eat assiduity under the able instruction of
Vogier, who was of vast service in bringing the chaos of his previous
contradictory teachings into order and light. All these musical
_Wanderjahre_, however trying, had steeled Karl Maria into a stern
self-reliance, and he found in his skill as an engraver the means to
remedy his father's wastefulness and folly.

II.

A curious episode in Weber's life was his connection with the royal
family of Wurtemberg, where he found a dissolute, poverty-stricken
court, and a whimsical, arrogant, half-crazy king. Here he remained four
years in a half-official musical position, his nominal duty being that
of secretary to the king's brother, Prince Ludwig. This part of
his career was almost a sheer waste, full of dreary and irritating
experiences, which Weber afterward spoke of with disgust and regret.
His spirit revolted from the capricious tyranny which he was obliged to
undergo, but circumstances seem to have coerced him into a protracted
endurance of the place. His letters tell us how bitterly he detested the
king and his dull, pompous court, though Prince Ludwig in a way seemed
to have been attached to his secretary. One of his biographers says:

"Weber hated the king, of whose wild caprice and vices he witnessed
daily scenes, before whose palace-gates he was obliged to slink
bareheaded, and who treated him with unmerited ignominy. Sceptre and
crown had never been imposing objects in his eyes, unless worn by a
worthy man; and consequently he was wont, in the thoughtless levity
of youth, to forget the dangers he ran, and to answer the king with a
freedom of tone which the autocrat was all unused to hear. In turn he
was detested by the monarch. As negotiator for the spendthrift Prince
Ludwig, he was already obnoxious enough; and it sometimes happened that,
by way of variety to the customary torrent of invective, the king, after
keeping the secretary for hours in his antechamber, would receive him
only to turn him rudely out of the room, without hearing a word he had
to say."

At last Karl Maria's indignation burst over bounds at some unusual
indignity; and he played a practical joke on the king. Meeting an old
woman in the palace one day near the door of the royal sanctum, she
asked him where she could find the court-washerwoman. "There," said the
reckless Weber, pointing to the door of the king's cabinet. The
king, who hated old women, was in a transport of rage, and, on her
terro