MUNICH led Berlin by a nose. On the Isar, Kurt Eisner proclaimed the Republic on November 8, 1918; on the Spree, Philipp Scheidemann did the same, but not until the ninth. In the 'mad year,' 1848, there were street riots in Munich as early as February and barricades in the first days of March, while in the capital of the Hohenzollerns everything happened a week or two later, somewhat in the same way and yet a little different. But here, just as in Munich, there were street fighting, assaults, right-about movements, ecstatic professions of loyalty to Germany's union and freedom, and so forth.

'Ha! How it flashed and roared and rolled! Hurrah, hurrah! The Black and Red and Gold!'

sang Ferdinand Freiligrath.

In that storied year the twentyfourth of February was a critical day of the first magnitude: absolutism, disguised in France as would-be constitutionalism, went to smash. Louis Philippe, vanquished, meekly promised everything that was asked of him, but was answered only by the fateful echo, "Too late!' So he abdicated and took ship for England, where he lived under the name of Count de Neuilly until he died in 1850.

The Paris February revolt frightened the sovereigns of the Holy Alliance blue. For 'the breath of God once more cleansed the rotten world as by

fire!' For a generation and longer every liberal manifestation had been crushed, every German yearning for union branded as revolution. But now thrones tottered, and their defenders quite lost their heads.

So it was in Germany everywhere except in Munich; for Munich was always in the lead. There the revolution was started on the twenty-fourth of February or at any rate a baby revolution. Ludwig I of Bavaria, the 'Teuton' as he was fond of calling himself, had flirted a bit with liberalism; then threw himself into the arms of clericalism. He honored the burgomaster of Würzburg, Behr, with his friendship, and then, on account of the famous 'fête of Hambach,' compelled him to do penance before the royal portrait, and locked him up for twelve years in the fortress of Passau.

Nevertheless, Ludwig was no heartless tyrant. On the contrary, he had a soft heart, as soft as butter, which was particularly susceptible to fascinating femininity. Always an admirer of the sex, he had collected a 'Gallery of Beauty' (still to be seen in Munich), consisting of portraits of handsome women, although he was a happy paterfamilias, already in his sixties. But when Aphrodite smiles even royal heads are turned, and Lola Montez, the Spanish dancer, was a lovely creature, young, graceful, witty, educated; she was innocence and tempta

tion in one person, and she came, saw, and conquered the King- an artist soul, who dreamed of building a new Athens on the Isar, as well as a King whose ambition was to be Emperor, as three Wittelsbachs had been before him.

And doubtless everything would have gone the usual way without anybody being hurt (see Mesdames Maintenon, Pompadour, Dubarry, and others) if only politics had n't interfered and spoiled the picture.

The Cabinet of Herr Abel happened to be very piously inclined. It had gone so far as to direct that Protestant soldiers should take part in Catholic services kneeling; it had neglected the schools, made the censorship more severe, ignored the budget, placed the concordat with Rome above the State; on account of all of which there arose a good deal of uneasiness and liberal opposition. Also in regard to the rule of the pretty dancer. And the government bigwigs disliked her too, for she took no trouble to further their interests, but made her abject slave, His Majesty, do whatever came into her frivolous head. In vain the monarch's confessor appealed to the royal conscience. Ludwig replied coldly: 'You stick to your stola and I'll stick to my Lola!'

In vain his Prussian brother-in-law remonstrated with him, and Heine mocked:

Hohenzollern brother-in-law,
Hold your envious royal jaw!
Surely all you really want is
Wittelsbacher's Lola Montez!

In vain the chief of police, Pechmann, threw himself into the fight against the powerful favorite with stacks of documents, proving that she was not an Andalusian at all, but the natural child of a Scot named Gilbert and the wife of a Lieutenant James, whom she ran away from, after meta

morphosing herself into Lola, or Dolores, Montez, to become the mistress of a certain Poincaré, whom she nagged to death. After that she chose a Russian count, and then a French marquis, and finally became the wife of a certain Dujaroz. She had been banished from St. Petersburg and Berlin as well, being given good pay to go and live somewhere else.

But she laughed at Pechmann's charges, and remained in the Royal Palace. Pechmann not only lost his position, but Lola demanded satisfaction. She would be naturalized and made a countess in her own right. And it was so.

'For this is our good pleasurecar tel est notre bon plaisir,' as the Roi Soleil yonder in France was accustomed to say. All this occurred before the twenty-fourth of February.

But the question of naturalization had to go before the Council of State, and that body had the backbone to say 'No!' The Ministry had to countersign, and the members and the nobility begged the King 'with broken hearts' not to insist. In reply he gave them twenty-four hours to comply with his wishes, spent the time himself in writing a sonnet, and then announced the dismissal of the Ministry. With shouts of joy and acclaim, the members of the aristocratic student corps 'Alemannia,' Lola's chosen bodyguard, paraded under her windows, and the new Ministry, called the 'dawn cabinet,' had hardly taken office when Lola was proclaimed Countess von Landsfeld, with a brand new coat-of-arms of the King's own designing. And Ludwig sang one pæan after the other in his favorite's honor, built her a château, presented her with caskets of jewels, and had her portrait painted for his 'Gallery of Beauty.'

The Archbishop of Munich protested to the King; old Görres let himself

go about Babylon, and even the press got nasty, although the papers were strictly forbidden to make any mention whatever of the Countess. Rival student organizations of the Alemannia went to fisticuffs with the latter, whom they declared incapable of satisfaction with honorable weapons, and the matter ended in a scandalous scene in which the chief of Lola's bodyguard, Count Hirschberg, ran amuck among his enemies with a dagger.

And there was more breaking of the peace when the tax on beer was raised on account of the King's extravagance. Then certain professors, relying on their old privilege of academic freedom, expressed themselves very severely, with the result that they were dropped and the whole university closed. That was the drop that made the cup run over.

Street parades. 'Down with Lola!' Students' meetings in front of the closed university. Cuirassiers keeping the crowds moving. The academic sons of the Muses demanded of the authorities the disbanding of the Alemannia. The answer appeared on the announcement board, to the effect that the university would remain closed until October, and that every student who was not a resident of Munich must leave the city within three days. A great procession of indignant students raised its voice in 'Gaudeamus Igitur,' as it solemnly marched by the residence of the Minister of Education, to be followed, as it gathered in front of the house of the university rector, old 'Father Thiersch,' by the strains of "The God who made the iron grow!'

Well, whither now? To the Palace of the Countess Landsfeld? Forward!

But gendarmes rush upon the scene and charge the crowd of students and citizens with lowered bayonets, their captain at the head. In the Rathaus two thousand citizens gather

-out in front ten thousand, shoulder to shoulder. Vociferous, passionate demands. The captain of gendarmes must be cashiered the Landsfeld woman chased out of town- the university reopened. The city magistrates lay these demands before the King, who graciously permits the university to open in time for the summer term nothing more.

But that is not enough, and yelling mobs again crowd the streets of the capital. 'Down with Lola!' The storm grows into a hurricane before which the 'Lola Ministry' is blown to the winds.

Berks, her own creature, was the first rat to abandon the sinking ship, and the end of it all was that, on the eleventh of February, Ludwig took a sorrowful leave of his queen of hearts, reopened the university, restored the dismissed professors, recalled the unfortunate Pechmann, and decreed the dissolution of the Alemannia. And Lola herself fled along byways to take refuge in the royal shooting-box of Blutenburg.

On February 19, 1848, Justinus Kerner, the queer poet and still queerer physician, wrote from Weinsberg to Emma Niendorf:

'Lola Montez arrived here yesterday, and I am keeping her here in my tower until I get further instructions from Munich. Three Alemannia students are keeping watch over her. It is very annoying that the King has singled me out as her keeper, but he was told that Lola was demented and that he ought to send her to Weinsberg, to have the devil driven out of her. Anyhow, it will be an interesting case. Before I try to treat her magnetically, I am going to subject her to a severe hunger cure.'

Soon afterward he wrote to Sophie Schwab that Lola was with him. 'She is extraordinarily emaciated. Theobald

is magnetizing her, and I make her drink asses' milk. I have Metternich in my tower now. .. He declares that only the desire to see Germany become a republic, which he has always fostered, was the reason for his illiberal system of government; only by that means could Germany be brought to rise in such a wonderful and powerful manner. That was his work, which he carried through in that way intentionally and logically. He left me no peace until I put up a red flag on my tower.'

What's that? Lola and Metternich too? Which Metternich? In solemn fact the Imperial Chancellor, Prince Clemens Metternich, no less. For the twenty-fourth of February was over, France was a republic, the Diet of the Confederation had been suddenly converted to German unity, and the proposal of Prussia carried at Frankfort, to make the ancient German Imperial Eagle the arms of the Confederation and black-red-gold the national colors. And, of a truth, the long-despised standard actually waved over the Taxis Palace, in which the Diet sat. 'What a change by the dispensation of the Almighty!'

In Vienna the revolution of March 13 swept away Metternich, the grand master of monarchical absolutism by the grace of the police. He became a republican and placed himself under the protection of the red flag. O irony of mundane history!

But Munich was in first place, ahead of Vienna in the race, for in the Athens on the Isar everything was over by March 6. The excitement did not disappear with Lola, however. The people insisted upon thorough reforms, and a majority of the nobility, with Count Arco-Valley at its head, joined in the demand. The hysterical mob demolished the residences of the 'Lola Ministry.' The King issued a call for an assembly of the Estates on the

thirty-first of May, in order 'to give a sympathetic hearing to the constitutional wishes of the people.' The reactionary Prince Wrede wanted to bring the 'rebels' to their senses with cartridges. But barricades sprang up out of the earth, Minister von Berks was sent into the desert, and the assembly of the people's representatives was set for the thirty-first of March instead of May.

Then cannon were emplaced in front of the Royal Palace. The people's answer was the storming of the arsenal. After that everything went on along the line into which the Government was forced. There followed the consent to the election reforms, freedom of the press, ministerial responsibility, the army's oath of allegiance to the constitution, and general hurrahing for "Teutonic unity.' 'Bavaria's King is proud to be a Teuton Prince. . . . All for my people! All for Germany!'

That was on March 6, and at the same time the new Ministry demanded of the Imperial Diet a change in the constitution, to the effect that 'the interests of Germany as a whole outweigh the interests of any component State.'

In Berlin we had not got so far along, although the black-red-gold had already been adopted. The barricades did not appear until March 18, the granting of the people's petition, and -fancy!-smoking in the Tiergarten, on the nineteenth, while the King's famous horseback-ride came on the twenty-first.

"To-day I have adopted the ancient German colors, and have placed myself and my people under the venerable standard of the German Empire!'

About as it was in Munich, and yet somewhat different. For Ludwig did not care to rule without Lola. On March 20 he followed Louis Philippe's example and abdicated. He lived until 1868, most of the time in his Villa

Malta at Rome, later the property of Prince Bülow.

On the other hand, Frederick William of Prussia remained at the helm, tried to render futile what he had promised, and died insane. For him the revolution of 1848 was simply the work of Poles, Frenchmen, and Jews. How Ludwig I looked upon it his verses show:

Forlorn and sad I wander,
My dreary fate I sing,
No kinder heart nor fonder
Could beat than of your King.
The proud and selfish nobles
Befouled for me my throne,
Betrayed you too, while feeling
For both but scorn alone.

SPANIARDS have just lived through some anxious days. The tidings borne upon the amphibious wings of the press, wings that cleave the clouds as well as dive through the stormy billows of life that the King had abdicated, came like the blow of a sledge hammer, for the rumor was spread by a periodical known for its loyalty to existing institutions, and not by some sheet of discredited character. The sovereign was said to miss, on the part of his subjects, that sympathy which is indispensable to the existence of rulers, without which oxygen they languish as the lungs do without air. For this

reason he planned to abandon us, for he felt himself losing his hold upon our affections.

If this was the case, it would seem wiser to have examined carefully the causes of dissatisfaction, and to eliminate them if they existed. In any case, reasonable or not, it was his will that paralyzed our own, throwing us into perplexity and despair.

Under these circumstances we seemed to foresee in our mind's eye a whole series of national misfortunes. Not only should we lose a good pilot, parting from us in bitterness, but the heavy helm of state would fall into the weak