into the glowing logs. “At the latest tomorrow. All is lost.”
“Today?” I leaped up. “But . . . but why haven’t we heard anything about it before?”
“The operation was planned well in advance,” growled Richard Hornig, who was slumped in his chair like a clod of earth. “The Black Cabinet took care that no one would get wind of it too soon.”
I nodded, and thought, with a shudder, of the department of the police authority in Munich that must have helped to hatch the plot on orders from the ministers. Count Dürckheim had often told me about those police officers who operated in secret. This so-called Black Cabinet had been intercepting all letters to Ludwig for months, including a communication from Bavarian bankers who wanted to offer him credit. Only selected newspaper articles were laid before the king, and apart from Count Dürckheim, he was surrounded exclusively by officials and lackeys in league with the ministers, who had been instructed by Johann Lutz, president of the ministerial council, to lull Ludwig into a sense of false security.
“Damn it all, we should have known!” Dr. Loewenfeld banged on the floor with his walking stick. “Ever since Ludwig planned to turn to parliament for the money back in April, they’ve all been in turmoil. Just think, the opposition would have granted the king millions, gaining ministerial posts in return. Lutz had to react, or it would have cost him his head. If only we had made a move earlier.”
We were all silent, and for a while there was nothing to be heard but the ticking of the tall grandfather clock in the corner.
“What are the ministers planning to do?” I finally asked, breaking the silence. It seemed as if the others had already resigned themselves to Ludwig’s fate.
“A delegation of officials, led by that scoundrel Count von Holnstein, set off for Neuschwanstein this afternoon, along with Dr. Gudden and several asylum attendants,” replied Loewenfeld, his face pale. “They intend to present Ludwig with Gudden’s medical report and then depose him. And tomorrow Prince Luitpold will take over as regent in Munich.”
I bit my lip. The situation did indeed seem hopeless. Yet I still pursued the point. “Does Bismarck know of this? Maybe, if the Prussian chancellor were to stand firm against them . . .”
“Good God, you know better than any of us that Bismarck will approve of this operation,” Richard Hornig interrupted me. His eyes blazed with anger. “Clearly his agent Carl von Strelitz had more meetings with Lutz. All this was rigged in advance.”
Carl von Strelitz.
When Hornig mentioned the Prussian agent’s name, I closed my eyes for a moment. I was still sometimes plagued by nightmares in which Strelitz attacked me with his swordstick and ran me through the chest. In my dreams, bright blood spurted from the wound like the jet of a fountain, and I always woke up screaming. So far I had been unable to find out why Bismarck’s agent had been on the island at the end of September, let alone why, just before his appearance, Maria had uttered those remarkable words.
He’ll kill me.
I was soon to find out.
“We must warn the king!” I cried now to the company around the table. “Let us telegraph to Füssen at once.”