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Copyright, 1913, by the Star Company. Great Britain Rights Reserved.
HiJ Royal H [£ h ne/ir - The Wop fdir
Meanest Hurband
Pretty Chorus Girl Wife of
Duke Ludwig of Bavaria Cruelly
Surprised 'When
He Treated Her
as a Horse, a Dog.
and a Goat and
Cheated Her Out
of Her Pin Money
Munich, July 19.
A N astonishing drama of royal domestic
life is occupying the law courts. The
Duke Ludwig of Bavaria, who is
eighty-two years old, is suing his morganatic
•wife, a former ballet dancer, for divorce.
The Duke is the brother of the late Em
press Elizabeth of Austria. He belongs to a
branch of the Bavarian royal family, which,
though separate from that now occupying
the throne, enjoys rights of equality with
reigning houses in every respect.
In youth the Duke was considered the
handsomest prince in Europe, just as his
sister, the Austrian Empress, was the pearl
of princesses In early life he married a very
beautiful Bavarian actress named Henrietta
Mendel, who was created Baroness Waller-
see. She died in 1891. They had one child,
later the Countess Marie Larisch. who has
recently written an astonishing book reveal
ing the flirtations of her aunt, the Empress;
the mad eccentricities of the Bavarian royal
family and the intrigues that led up to the
tragic death of the Empress’s only son, the
Crown Prince Rudolph, of Austria.
In 1892, within a year of the death of his
first wife, the Duke Ludwig hastened to con
tract a second morganatic marriage. This
time it was with a pretty ballet dancer
named Antonie Barth. She was ennobled
and received the name of “Baroness von
Bartolf" on her marriage. She was more
than forty years younger than the Duke. She
had less artistic standing than the first
actress wife, but was decidedly allurihg. To
day she is under forty and still quite hand
some.
Two years ago the morganatic wife left
her loyal husband. This episode was repre
sented as a scandalous piece of misconduct
on the part of the former ballet girl. The
facts now presented in her defense suggest,
however, that it was more or less excusable
The case is being heard behind closed doors,
but the friends of the Baroness von Bartolf
have told the
astonishing
story of her
married life.
Many women
envied the bal
let girl when
she married a
royal duke, but
now they know
It is better to be
the wife of an
amiable and
prosperous gro
cer. The Duke
appears to have
been the mean
est husband yet
discovered. He
treated his unfe
as a horse, a
dog and a
goat, and constantly beat, spanked and
pinched her On top of all this he constantly
docked her apparently handsome allowance
for infringement of his impossible orders.
The aged Duke pushed eccentricity to the
verge of madness. His peculiarities became
especially marked when dealing with any
body of the opposite sex. His conduct is per
haps not surprising in a member of the royal
house of Wittelsbach, which has supplied two
mad kings to Bavaria.
The Duke required his ballet girl wife to
entertain him in extraordinary ways. As he
grew older his exigencies increased. At the
beginning of their married life she was some
what puzzled when he made her play horse
and drove her round the room in rather
scanty costume.
The performance pleased him so much that
he repeated it, but made up a four-in-hand
team by harnessing three young servant
maids with his wife. As he drove them round
and round the room he lashed them freely
with a long whip. The wife states that these
performances were kept up till the last days
she spent with him.
It is interesting to recall that the Dukes
grandfather, the Duke Maximilian, kept a
famous private circus at Munich. It seems
that the grandson wished to have a private
circus, too.
The Baroness owned a pretty little Maltese
terrier, of which she was very fond. One
day the Duke caught a nondescript mongrel
down in the stables and tied the two dogs
together by the tails. Then he placed pieces
of meat where they would entice the two
dogs in. opposite directions and started them
OP a tug-of-war.
Antonie Barth, After
wards Created Baron
ess von Bartolf, the
Pretty Chorus Girl
Whom the Duke Mar
ried in 1892, a Year
After His First Wife’s
Death, and Whom He
Is Now Suing for Di
vorce.
Kbc
“He hid a
nest of wasps
in her bath
room and they
stung her
when she was
quite unpro
tected.”
The Duke at the
Time of His Mar
riage with Hen
rietta Mendel,
When He Was
Considered the
Handsomest
Prince in Europe.
He made her walk with bare feet on sticky fly paper
upon a hot Summer day.”
He trained a flock of geese to come in the bedroom and
wake her up with their cackling.”
At this moment the Baroness entered.
“I bet your month's allowance that my
dog beats yours,'' said the Duke.
His wife did not accept the bet, but she
had to go without any money for a month
when the Duke's dog won.
One very hot Summer day a fiendish
method of tormenting his wife occurred to
the Duke. He told her to take off her shoes
and stockings in her ooudoir and walk into
his bedroom, which was two rooms away
She did as she was told and found the whole
floor carpeted with sticky fly-paper. She tried
to tear the paper from her feet, but only got
herself more completely covered with the
sticky stuff.
The Duke, comfortably protected by shoes,
laughed heartily at her discomfort. As a re
sult of this prank she went into hysterics
and became seriously ill.
"When she
objected to
one of his
caprices he
chased her
round the
hall with an
ancient hal
berd.”
Whenever she protested against any of his
mad caprices, the Duke became frightfully
angry and forced her to obey him. She
states that he beat, spanked, kicked and bit
her and physically ill-treated her in many
ways.
One morning, as she was about to take a
bath, she reached out her hand for the
sponge, and immediately started a buzzing
of angry insects. In a few moments she was
severely stung by wasps. Some one had de
liberately hung a nest full of wasps beside
the sponge. The grinning face of the Duke,
which soon appeared in the doorway, left no
doubt who had played this cruel trick.
The Duke expended much time and tre
mendous industry in devising new ways of
tormenting her. Once he asked her to oc
cupy a new bedroom which he said he had
ordered specially furnished for her. At dawn
she was awakened by a hideous and deafen
ing cackling.
Looking around, she saw about twenty
geese cackling and squawking at the top of
their voices. The Duke had with infinite pa
tience trained the birds to awaken the occu
pant of this bed early every morning. This
performance was kept up regularly for three
months, when it began to lose its charm
through the accidental death of five of the
geese. By that time the Duke was busy with
new schemes, for keeping his wife amused or
tormented.
In his youth he had served several years
as a cavalrv officer and was considered the
Henrietta Mendel,
Baroness Waller-
see, the Beautiful
Actress Who Was
the First Morgan
atic Wife of the
Duke and Who
Died in 1891.
From “My Past,” by Countess Marie Larisch,
Daughter of the Baroness Wallersee and the
Duke. Published by G. P. Putnam’s Sons.
“On his seventy-fifth birthday the
Duke had a baby’s high chair made
for himself, compelled his wife to act
as nurse and bring him champagne.”
them. They were not a bad fit for her, ex
cept that the legs were too long.
He then had military trousers made for
her and ordered her to appear before his
friends wearing these with his old army coats.
The Austrian Emperor has always kept up
friendly relations with his brother-in-law and
paid him occasional visits in spite of his
mot ganatic marriages. The poor Baroness
looked forward with considerable interest
to her meeting with her august relative by
marriage.
When the Emperor last visited the Duke
at Munich, she says that the latter compelled
her to appear before His Majesty in her uni
form and perform military exercises for his
amusement. Then he made her wait on the
table.
The Duke compelled his wife to wait on
him like a slave, and whenever her services
did not quite satisfy his insanely capricious
needs, he punished her severely.
When he reached his seventy-fifth birth
day he had a high chair constructed large
enough to hold himself instead of a baby. In
this he would sit wearing infantile gar
ments, while he compelled his wife, dressed
as a nurse-maid, to wait upon bint. Instead
of bringing him pap and milk, however, the
nurse-maid had to serve him with champagne
and other strong delicacies.
Soon after this his capriciousness took a
turn that seriously threatened her life. He
forced her to jump into Lake Starnberg, the
lake in which his kinsman, the mad King
Ludwig of Bavaria, drowned himself. She
could not help feeling that her husband was
anxious to see another drowning in the same
place. The Duke has a country house and
large estate upon the shores of the lake.
The Duke then played a trick that finally
derided her to abandon the dignity and lux
ury of being connected with a royal family.
He said to her one day:
"My dear, you are growing entirely too
stout. You are losing your beautiful figure.
I have thought out a way that will restore
you to the most exquisite proportions. Now,
don’t ask what it is. Just come out with me
try
and
it."
we will
‘He used his pretty wife as a wheelbarrow and trundled her around
the garden.”
finest figure in the saddle that royal circles
could show. An internal Injury compelled him
to give up this avocation. He had still a fine
collection of old uniforms. It pleased his fancy
to have his handsome wife put these masculine
garments on and parade about his apartments in
The Duke put a
belt with a hook to
it around his wife’s
waist. He then took
her down to the
park, where one of
h i s high-p ow e r e d
a u t o m o b i les was
waiting for them.
Before she realized
what was going to
happen she found
herself attached by a
rope to the back of
the car, while the
Duke was in the ma
chine driving it at a
good pace through
the grounds.
When she was on
the point of dropping
he slowed down a
little, and when she
recovered breath a
little he started up
again. Had he gone
a trifle faster, she
would have been
killed. This was his
method of reducing
her flesh. There is
no doubt that it was
an effective one.
She declares that she then made up her mind
to save her life before it was too late. Before
dawn of the following day she got up and crept
away through the country roads, which she knew
well. She has since refused all his orders to re
turn to him, and so he is bridging a divorce suit.
What Is a Suffragette, Anyhow?
R ECENTLY a street car adver
tising agency, in order to
stimulate interest in their
cards displayed in the cars, offered
cash prizes for the best epigram
matic definitions of a suffragette.
Here are some of the results:
A suffragette is a woman who
thinks she has been de-voted long
enough.
Not satisfied with the last word
she also wants the first.
She is the corset needed to re
duce the Government waste.
She is a woman who needs the
“poll” for her vaulting ambition.
A suffragette is a sting of beauty
and a jawer forever.
A woman who would rather break
windows than clean them.
A woman whose troubles are cer
tainly not “little ones.”
One who spends more time air
ing her views than viewing her
heirs.
A woman who will spare no panes
to get her rights.
A woman who would rather rock
the country than the cradle.
A female creature, queer and
quaint
Who longs to be just what she
ain’t.
The hen that would cackle and
never set
Is the woman known as a suffra
gette.
We can’t efface, we can’t forget
her.
We love her still—the stiller the
tetter!
NO MORE GRAY HAIR
I was gray at 27. Aftftr enduring my shame foi
years I stumbled on the only perfect way I eve:
heard of to restore it gradually and naturally tr
original color. Send 2 cent r^tamp for re
ply and I will tell my secret XT TJ Ip 17*
free to anyone. Mrs. MARY KL,
lv. CHAPMAN. Suite 207C. Grosvenoi
Bldg.. Providence, R. I.
V